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The author's forte is that he uses this configuration for every film he analyzes---and his perception is always on target!
For example, besides the fantasy element in BEAL, Mitchell also
catches the aspects of "film noir," which make his review doubly rewarding. He knows his film music, especially the noirish Franz Waxman score (which has gone unrecorded all of these years) but more importantly, despite all of the detailed turns of the plot, Mitchell uses original source information to enhance the chapter.
He interviwed Audrey Totter, one of the film's stars, who related some "inside information" about her fellow actors, their attitudes on the set and her dissatisfaction with the studio, Paramount, which promoted the film badly. Mitchell hopes for its "rediscovery" and as a reader, I applaud his critique---not for just this film but the hundred or so films he accurately and astutely examines with his fine sense of critical purview.
Mitchell's book is an A to Z of "devil films," with two excellent appendices, a thorough and useable index and wonderful stills and lobby cards that entice the reader to read a review of a film that he or she may NOT have seen. His publisher has also done justice to the author's work because of its beautiful, artful and colorful front and back covers and has produced a library bound edition worthy for purchase for collectors, libraries and for those of us who are fascinated by the theme of the "devil in cinema."
Too bad Mitchell had to begin his critical analysis in 1913 and ended it in 2000---for there must be some "devilish" films out there through 2002---and his gaze is not only on American cinema but international films that come under his critical view--such as the 1922 silent Danish work by Ben Christensen, HAXAN, which was recently brought out on DVD by Criterion and that French sound marvel from 1942, LES VISITEURS DU SOIR with Arletty and Jules Berry as the Devil. Certainly, Mitchell's exploration of the theme is comprehensive, detailed, insightful and at times, even humorous.
This is a book I have always wanted for my own collection---and Mitchell's other books, one on APOCALYPTIC CINEMA and a GUIDE TO FILMS OF CHARLIE CHAN (both published by Greenwood Press)[Note: Mitchell's book on CHAN is the BEST ONE ON THE MARKET!]-- are worthy forerunners in film criticsm to this new DEVIL work from McFarland & Co. I hear by the critical grapevine that Mitchell has something in the works about "HITLER IN FILM" and possibly a biography of RICHARD BASEHART, one of the most neglected character actors of the late forties and early fifties. I hope my sources are correct and we also see these future volumes--but I am still content with THE DEVIL ON SCREEN for now---there is so much good "stuff" in it that I can hardly put it down.
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Mitchell provides excellent annotations for casts, plot outlines, all major credits and is particular good at providing "behind the scenes" information for hundreds of films with Hitler as a major (or minor) character. He deals with all American and international films with Hitler as a character...although I could not find THE DEVIL STRIKES AT MIDNIGHT (my favorite Hitler Siodmak film in German), his renditions of THE GREAT DICTATOR (Chaplin) and TO BE OR NOT TO BE (Lubitsch) are wonderfully famous and indispensible inclusions in this vast 303 page book. All film fans will love this beautifully produced book which also belongs in all libraries throughout the world. Although it is an A to Z format, you can pick up the book and start anywhere. Mitchell also provides an excellent index and bibliography. Although my life is "film noir"---and there are some excellent Hiltler noir films, I recommend this book highly for its depth of analysis and creative display by the author.
Another Mitchell triumph!
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Annotations should be done in the manner of Gardner's own annotations of Alice in Wonderland. Now those were annotations that made *sense*. Annotations that simply explained out of date concepts, gave relevant details from Carroll's own life, or obscure humour. That's all! That is what annotations should be like.
The pedantic geekery of these annotations remind me of the...games of Star Trek fanatics (or Sherlock Holmes fanatics).
The poem is brilliant, though; and the illustrations were funny, before the annotations over-analysed them.
Dr Jacques COULARDEAU
I noticed some confusion in the Amazon listings for this book, so let me clarify that the edition with Gardner's annotations is the paperback, and for illustrations it contains reproductions of Henry Holiday's original woodcuts from the 1800's. There are only eight pictures, and these are in old-fashioned style which may turn off some modern readers. This edition does not contain the illustrations - listed in the review of the hardcover editions - by Jonathan Dixon, nor the illustrations by Mervyn Peake also listed as available in hardcover from Amazon.
To Snark fans, though, I would unhesitatingly recommend both those editions as well. Dixon's is little-known, but excellent, the most profusely illustrated Snark, with pictures on every page in lush, gorgeously detailed and humorous pen and ink. It may still be available through the website of the Lewis Carroll Society of North America, who published it in a small edition. Peake's drawings are also in beautiful black and white, and capture his own rather dark, quirky "Gormenghast" take on the poem. (A good companion, too, to the recently released editions of "Alice" with Peake's drawings.)