Overview

The producer behind such celebrated films as The Four Feathers and The Third Man is one of the most colourful and important figures in the history of the British cinema. This gripping biography tells how with extraordinary ambition, enterprise and showmanship, Alexander Korda established in Britain a film industry that rivalled Hollywood, built Europe's biggest studio, and created world-class stars, including Charles Laughton and Vivien Leigh. The biography traces Korda's path from his rural childhood in a remote part of Hungary to a British knighthood. Korda's legacy, it argues, was a film industry that dared to dream on the largest possible scale. But he also exemplified the pattern of boom and bust that dogged the British cinema ever since he first came into the limelight in 1933 with the international success of The Private Life of Henry VIII. To understand his often turbulent career is to gain a profound insight into the nature of the British cinema both then and now.

Full Product Details

9781848856950

Table of Contents

Reviews

'In this thorough and jaunty biography, Drazin gives us a masterly portrait.' - Sunday Times; 'An engrossing exegesis of film-making in inter- war Britain and a rounded portrait of what we'd now call an economic migrant who lived profligately, left others poorer and occasionally and enduringly enriched the screen.' - Evening Standard; 'Wry, ruthless and expertly researched.' - Financial Times; '[Drazin] tells his story well. He has enough weapons in his armoury to destroy a few myths. The result is an intriguing narrative.' - Observer; 'Film history rarely has such a deft touch. As with so much, Korda got lucky.' - Times Literary Supplement; 'Thorough and readable.' - Mail on Sunday; 'An engrossing memoir with a scoop story about the film producer's espionage activities' - Books of the Year, Independent

Author Information

Charles Drazin's previous books include The Finest Years: British Cinema of the 1940s and In Search of The Third Man. He lectures on the cinema at Queen Mary, University of London.

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