Dorothy’s ruby slippers. Michael Myers’s mask. Marilyn Monroe’s billowy white dress. Indiana Jones’s trusty hat. These objects are icons of popular culture synonymous with the films they appear in, and, at long last, a book has come along that sorts and chronicles fifty of them.

Rosebud Sleds and Horses’ Heads presents incisive discussion of fifty of the most significant objects in cinema history and explores their importance within their films and within the popular imagination. With original full color illustrations, this book surveys objects from a range of genres, from the birth of cinema to the present day.

Curated and written by a prominent film critic who routinely writes for some of the leading publications in the English language, as well as broadcasts for the BBC, Rosebud Sleds and Horses’ Heads is the only book of its kind. With a fascinating, original, and instantly understandable concept, it will find grateful audiences in film buffs around the world.

While some call it the Second City, Chicago is no stranger to the silver screen. Director Christopher Nolan transformed Chicago into the darkly foreboding Gotham City for The Dark Knight. Ferris Bueller rode a parade float down Dearborn and made stops during his epic day off at a host of landmarks, from Buckingham Fountain to Wrigley Field. Everyone’s favorite foul-mouthed blues act ended their film’s climactic chase by taking the Bluesmobile through the plate-glass windows of the Richard J. Daley Center.

With World Film Locations: Chicago, critic Scott Jordan Harris takes readers on a cinematic tour of the city, featuring modern blockbusters and beloved classics. Along the way, scenes from almost fifty films made or set in the city are discussed, accompanied by full-color stills and interspersed with essays examining the city’s unique character onscreen. Among the contributors are Gordon Quinn, cofounder of Chicago’s Kartemquim Films; Elizabeth Weitzman, film critic for the New York Daily News; the BBC’s Samira Ahmed; and Steve James, director of the coming-of-age classic Hoop Dreams. For readers hoping to locate landmarks from favorite films, the book also includes detailed maps that point out key scenes.

A fun and fact-packed read, World Film Locations: Chicago will be welcomed by film fans and anyone planning a trip to the Windy City.

With more and more filmmakers taking advantage of its rich and varied settings, New Orleans has earned star-studded status as the “Hollywood of the South.” From the big-screen adaptation of the stage classic A Streetcar Named Desire to the Elvis Presley musical King Creole, many well-known films have a special connection with the Big Easy, and this user-friendly guide explores the integral role of New Orleans in American film history.

 

World Film Locations: New Orleans features essays that reflect on the city’s long-standing relationship with the film industry. Among the topics discussed are popular depictions of Hurricane Katrina on film, the prevalence of the supernatural in New Orleans cinema, and recent changes to city ordinances that have made New Orleans even more popular as a film destination. As the most frequently filmed area of New Orleans, the French Quarter is given particular attention in this volume with synopses of scenes shot or set there, including The Big Easy, Interview with the Vampire, and the much-loved Bond film Live and Let Die. Additional synopses highlight numerous other film scenes spanning the city, and all are accompanied by evocative full-color stills.

 

The historic neighborhoods and landmarks of New Orleans have provided the backdrop for some of the most memorable moments in film history, and World Film Locations: New Orleans offers fans a guided tour of the many films that made the city their home.

The inaugural volume in an exciting new series from Intellect, World Film Locations: New York pairs incisive profiles of quintessential New York filmmakers—among them Woody Allen, Martin Scorsese, Sidney Lumet, and Spike Lee—with essays on key features of the city’s landscape that have appeared on the big screen, from the docks to Coney Island, Times Square to the Statue of Liberty. More than forty-five location-specific scenes from films made and set in New York are separately considered and illustrated with screen shots and photographs of the locations as they appear now. For film fans keen to follow the cinematic trail either physically or in the imagination, this pocket-sized guide also includes city maps with information on how to locate key features.

 

Presenting a varied and thought-provoking collage of the city onscreen—from the silent era to the present—World Film Locations: New York provides a fascinating and historic look back at the rich diversity of locations that have provided the backdrop for some of the most memorable films.

An extraordinarily beautiful city that has been celebrated, criticized, and studied in many films, San Francisco is both fragile and robust, at once a site of devastation caused by 1906 earthquake but also a symbol of indomitability in its effort to rebuild afterwards. Its beauty, both natural and manmade, has provided filmmakers with an iconic backdrop since the 1890s, and this guidebook offers an exciting tour through the film scenes and film locations that have made San Francisco irresistible to audiences and auteurs alike.

Gathering more than forty short pieces on specific scenes from San Franciscan films, this book includes essays on topics that dominate the history of filmmaking in the city, from depictions of the Golden Gate Bridge, to the movies Alfred Hitchcock, to the car chases that seem to be mandatory features of any thriller shot there. Some of America’s most famous movies—from Steven Spielberg’s Raiders of the Lost Ark to Hitchcock’s Vertigo to Don Siegel’s Dirty Harry —are celebrated alongside smaller movies and documentaries, such as The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill, to paint a complete picture of San Francisco in film. A range of expert contributors, including several members of the San Francisco Film Critics Circle, discuss a range of films from many genres and decades, from nineteenth-century silents to twentieth-century blockbusters

Audiences across the world, as well as many of the world’s greatest film directors—including Buster Keaton, Orson Welles, George Lucas, Francis Ford Coppola, David Fincher, and Steven Soderbergh—have been seduced by San Francisco. This book is the ideal escape to the city by the bay for arm chair travelers and cinephiles alike.