My Publications

A Special Relationship: Britain Comes to Hollywood and Hollywood Comes to Britain (University Press of Mississippi, 2015) "An important addition to the literature on cinema. It focuses on the lives and careers of both US- and UK-born industry people on both sides of the camera, journeying from America to Britain. It is hugely insightful and deeply scholarly as well as extremely readable. Everybody interested in American and British cinema would enjoy and benefit from this book." — The Washington Book Review, October 18, 2015 "The book is much appreciated � it supplies answers to so many questions, and bring the whole subject alive." — Kevin Brownlow "It's the Pictures That Got Small": Charles Brackett on Billy Wilder and Hollywood's Golden Age (University of Columbia Press, 2014) "Brackett's 1932-49 dispatches from Hollywood's front line are crammed with sugar-free, often salty observations. The author's honesty is certified by the fact that he can admire a man one minute and put him down the next. When that man is Billy Wilder, which it often is, the result is a day-by-day, year-on-year, pointilliste portrait of a sacred monster, warts and all." — Frederic Raphael, The Wall Street Journal, December 26, 2014 "Charles Brackett has always lived in the shadow of his high-profile writing partner, Billy Wilder. This valuable compendium of diary entries from 1933 to 1950, painstakingly edited by Anthony Slide, not only sheds light on that renowned collaboration but evokes the reality of daily life in the heyday of the Hollywood studio system." — Leonard Maltin, IndieWire, December 22, 2014 "offers not only rare insight into their [Brackett and Wilder's] often-stormy partnership but also an insider's view of Hollywood during that era." — Los Angeles Times, January 9, 2015 "Fascinating passages are lightly sprinkled throughout... The accounts of how 'Sunset Boulevard' arrived on screen in its finished form are a mong the most entertaining in Brackett's Diaries." — The Daily Telegraph, January 24, 2015 "What we see in this volume is a writer much like Joe Gillis in 'Sunset Blvd.' At the end of a long day spent negotiating titanic egos, he simply wants to sit down and write the thoughts that race through his head like a dozen locomotives." — Film Comment, November-December 2014 "Brackett's diaries read like a funnier, better-paced version of 'Barton Fink.'" — Newsweek, January 28, 2015 The Encyclopedia of Vaudeville (University Press of Mississippi, 2012) American Library Association Outstanding Reference Source of the Year Choice Outstanding Academy Title Library Journal Reference Book of the Year Hollywood Unknowns: A History of Extras, Bit Players and Stand-Ins (University Press of Mississippi, 2012) "richly entertaining.... lucidly outlines the major shifts in the business.... he has unearthed life stories grander than any Tinseltown melodrama." � Film Comment, September-October 2012 "filled with tidbits about what it took to survive as a member of the more-or-less unappreciated army of the faceless... Slide's book covers every category of movie-lot also-ran and down-and-outer.... You can't often say a new book is the first of its kind. Yet Slide, the author of more than 70 (!) books on the movies, has given the faceless crowd its first real monument, while proving that the rich field of Hollywood history remains far from exhausted, even now." � LA Weekly, December 7, 2012 A Man Named Smith: The Novels and Screen Legacy of Thorne Smith (Bear Manor Media, 2010) "Thorne Smith is a unique figure in American literature, one who thrived during prohibition, creating comic novels that ridiculed the morality of the times and involved extensive drinking, nudity, frivolity, and general debauchery. A Man Named Smith: The Novels and Screen Legacy of Thorne Smith is the first book-length study of Thorne Smith's work. It provides background information on his life and early death, discusses all of his novels in detail and also provides extensive new documentation on their screen adaptations, including Topper, The Night Life of the Gods and Turnabout. Also discussed are Thorne Smith's brief time in Hollywood at MGM in 1933 and the influence that his books have had on later films and television productions. As an added bonus, reprinted here in its entirety is the 1934 promotional monograph, Thorne Smith: His Life and Times with a Note on His Book & A Complete Bibliography." � publicity release. (This volume may be ordered directly from the publisher at bearmanormedia.com) Frank Lloyd: Master of Screen Melodrama (Bear Manor Media, 2009) "Frank Lloyd: Master of Screen Melodrama is the first book-length study of one of the most prominent of studio directors from Hollywood's 'golden age,' whose career spanned the years from 1913 through 1955. Among the director's greatest works are Oliver Twist with Jackie Coogan, The Sea Hawk with Milton Sills, The Divine Lady with Corinne Griffith, and two Academy Award winners for Best Picture, Cavalcade and Mutiny on the Bounty. They are all discussed in detail here, along with other prominent Frank Lloyd productions, including East Lynne, Berkeley Square, Wells Fargo, and The Howards of Virginia. Frank Lloyd himself won two Academy Awards, and yet he has failed up to now to receive the attention he deserves together with recognition of his masterly creation of screen melodrama. With his latest book, which includes a complete filmography and a sampling of writings by Frank Lloyd, award-winning historian Anthony Slide sets the record straight and honors one of Hollywood's best." � publicity release. (This volume may be ordered directly from the publisher at bearmanormedia.com) "The great and prolific film historian Anthony Slide's Frank Lloyd: Master of Screen Melodrama pays long overdue tribute to the director of Cavalcade (1933) and Mutiny on the Bounty (1935), both Oscar Best Picture winners, one of the top filmmakers of his day, and all but forgotten today." � NATIONAL BOARD OF REVIEW (April 2010). NEW YORK CITY VAUDEVILLE (Arcadia Publishing, 2006) "NEW YORK CITY VAUDEVILLE provides a unique pictorial record of America�s preeminent entertainment medium in the late 1800s through the early 1930s. New York�s Palace Theatre served as the flagship for vaudeville, on which stage every vaudevillian aspired to perform. NEW YORK CITY VAUDEVILLE features photographs of some of the greatest names from the Palace Theatre, including Jack Benny, George Burns and Gracie Allen, Anna Held, the Marx Brothers, and Eva Tanguay, as well as legendary African American performers such as Bill Robinson, Ethel Waters, and Bert Williams. Through the photographs and the capsule biographies, the reader is transported back to a time when vaudeville was the people�s entertainment, with a new bill of fare each week and an ever-changing number of performers with ever-changing styles of presentation." � publicity release. (All of the photographs in this book are from the Anthony Slide collection and may be licensed through http://www.producerslibrary.com.) "Anthony Slide's compact and handsomely turned-out book....is a pictorial chronicle of the acts — big and small — that played the Palace....n New York City Vaudeville, his photos and captions vividly bring to live an era that is chock-full of some of the most bizarre and enthralling entertainers that ever trod the boards....Vaudeville itself may be dead, but its phantoms hop, skip, and jump with ectoplasmic vivacity in Slide's valentine to a lost art." � Charles Marowitz, swans.com, March 10, 2008.	Ravished Armenia and the Story of Aurora Mardiganian (University Press of Mississippi, 2014) "Like the diary of Anne Frank and the autobiography of Malala Yousafzai, 'Ravished Armenia and the Story of Aurora Mardiganian' should be required reading for all students of human rights issues. All too often we forget the heavy toll inflicted on women and children during times of war and conflict. Aurora's story provides a powerful example of survival through genocide, sexual violence, human trafficking and exploitation... themes that are all too common in today's world." — Shant Mardirossian, chairman of the Near East Foundation "As an Armenian, I am grateful to Mr. Slide for focusing his talents as a film historian and scholar on this largely forgotten chapter of film history." — Atom Egoyan in Foreword to the Book D.W. Griffith: Interviews (University Press of Mississippi, 2012) Collected together here are virtually all of the interviews given by D.W. Griffith from the first in 1914 to the last in 1948. The interviews are taken from a variety of sources, including trade papers, newspapers and fan magazines. Inside the Hollywood Fan Magazine: A History of Star Makers, Fabricators, and Gossip Mongers (University Press of Mississippi) "exhaustively researched, endlessly fascinating and insightful." - Kevin Thomas, Los Angeles Times, September 10, 2010 "Anthony Slide's Inside the Hollywood Fan Magazine provides the definitive story of this artifact....The book is enhanced by an appendix documenting some 268 American fan magazines and includes detailed publication histories." - Turner Classic Movies magazine, August 2010 "For anyone who equates 'fan magazines' with supermarket tabloids, this book should come as a revelation. Tony Slide had done a formidable job of research to chart the birth, rise, and fall of Hollywood fan magazines in the twentieth century, this relationship to the industry they covered and the readers they served. It's a colorful, well-told history that's full of surprises." � Leonard Maltin "expansive." � FILM COMMENT (March-April 2010) INCORRECT ENTERTAINMENT, OR TRASH FROM THE PAST: A History of Political Incorrectness and Bad Taste in 20th Century American Popular Culture. (Bear Manor Media, 2007) "A detailed romp through all facets of politically incorrect twentieth-century American films, vaudeville, music, jokes, behaviors, etc....Books like Slide's Incorrect Entertainment are especially interesting because they provide a broader, more diverse view of our history than standard textbooks do....In Incorrect Entertainment, scholars can find a wealth of documented information about the seedier side of popular culture and its impact. The amount of information documented in this two-hundred page book is staggering....it documents material that is not to be found anywhere else." � Journal of Popular Culture, vol. 41, no. 1 (2008) "Cultural Historian Anthony Slide, who has been described by the Los Angeles Times as a one-man publishing phenomenon, strikes again with a book guaranteed to contain something offensive for everyone. Chapters on subjects as varied as Camp, Fascism in Hollywood, Hedda Hopper and the Porky�s movies. Plus the latest topical jokes on Helen Keller, Eleanor Roosevelt and the Challenger disaster." � publicity release. (This volume may be ordered directly from the publisher at bearmanormedia.com or (800) 566-1251.) NOW PLAYING: HAND-PAINTED POSTER ART FROM THE 1910s THROUGH THE 1950s (Academy Imprints/Angel City Press, 2007) "No one could have planned this book overnight. It is the result of many years� research, travel, and acquisition; most of the original posters now reside at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Anthony Slide has done a superior job of surveying this material and placing it into historical context. NOW PLAYING is a valuable piece of scholarship � and a beautiful book that belongs in every film library." � Leonard Maltin, Leonard�s Picks (July 2007). "Movie lovers and movie buffs have a real treat awaiting�.It�s a museum-quality collection of poster art of historic films and their forever-unequaled stars from the 1910s through the 1950s. These are not photo reproductions but magnificent, hand-painted, one-of-a-kind theater posters by award-worthy artists�.This book is written by Anthony Slide, who probably knows more about movies and their makers than anyone. He reveals the story of the posters� artistry and artists of these chef d�oeuvres." � Army Archerd, Variety.com (June 18, 2007). "Whether you are a film buff or aficionado of illustrative art NOW PLAYING will prove to be a treasure-trove of nostalgia and delight. Oversize with excellent reproductions, information about the actors and artists and their techniques, this pictorial chronicling of early filmdom is destined for many page-turnings." � ART TIMES (July/August 2007). "NOW PLAYING is a stunning-looking book�.Even the posters that were of questionable artistic value had a story to tell � whether about the artist�s interpretation of the movie he was depicting (sometimes it as clear he had not seen the movie and knew nothing about it) or about what was considered eye-catching in those days, depending on the location of the movie house. Throughout it all, Slide�s text offers a historical-social context for the illustrations." � Alternative Film Guide (July 5, 2007). See also Q&A with Anthony Slide at this same website (August 10, 2007). "The late Rochester artist Batiste Madalena is the star of NOW PLAYING: HAND-PAINTED POSTER ART FROM THE 1910s THROUGH THE 1950s, a finely crafted new coffee table book about beautiful art designed to sell movies in the Golden Age and before." � Jack Garner, ROCHESTER DEMOCRAT AND CHRONICLE (July 20, 2007). See also feature article in the LOS ANGELES TIMES (July 8, 2007) and syndicated Associated Press feature story (June 28, 2007), which appeared that day in the INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE and elsewhere.
AMERICAN RACIST: THE LIFE AND FILMS OF THOMAS DIXON (University Press of Kentucky, 2004) "It�s a fascinating, renegade life, and Slide tells us as much of it as we�re likely to know." � PALM BEACH POST (September 26, 2004). "Slide writes in an easily readable style. Like me, he seems to have warmed to his subject, yet he doesn�t overstress Dixon�s virtues or downplay his shortcomings." � Lawrence Toppman, THE CHARLOTTE OBSERVER (October 10, 2004). "A veteran author, Slide has written numerous excellent books, and sponsored dozens as the longtime editor for The Scarecrow Press Filmmakers Series....He has an encyclopedic knowledge of film, and, when he doesn't know something, he scorches the earth with his research....Not everyone will share Slide's pity for Dixon, but this book will be welcomed by scholars of race and silent cinema and by anyone interested in the intersection of politics and film." � Patrick McGilligan, CINEASTE (Spring 2005). "Anthony Slide provides a thoroughly researched, insightful look at the film career of Thomas Dixon....in tracing Dixon's filmmaking career, Slide explores many little-known byways of American film history which are of interest in and of themselves. Slide has long had a reputation as one of the most productive and knowledgeable film historians outside of the academy. American Racist, with its authoritative research and incisive commentary, will only affirm that standing." � Film Quarterly, fall 2008.	LOST GAY NOVELS: A REFERENCE GUIDE TO FIFTY WORKS FROM THE FIRST HALF OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY (Haworth Press, 2003) "This fine reference book represents a commendable accomplishment in recovering from obscurity 50 English-language popular novels from the first half of the twentieth century that have gay characters or themes�.his book makes a needed contribution to a niche of neglected literary history." � G. Douglas Meyers, AMERICAN REFERENCE BOOKS ANNUAL 2004. "Anthony Slide has rescued some fascinating, frequently alarming, and occasionally absurd works of fiction from obscurity. Brave or timid, candid or hypocritical, they reflect the fears, inhibitions, and prejudices of the time. With his comments on the writers and their critics, Slide sheds further light on growing up gay or homophobic in the first half of the twentieth century." � Gavin Lambert. "As an introduction to a selection of very interesting novels, this work is quite enjoyable." � LIBRARY JOURNAL (April 15, 2003).
SILENT PLAYERS: A BIOGRAPHICAL AND AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL STUDY OF 100 SILENT ACTORS AND ACTRESSES (University Press of Kentucky, 2002) "Immensely entertaining, though I wouldn�t trust this writer with my funeral eulogy." � SIGHT AND SOUND (November 2002). "His frank observations about the personalities of these actors, along with their recollections of silent filmmaking, creates a kind of meta-portrait of celebrity itself�.With this book, Slide attempts to create �a revisionist, almost revolutionary, text� about the lives and works of the actors under discussion. Modern themes such as sexual harassment and homosexuality are also explored. Many of the portraits are affecting, near heartbreaking, in the measure of renown and disaster revealed in the stars� personal lives." � Ray Zone, AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER (December 2002). See also feature article in the LOS ANGELES TIMES (December 1, 2002).	THE SILENT FEMINISTS: AMERICA�S FIRST WOMEN DIRECTORS (Scarecrow Press, 1996) "The grand master of silent film scholarship builds on his EARLY WOMEN DIRECTORS to construct a worthy and timely memorial to America�s first female directors. A pioneer in excavating documents and films produced during the nascent stages of the American film industry, Slide expertly marshals his historical data to offer a persuasive perspective on the active and dynamic roles that women performed in the evolution of the art of film�.A solid little gem." � CHOICE (January 1997).
ECCENTRICS OF COMEDY (Scarecrow Press, 1999) "This well-researched book is sure to fascinate and entertain, and is highly recommended for any film buff." � FILMFAX (June/July 1999).	SILENT PORTRAITS: STARS OF THE SILENT SCREEN IN HISTORIC PHOTOGRAPHS (Vestal Press, 1990) "For fans of silent films, this oversize paperback will be better than a Godiva assortment." � BOOKLIST (March 15, 1990).
NITRATE WON'T WAIT: A HISTORY OF FILM PRESERVATION IN THE UNITED STATES (McFarland, 1192) "Slide has crammed a wealth of information about films and the history of film preservation into his 228-page book. In many places, the author highlights the 'back-biting' politics and intrigues that have occurred over the years in the film preservation community. He writes in a narrative style that brings alive many of the events referred to in the text.... Overall, this is a well-researched and well-written work that will be a valuable addition to any library's communication, film or TV production collection." � CHOICE (October 1992). "Slide's new book is essentially a history of film archives in the US, based on the public record, interviews with surviving pioneers of archival work, and his own professional involvement....Slide is careful to delimit his subject and to denounce confusion about it, for example in the colorisation controversy, which has given rise to a National Film Preservation Act in the US which makes no provisions whatsoever for film preservation....informative and entertaining." � SIGHT AND SOUND (November 1992).	THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF VAUDEVILLE (Greenwood Press, 1994) "This encyclopedia offers a delightful glimpse of a bygone era�.A valuable and entertaining reference book for those interested in a lost art form." � CHOICE (October 1994). "Slide, expert chronicler of American popular entertainment, especially of the first half of this century, has created the first encyclopedia of vaudeville�.This will be the standard in public and academic library reference collections." � WILSON LIBRARY BULLETIN (September 1994). "Highly recommended," � LIBRARY JOURNAL (July 1994). "Slide lovingly chronicles and celebrates a wondrous day and age�.THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF VAUDEVILLE may be his masterpiece." � PAST TIMES (Spring 1994).
THE INTERNATIONAL FILM INDUSTRY: A HISTORICAL DICTIONARY (Greenwood Press, 1989) "An indispensable volume�.It is valuable both for research purposes and as a reference work for any company doing business overseas�.All in all, Slide sets a standard for film research that other writers can study and emulate." � DAILY VARIETY (May 15, 1989). "Browsing Anthony Slide�s new THE INTERNATIONAL FILM INDUSTRY: A HISTORICAL DICTIONARY is as unstoppable as munching a single potato chip. But unlike the chips, this book may be good for you�.Essential�.Indispensable." � DIRECTORS GUILD OF AMERICA NEWSLETTER (June 1989). Slide has a prodigious and incredibly miscellaneous knowledge of the film world, and this fascinating grab-bag volume richly sets a lot of it forth�.Having Slide�s book around is like having a wise if somewhat eccentric uncle who has spent his life in the film business. You never know when you might badly need to find out something weird that he just happens to know." � FILM QUARTERLY (Summer 1989). "This is a helpful reference, which should be in every library as a starting place for research." � COMMUNICATION BOOKNOTES (November/December 1989).	THE AMERICAN FILM INDUSTRY: A HISTORICAL DICTIONARY (Greenwood Press, 1986) "The history of the American film industry is superbly captured in this dictionary." � AMERICAN LIBRARIES (May 1987). "Densely packed with carefully researched information�.of great service to students�.a convenient reference�a delight to browse." � FILM QUARTERLY (Summer 1987). "An excellent item for a research shelf." � Robert Osborne, THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER (September 9, 1986). "As handy as it is an invaluable reference work." � DAILY VARIETY (July 25, 1986).
LOIS WEBER: THE DIRECTOR WHO LOST HER WAY IN HISTORY (Greenwood Press, 1996) "Slide is a researcher who sniffs out obscure sources like a truffle hound, and the book contains a detailed filmography, a thorough bibliography, and the sort of spade-work research that is difficult to accomplish for silent film stars, but for which Slide is justly well-known�.Although Weber�s story is ultimately a sad one, Slide makes her accomplishments live again, and he gives her the significance she deserves." � Jeanine Basinger, HISTORICAL JOURNAL OF FILM, RADIO & TELEVISION (August 1997). "Well-written, important volume." -- AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER (August 1997). "A very professional study�.Most useful to the researchers in film and in the history of ideas." � CHOICE (February 1997).	GREAT RADIO PERSONALITIES IN HISTORIC PHOTOGRAPHS (Dover, 1982) "A lively checklist�.Slide has thrown a new light on old favorites. It�s a useful memorial." � VARIETY (October 13, 1982). "Chronicles that era nostalgically and informatively." � THE NEW YORK TIMES (August 8, 1982). "What a pleasant surprise to find a copy of GREAT RADIO PERSONALITIES nestling amongst today�s bills in the mail! And what an outstanding job you�ve done, both in selection and accompanying text � this is truly a definitive and discerning contribution to radiology, and a delight for all who remember the days when the air brought more than smog." � Robert Bloch. "Wave after wave of nostalgia breaks over you as you turn the pages of Anthony Slide�s GREAT RADIO PERSONALITIES. It is a gallery of the most luminous stars of the shortest Golden Age in history, most of them caught in the bloom of youth and achievement. Many, alas, are now gone, so their portraits become even more treasurable. The pictures, together with clear and concise biographical data, make the book not only a rich memento, but a valuable reference source in the bargain." � Norman Corwin.
INTERNATIONAL FILM, RADIO & TELEVISION JOURNALS (Greenwood Press, 1985) "Here�s an anomaly: a reference books that�s a good read�.should be welcomed by anyone interested in the field and will be a blessing to researchers who usually have to wade through dry (and dusty) tomes to garner their information. Slide has done a tremendous job." � DAILY VARIETY (October 4, 1985). "A first-rate compendium of information." � FILM QUARTERLY (Fall 1986). "Knowledgeably edited�a unique guide." � BACK STAGE (August 30, 1985).