Kirjahaku

Silent cinema was never silent. But from the mid-1920s onwards, the 'sound' part of the cinema experience was transformed by the arrival of films, long and short, with clearly audible talk, music, and sound effects built in. It marked the most fundamental shift in cinema technology since cinema's birth. The first book devoted to Britain's conversion to talkies, and the result of eight years' research, Silent to Sound: British Cinema in Transition takes a lively and comprehensive look at the production side of the British sound revolution, stretching from experimental efforts in the late 19th century, through the sound shorts of the 1920s, to the key year of 1929, the year of Hitchcock's Blackmail (Britain's first home-grown talkie feature), and the industry turmoil that followed. The narrative concludes in 1934, when John Grierson's GPO Film Unit finally acquired sound equipment, prompting a late burst of experimentation just when commercial feature soundtracks had settled down. Films familiar, neglected, and unknown are examined: overripe melodramas (the lost Black Waters), local versions of Hollywood musicals (Harmony Heaven), visually elaborate science-fiction (High Treason), plus newsreels, documentaries, amateur films, and the last phase of British silent production. The impact of sound on studio technique is examined, along with the industry's complex relations with Britain's strong theatre traditions, with Europe, and above all, cinema's superpower, America. It's also never forgotten that the sound transition was shaped not just by technology but by the talents, foibles, and follies of individual people. Film history with a human face.

A reissue of Geoff Brown's groundbreaking classic novel about a man who wants to be a woman. Published in 1966, I Want What I Want was one of the first novels to explore the life of a trans woman.

A consumers' guide to the music of Michael Jackson and the members of the Jackson family. It includes Michael Jackson's solo album "Invincible". It also features an album by album, track by track, examination of every song released by The Jackson 5.

'I want what I want . . . not what other people think I ought to want.' What Wendy Ross wants is simple - to live and love openly as a modern, independent woman. The problem is that according to her birth certificate her name is Roy Clark and she is a boy. Mistreated by her father, who is appalled at having such a child, misunderstood by her sister, whose clothes she has stolen, and committed to a mental hospital where she is mistaken for a homosexual, Wendy finally gets her chance to escape when she turns twenty-one and inherits a small legacy. But life isn't easy for a transwoman in 1960s England, and things get even more complicated when she falls in love with the handsome Frank ...A groundbreaking novel and a landmark of transgender fiction, Geoff Brown's classic I Want What I Want was originally published in 1966 and was the basis for a 1972 film adaptation written by Gillian Freeman and starring Anne Heywood. This edition, the first in decades, features a new introduction by Prof. Michael Bronski of Harvard University, an award-winning writer of books on LGBT history.

In April 1199 Richard the Lionheart lay dying in his mother's arms, victim of a well-aimed crossbow bolt and of an incompetent surgeon. Magnaminously, Richard pardoned the skilful archer, but ordered the slaughter of the rest of his enemies in the town he was besieging. A few days later as Richard's dead body was being cut up for burial in Rouen, Fontevrault and other places, the hapless archer was being flayed alive by his vengeful troops. Richard died as he lived - adventurous, warlike and chivalrous - but he is unusual in being a great king with an equally great tomb (or rather, tombs.) In typical, idiosyncratic English fashion, many of our greatest monarchs have hugely understated tombs, while many of the failures lie beneath sublime stone tracery and monumental sarcophagi. The despised Edward II was allegedly put to death in Berkeley Castle with a red-hot poker up his rectum, yet his tomb is one of the most beautiful in Western Europe. 'Bad King John' lies regally in Worcester Cathedral, symbols of piety and bravery adorning his Purbeck marble effigy. Yet Henry VIII has only a mention on a slab in St. George's Chapel, and Charles II has only a name inscribed on a paltry block of stone at Westminster Abbey.