Description
Michael Curtiz (1888-1962) was without doubt one of the most important directors in film history, yet he has never been granted his deserved recognition and no full-scale work on him has previously been published. The Casablanca Man surveys Curtiz' unequalled mastery over a variety of genres which included biography, comedy, horror, melodrama, musicals, swashbucklers and westerns, and looks at his relationship with the Hollywood studio moguls on the basis of unprecedented archive research at Warner Brothers. Concentrating on Curtiz' best-known films - Casablanca, Angels With Dirty Faces, Mildred Pearce and Captain Blood among them - Robertson explores Curtiz' practical creative struggles and his friendships and rivalries with other film celebrities including Errol Flynn, Bette Davis and James Cagney, and his discovery of future stars.
Casablanca Man is the first comprehensive critical exploration of Curtiz' entire career and, linking his European work and his subsequent American work into a coherent whole, Robertson firmly re-establishes Curtiz' true standing in the history of cinema.
Table of Contents
Introduction; Chapter 1 Europe, 1888 to 1926; Chapter 2 Hollywood Baptism, 1926 to 1929; Chapter 3 An Expanding Repertoire, 1930 to 1935; Chapter 4 Near and at the Summit, 1935 to 1941; Chapter 5 World War, December 1941 to August 1945; Chapter 6 The Twilight Warners Years, September 1945 to April 1953; Chapter 7 Hollywood Nomad, April 1953 to April 1962; Chapter 8 Assessment;
