Forgotten Horrors 4: Dreams That Money Can Buy [Paperback]

Michael Price (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 28, 2007

By laying down a dime or 15 cents at the box office, a gawky, socially awkward kid could live for a few hours in a dream world of jitterbugs and bobbysoxers, running right alongside Poverty Row stars bravely entering forbidding haunted houses and creepy cemeteries. And that is what most of the pictures in this volume are: little dreams, made all the more dreamlike by their obscurity. The pictures are not big-studio productions full of high-wattage star power, but quirky titles from little studios. Forgotten Horrors 4 remains focused on the tawdry (but no less magical) Hollywood backstreet known as Poverty Row. From their Poverty Row vantage, actors gazed out at the Golden City just beyond their grasp and, between shots on cheap sets in quickie productions for directors far beneath the station of DeMille, imagined life as Gregory Peck or Loretta Young. Seen today, these small-studio pictures carry a quirky, almost heartwarming nobility. They know what they are, and the people involved allowing for factors ranging from disillusionment to cynicism to John Barleycorn seem to be doing the best they can. They know it s not MGM or Paramount. But anyway, they are working. Without the bankable stars that all America knew, the people who made these films had to have Something Else going for them. And that Something Else was almost always an exploitable angle, something the theater owners could sell in lieu of marquee names. In the pictures examined between these covers, that Something Else was a horrific or bizarre element of one sort or another, ranging from simple murder to terrors far more fiendish. In the Westerns and the comedies, the horror element often came as a lagniappe, giving an extra thrill to the folks who probably would have shown up anyway. And rather than fading into obscurity, these little gems still manage to entertain us almost 60 years after their debuts.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Michael H. Price first began mining the Forgotten Horrors lode in 1975, in collaboration with the film historian-turned-filmmaker George E. Turner. The first such book, published in 1979, has become a perennial and influential collection, casting an unprecedented light onto ill-explored corners of film history. Forgotten Horrors yielded a sequel in 2001, then a third volume in 2003. This fourth book expands the overall sweep to a period spanning 1929 1948. Price, a veteran newspaperman and founder of Texas Fort Worth Film Festival, has recently completed the collaborative graphic novel Fishhead, a horrific Southern Gothic; Mantan the Funnyman, a biography of the pioneering black comedian Mantan Moreland; and Daynce of the Peckerwoods, a study of Texas indigenous music-making traditions. Price & Turner s graphic novella, The Ancient Southwest & Other Dispatches from a Cruel Frontier, has recently arrived from Texas Christian University Press. Price s weekly film commentaries for The Business Press of Fort Worth can be found, both fresh and preserved, on the Web at www.fortworthbusinesspress.com. John Wooley, a prolific novelist, journalist and scriptwriter, joined Price as co-author of the Forgotten Horrors books following the death of George Turner in 1999. The Price & Wooley projects also include The Big Book of Biker Flicks (2004), Forgotten Horrors 3: Dr. Turner s House of Horrors (2003), and a recurring Forgotten Horrors column for Fangoria magazine. Wooley s recent solo books include Ghost Band, From the Blue Devils to Red Dirt: The Colors of Oklahoma Music, Awash in the Blood and Dark Within, in addition to a well-received reissue of his breakthrough collaborative novel of 1982, Old Fears. Wooley s radio program, Swing on This, airs weekly over Tulsa s KWGS FM (www.kwgs.org) as a showcase for Western swing and other South-by-Southwestern musical forms. Updates: www.johnwooley.com.

Product Details

• Paperback: 306 pages
• Publisher: Midnight Marquee Press, Inc.; 1st edition (February 28, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1887664734
• ISBN-13: 978-1887664738
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,259,615 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A fun read for movie fans, September 9, 2007

By 

J. Rhoades (USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Forgotten Horrors 4: Dreams That Money Can Buy (Paperback)

This newest book in the Forgotton Horrors series covers the postwar era up to 1948. Many obscure films are covered, many that I had never heard of before. Others, like "Unknown Island" (an off-beat, lost island of dinosaurs flick), have had DVD releases. My only disagreement with the book is the inclusion of many murder mysteries, which don't qualify as horror in my mind. Of course, this would be a much thinner volume without them. I can't wait for the next volume to cover the fifties!

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars It maybe time to hang up the series, December 19, 2009

By 

Stephen M. Kopian (GLEN HEAD, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Forgotten Horrors 4: Dreams That Money Can Buy (Paperback)

Michael Price and John Wooley continue the series of books that Price began with George Turner several decades ago chronicling films with horror over tones that have gotten little notice because they were from smaller or independent producers. The series is set to chronicle films up to, I believe the 1970's. Odds are if you looking at this listing you've read one of the earlier books in the series, so I'm not going to go into a discussion of what the book is I'll just talk about the books quality. Simply put this latest entry is very much the weakest of the bunch. To be honest when I first picked up the book I was calling it a good many names, few of them nice. Now that I've spent some time reading and rereading the books entries I've come to the conclusion that the book isn't as bad as I first thought, however its not as good ans any of the previous three entries. The biggest problem with the book is that most of the films discussed don't belong in it. yes its nice to have write ups of the films, but at the same time most don't really belong in it. I'm still trying to figure out why films like Boarding House Blues or Killer Diller which are musical review films or Enchanted Valley which is a kids film are included. I suppose like the equally out of place Bill and Coo they have a tenuous situation or character that allows inclusion. Personally I think it's a waste of space since they really don't belong. I'm also of the opinion that most of the crime films included don't need to be in the book either. Yes the entries are good reading , the trouble is they don't belong in a book on Forgotten Horrors even if you can twist and turn them to do so. I'm disappointed in this book. frankly the material in this volume is such that it makes me wonder what the next volumes in the series will bring. I would have liked if the book had been delayed and combined with another volume of more on point films. My recommendation is to start with the earlier volumes in the series and then decide whether you need this. If you're aiming for the whole run or just want a rambling often off topic discussion of B films pick it up. Otherwise look elsewhere.