Wednesday, July 28, 2021

Two New Books by Eddie Muller and Will Murray

Two books have recently come out that would be of interest to fans of older pop culture. What is more, both are by top experts in their respective fields. If you are like me, then you will be looking forward to reading them.

Dark City: The Lost World of Film Noir (Revised and Expanded Edition) by Eddie Muller: If you are a fan of film noir, chances are you are familiar with Dark City: The Lost World of Film Noir by Eddie Muller. First published in 1998, it has become the bible for film noir. It was on July 21 2021 that Running Press published the new, revised, and expanded edition. Of course, Eddie Muller is one of the foremost experts on film noir in the world, if not the foremost expert. He is the founder and president of the Film Noir Foundation, a non-profit responsible for rescuing and restoring film noirs. He is also a co-programmer of San Francisco's Noir City film festival. Today I suspect many are most familiar with Eddie Muller as the host of  TCM's programming block Noir Alley.

Master of Mystery: The Rise of The Shadow by Will Murray: Just as Eddie Muller may well be the expert on film noir, Will Murray may be the expert on pulp magazines, particularly the hero pulps of the Thirties and Forties. In Master of Mystery: The Rise of The Shadow, Will Murray explores the origins of the still popular pulp hero The Shadow. Master of Mystery: The Rise of The Shadow covers The Shadow's start as the host of the radio show The Detective Story Hour to his popular pulp magazine to the character's expansion into his own radio show, movie serials, comic books, and more.

2 comments:

John L. Harmon said...

Great article! 👍
both books sound good, but I grew up listening to tapes of the radio series of the Shadow, so that one sounds particularly interesting.

Rebecca Deniston said...

How cool! There isn't nearly enough written about radio, so I'm going to have to look for that Shadow one.