World's Coolest Movie Star: The Complete 95 Films (and Legend) of Jean Gabin, Vol. 1 - Tragic Drifter (Hardcover)

• Category:  Books  »  Biography & Autobiography  »  Criminals & Outlaws
• Format: Hardcover   Learn more about the Hardcover format using Tower WIKI.
• Publisher: Allenwood Press
• Number of Pages: 576
• ISBN: 0979972205
• WAPI (Tower ID): 111986675
• Release Date: July 20, 2008
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• Tower.com Sales Rank: #1500211 in Books (See Top 100 Books Bestsellers)
• #39632 in Biography & Autobiography (See Top 100 Biography & Autobiography Bestsellers)
• #259 in Criminals & Outlaws (See Top 100 Criminals & Outlaws Bestsellers)

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IMPORTANT NOTE: This is the all-new, Revised/Expanded 2009/2010 "Second Edition."

VOLUME ONE OF TWO. (VOLUME TWO AVAILABLE SEPARATELY.) France. Germany. Italy. Russia. Poland. Romania. Czech Republic. Mexico. Japan. Iran. All over the world -- everywhere except in the U.S. -- the legendary Jean Gabin continues to be considered one of the greatest movie stars of all time. In the U.S., he''s definitely considered to be a cult figure (in 2002, twin Gabin festivals were presented at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and at the Walter Reade Theatres in New York), but for the vast majority of the moviegoing public, and just like a lot of the greats, he''s managed to have fallen off of the radar.

That''s about to change, however, because now, Allenwood Press presents the very first English-language (and two-volume) book about Jean Gabin, ever -- there''s not even an old, out-of-print book about Gabin in English, if you can believe that! It''s WORLD''S COOLEST MOVIE STAR: THE COMPLETE 95 FILMS (AND LEGEND) OF JEAN GABIN by CHARLES ZIGMAN.

Volume One, which has been subtitled "Tragic Drifter," takes us through Gabin''s first forty-six films, including the internationally reknowned "Grand Illusion" and "Pepe Le Moko," a period spanning the years 1930 to 1953, during which time the actor played movie history''s most famous tragic drifter. During the 1930s and 1940s, Gabin''s popularity in the U.S. nearly even eclipsed that of Bogart, James Cagney, and Bette Davis. Ever heard anybody say, "Come with me to the Casbah. We will make ze beautiful muzeek togezaire?" Well, that line was famously attributed to the character Jean Gabin portrayed in the 1937 gangster classic "Pepe Le Moko," even though he never actually uttered those words -- in fact, Gabin''s ''Pepe'' character (and Charles Boyer''s ''Pepe'' character in the subsequent remake, "Algiers") even inspired Warner Bros. to create its legendary cartoon skunk, Pepe Le Pew!

The tone of the book is "fun and readable," and its goal is to introduce as many people as possible to the films of Gabin; to that end, it''s loaded with rare photographs, many of which have never appeared even in previously published French-language books about Gabin.

This is a book for Jean Gabin ''newbies'' and ''completists'' alike: For the uninitiated, there are biography and ''intro'' chapters which place Gabin and his famous big-screen persona into perspective. For the completists, author Charles Zigman has ''unpacked'' every single one of Jean Gabin''s ninety-five theatrical feature films, even the more than sixty pictures which have never been subtitled into English before, so that readers can feel, by reading the chapters, that they are actually experiencing the films firsthand. Excerpts from newspapers written back in the day, both in the U.S. and in Europe, demonstrate how prominent movie critics received Gabin''s pictures the day they were first released, in the 1930s through the 1970s. In short this two-volume book is for everybody.

Besides being the first book about Jean Gabin to appear in the English language, WORLD''S COOLEST MOVIE STAR is also a first, because it is the very first ''filmography book'' related to Gabin in any language: Even in France, where there have been many published biographies of Gabin, there has never been a book which concentrates in great detail on each of the actor''s ninety-five films.

The legendary actress Michele Morgan, who appeared with Gabin in five feature films, has written the foreword to Volume One. ALSO AVAILABLE, SEPARATELY: VOLUME TWO (ISBN # 9780979972218).

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