Dan Callahan

Barbara Stanwyck (1907–1990) rose from the ranks of chorus girl to become one of Hollywood's most talented leading women—and America's highest-paid woman in the mid-1940s. Shuttled among foster homes as a child, she took a number of low-wage jobs while she determinedly made the connections that landed her in successful Broadway productions. Stanwyck then acted in a stream of high-quality films from the 1930s through the 1950s. Directors...

Alfred Hitchcock is said to have once remarked, "Actors are cattle," a line that has stuck in the public consciousness ever since. For Hitchcock, acting was a matter of contrast and counterpoint, valuing subtlety and understatement over flashiness. He felt that the camera was duplicitous, and directed actors to look and act conversely. In The Camera Lies, author Dan Callahan spotlights the many nuances of Hitchcock's direction throughout his career,...

High school senior, Kevin, gets dumped by his girlfriend Gina for being too boring. He doesn't want to go to the freshman orientation weekend at Fieldmont University, where they had planned to go together. But his best friends Carter and Morris convince him that the weekend away will help get his mind off her. Once there, one of the rowdiest fraternities on campus pretends to recruit them as pledges in return for granting them access to the college...