The conclusion of this professor-historian (emeritus) is that our gun culture had its uses in establishing American civilization, as slavery did. But we came to recognize (after a bloody civil war) that slavery was a gigantic mistake, and now I think it’s time to realize that our gun culture was a similarly gigantic mistake, though of a different kind. And we need to do what we can to minimize its horrible impacts and move on to a more positive development of a humane civilization.

Joseph H. Lewis's 'Gun Crazy' is the story of two young lovers who embark on a crime spree. For this book, Kitses researched widely into the film production's history and explored its connection to the crime film tradition and to the dark underside of American society.

The Gun Crazy collections have so far proven popular. I offer Gun Crazy Collection #3 as the most recent. Vendetta #9 - Nash turns himself into an insurance investigator tasked with discovering whether the death for a former drug dealer is cause for concern regarding a life insurance payout. The policy can’t be paid until Nash has finished his investigation into the old man’s former life. Along the way, Jim somehow manages to fall in love with the pretty and personable beneficiary. Secrets and lies conspire to keep Jim from learning the true story until the very end. A Girl's Best Friend #10 - Jim has a brand new Private Investigator’s license, but he can’t use it in Nassau. After a briefing in the Big Apple on the diamond market, he heads off to the sunny paradise to try and dissuade a friend from flashing a blue diamond at one of his infamous parties. Minus a guest list for the forty partiers, they’re all suspects in the murder investigation until Jim finally realizes that a woman he knows could be the prime suspect. Dead End #11 - A missing teenager draws Jim back to the scene of the crime in Mexico where Kara, his pregnant wife, was killed in an explosion aboard their sloop. He’s needed the intervening two years to get over the life-changing event, but now he’s ready to take another look in an effort to put it all behind him for good. He crosses the border, lands an exceptional deal on a rental car, and, realizing one of his shortcomings, hires a translator. Now all he has to do is find two missing girls and try not to fall in love all over again while doing it. No Harbor #12 - Jim Nash is well on his way to a complete recovery from events in his past life. He's in his second marriage and very happy. His job at the resort is secure. Then a blast from his past re-emerges and threatens to throw a wrench into his plans for the future. Will his bond with the new woman in his life be endangered? Tempted by old and familiar love into leaving the only safe harbor he has known, Jim is forced to making choices that could forever affect the new life he has chosen for himself. Dog Days #13 - Jim Nash is as content as he’s ever been—that is, until he manages to get himself arrested thanks to the new girl that has come into his life. While being held on trumped-up charges of murder, all the women in his life come together to post bond. With the local PD’s enthusiasm to pin the crime on him, he is forced into honoring payback in a form he will find very familiar. Startup Blues #14 - Being elected to the position of chief of police isn't everything it's cracked up to be when Jim has competent help to assist him. Bored with desk duty, Jim takes a short leave to use his P.I. license to help two sisters in their time of need. Persons unknown are harassing and threatening their startup business. To find out who, his quest leads him to gator country in the Florida Everglades, where he must separate business from the more than pleasurable sisters he is intent on protecting. Keywords pulp hard boiled dark gritty police automatic pistol gun detective noir fiction best selling thrillers novels secret fugitive ops murder mag clip action adventure intrigue mystery suspense books novel series vigilante justice revenge vengeful

Jim Nash never learned to swim. That doesn’t prevent him from continuing to allow himself to be caught up in one misguided scheme after another. He proves incapable of saying no, time and again, no matter how much he wants to quit. This time, he's been dispatched south of the border on the Gulf of Mexico. Water, sailboats, yachts and women in bikinis continue to figure prominently in his endless quest for a semblance of normalcy in his life. And again, he won't say no, even when he can barely keep his head above water. When he finally learns that his team will consist of a woman and former associate with whom he has had a sordid past, he’s not happy. He still can't say no. Jim has convinced himself that he needs the money to help out with his business partner’s failing charter business on the Gulf coast. That's why he's has taken a final assignment. He's promised it will be his big payoff, but the deeper into the operation he gets, the less so it seems to be. With his head barely above water, a drug cartel, a female assassin, and Gulf weather all conspire to prevent Jim from finding a future with the woman he loves. Keywords pulp hard boiled dark gritty police automatic pistol gun detective noir fiction best selling thrillers novels secret fugitive ops murder mag clip action adventure intrigue mystery suspense books novel series vigilante justice revenge vengeful

Collection of the five hundred films that have been selected, to date, for preservation by the National Film Preservation Board, and are thereby listed in the National Film Registry.

Explores American Joseph H. Lewis's eclectic career, including his best-known film, Gun Crazy. Joseph H. Lewis enjoyed a monumental career in many genres, including film noir and B-movies (with the East Side Kids) as well as an extensive and often overlooked TV career. In The Films of Joseph H. Lewis, editor Gary D. Rhodes, PhD. gathers notable scholars from around the globe to examine the full range of Lewis's career. While some studies analyze Lewis's work in different areas, others focus on particular films, ranging from poverty row fare to westerns and "television films." Overall, this collection offers fresh perspectives on Lewis as an auteur, a director responsible for individually unique works as well as a sustained and coherent style. Essays in part 1 investigate the texts and contexts that were important to Lewis's film and television career, as contributors explore his innovative visual style and themes in both mediums. Contributors to part 2 present an array of essays on specific films, including Lewis's remarkable and prescient Invisible Ghost and other notable films My Name Is Julia Ross, So Dark the Night, and The Big Combo. Part 3 presents an extended case study of Lewis's most famous and-arguably-most important work, Gun Crazy. Contributors take three distinct approaches to the film: in the context of its genre as film noir and modernist and postmodernist film; in its relationship to masculinity and masochism; and in terms of ethos and ethics. The Films of Joseph H. Lewis offers a thorough assessment of Lewis's career and also provides insight into film and television making in the 1930s, 40s, and 50s. Scholars of film and television studies and fans of Lewis's work will appreciate this comprehensive collection.

"Encompassing the careers of up to 600 directors - over 60 new to this edition - working in the US and Canada today, this volume is an invaluable reference for students, researchers and enthusiasts of film and popular culture. Each entry provides biographical information as well as insightful textual and thematic analysis of the director's work. In comprehensively covering a wide range of film-makers - from more established mainstream luminaries such as Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, Ridley Scott and Kathryn Bigelow, through independent mavericks like Hal Hartley, Atom Egoyan, Jim Jarmusch and the Coen brothers, to innovative emerging talents including Marc Forster (Monster's Ball), Todd Field (In the Bedroom) and David Gordon Green (George Washington) - the shifting landscape of contemporary film-making is brought into sharp focus." Sur la 4e de couv.

Featuring rumpled PIs, shyster lawyers, corrupt politicians, double-crossers, femmes fatales, and, of course, losers who find themselves down on their luck yet again, film noir is a perennially popular cinematic genre. This extensive encyclopedia describes movies from noir's earliest days – and even before, looking at some of noir's ancestors in US and European cinema – as well as noir's more recent offshoots, from neonoirs to erotic thrillers. Entries are arranged alphabetically, covering movies from all over the world – from every continent save Antarctica – with briefer details provided for several hundred additional movies within those entries. A copious appendix contains filmographies of prominent directors, actors, and writers. With coverage of blockbusters and program fillers from Going Straight (US 1916) to Broken City (US 2013) via Nora Inu (Japan 1949), O Anthropos tou Trainou (Greece 1958), El Less Wal Kilab (Egypt 1962), Reportaje a la Muerte (Peru 1993), Zift (Bulgaria 2008), and thousands more, A Comprehensive Encyclopedia of Film Noir is an engrossing and essential reference work that should be on the shelves of every cinephile.

What is film noir? With its archetypal femme fatale and private eye, its darkly-lit scenes and even darker narratives, the answer can seem obvious enough. But as Ian Brookes shows in this new study, the answer is a lot more complex than that. This book is designed to tackle those complexities in a critical introduction that takes into account the problems of straightforward definition and classification. Students will benefit from an accessible introductory text that is not just an account of what film noir is, but also an interrogation of the ways in which the term came to be applied to a disparate group of American films of the 1940s and 1950s.