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Tara Hanks

~ Author of 'The Mmm Girl' and 'Wicked Baby'

Tara Hanks

Category Archives: Books

Joan Mellen: Marilyn’s First Female Filmographer

22 Monday Sep 2025

Posted by marina72 in Books, Film, Marilyn Monroe

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Bus Stop, Clash By Night, Don't Bother To Knock, Feminism, Frank Powolny, Gene Kornman, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Germany, Gloria Steinem, Italy, Joan Mellen, John F. Kennedy, Larry McMurtry, Marilyn Monroe, Netherlands, Nickolas Muray, Pyramid Illustrated History of the Movies, Ralph Schoenman, Richard Avedon, Sam Shaw, Sexism, Some Like It Hot, The Misfits, Turkey, Typecasting

Joan Mellen – the academic whose many books included the first female-authored (and feminist) critical biography of Marilyn Monroe, with a primary focus on her film career – has died aged 83. Continue reading →

2024: A Year in Film

13 Monday Jan 2025

Posted by marina72 in Documentaries, Film, Non-Fiction

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2024, A Year in Films and TV, About Dry Grasses, Agnieszka Holland, Alexander Payne, American Fiction, Ann Sheridan, Argentina, Black Dog, Blitz, Carole Lombard, Chinatown, Desperately Seeking Susan, Evil Does Not Exist, Fancy Dance, Four Daughters, Gena Rowlands, Glynis Johns, Green Border, Jeffrey Wright, Kate Winslet, Lee Miller, Lily Gladstone, London, Maggie Smith, Only the River Flows, Percival Everett, Rodrigo Moreno, Ryusuke Hamaguchi, Saoirse Ronan, Steve McQueen, The Delinquents, The Holdovers, The Peasants, The Settlers, The Universal Theory, Turkey, World War II

In a year when I was more often drawn to world cinema, there was at least one notable exception. Steve McQueen’s Blitz packs more action in two hours than some Hollywood blockbusters, and despite a more traditional style than expected from the auteur of Small Axe and Occupied City, it’s authentically a Londoner’s movie. Following a reluctant evacuee (Elliot Heffernan) and his conflicted mother (Saoirse Ronan), Blitz is hard-hitting and poignant, with a child’s view on war reminiscent of films like Hope and Glory, Au Revoir Les Enfants, and Empire of the Sun. Continue reading →

2024: A Year in Books

03 Friday Jan 2025

Posted by marina72 in Art and Photography, Books, Fiction, History, Non-Fiction

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2024, A Year in Books, Alex Grant, Amy Helen Bell, Avril Horner, Barbara Comyns, Bastard Out of Carolina, Bristol, Brooklyn, Carol Ann Lee, Civil War, Cold War, Colm Toibin, Dorothy Allison, Dust Bowl, Edna O'Brien, Eilis Lacey, Gayl Jones, Highland Clearances, Huckleberry Finn, Ingrid Persaud, Iris Jamahl Dunkle, Irish Literature, James, Jayne Ann Phillips, John Steinbeck, John Vassall, Kate Summerscale, Kevin Barry, Lancashire Witches, London, Long Island, Marc Kristal, Mark Twain, Mrs Gulliver, Native American Literature, Night Watch, Novella, Paula Spencer, Pauline Boty, Pendle Witches, Percival Everett, Pop Art, Profumo Affair, Pulitzer Prize, Reginald Christie, Rillington Place, Roddy Doyle, Sam Selvon, Sanora Babb, Scotland, Short Stories, Slavery, Sunjeev Sahota, Tessa Hadley, The Country Girls, The Heart in Winter, The Lost Love Songs of Boysie Singh, The Party, The Peepshow, The Spoiled Heart, The Unicorn Woman, The Women Behind the Door, Toni Morrison, Trinidad, True Crime, Under Cover of Darkness, Valerie Martin, Ways of Sunlight, Western, Windrush, Witchcraft, World War II

Marilyn Monroe reads Walt Whitman (Photo by John Florea)

For me, 2024 was a nebulous year when literary favourites returned but the best novels came from unexpected quarters. It was perhaps a stronger year for non-fiction, particularly when exploring the lives of creative women. Continue reading →

2024: A Year in Music

26 Thursday Dec 2024

Posted by marina72 in Books, Lana Del Rey, Music, Non-Fiction

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2024, A Year in Music, Beth Gibbons, Blondie, Chris Stein, David Bowie, English Teacher, Françoise Hardy, Lana Del Rey, Lives Outgrown, Mary Weiss, Michael Kiwanuka, Quavo, Sade, Suzi Ronson, The Shangri-Las, This Could Be Texas, Young Lion

Continue reading →

Darryl F. Zanuck: The Gentleman Preferred Blondes

18 Thursday Jan 2024

Posted by marina72 in Books, Film, Marilyn Monroe, Music, Non-Fiction

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42nd Street, A Ticket to Tomahawk, Alice Faye, Bernard F. Dick, Betty Grable, Broadway, Carousel, Darryl F. Zanuck, Down Boy, Fred Karger, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, George Cukor, How to Be Very Very Popular, How to Marry a Millionaire, Howard Hawks, Irving Berlin, Jane Russell, Jayne Mansfield, June Haver, Ladies of the Chorus, Let's Make Love, Marilyn Monroe, Mitzi Gaynor, Musicals, Orson Welles, Richard Zanuck, River of No Return, Sheree North, Shirley Temple, Something's Got To Give, Sonja Henie, The Girl Can't Help It, The Jazz Singer, There's No Business Like Show Business, Twentieth Century Fox, Vivian Blaine, Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter

Bernard F. Dick, a professor of English and communication at Fairleigh-Dickson University in New Jersey, has published many titles on the classical era of Hollywood film-making, covering a wide range of figures like producers Harry Cohn and Hal B. Wallis; directors Joseph L. Mankiewicz and Billy Wilder; actresses Claudette Colbert and Rosalind Russell; and the blacklisted Hollywood Ten. In his 2018 book, That Was Entertainment, Dick hailed the MGM musical as the genre’s ‘Gold Standard,’ reeling off a list of the studio’s all-time greats from The Wizard of Oz to Singin’ in the Rain. Continue reading →

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