Ep 8 – The Film Guide Paperback (BFI & Cultographies)
Show Notes
The history of paperbacks is the history of paperback fiction primarily. Little research has been done on the non-fiction side of paperback publishing. I decided to include non-fiction as part of the Paperback Show to address this missing history.
Episode 8 covers the history of the Film Guide primarily focusing on the study of a specific film. The show is divided into two parts: first, I cover the rise of the film paperback in the fifties culminating in the granddaddy of film studies, the BFI Film Classics series in paperback, and the subsequent growth of individual film studies which is represented by the Cultographies series of film guides, secondly, I bring in two guests, Kim Vodicka, and Cody Goodfellow, to discuss their Cultographies book choice. Kim chose Ms 45, a 1981 film directed by Abel Ferrara and starring Zoe Lund. Cody chose Danger: Diabolik, a 1968 film directed by Mario Bava starring John Phillip Law and Marisa Mell.
A Brief History of Film Guide Paperbacks
Penguin was probably the earliest publisher of film-related books in paperback. Of course, the publishing industry surrounding the American film industry is huge and followed the rise of silent film. But it wasn’t until the paperback boom of the fifties and the huge growth of new colleges that the film guide paperback took off. Students needed inexpensive books and paperback publishers started by reprinting classics like Jane Eyre and Dante’s Inferno. This worked well for publishers like New American Library because they had a targeted audience (students) and the texts were mostly in the public domain.
One of the earliest film books that became quite popular was The Grammer of the Film by Raymond Spottiswoode, published by the University of California Press in 1950. Another big seller was The Liveliest Art: A Panoramic History of the Movies by Arthur Knight, published by Mentor in 1957. And perhaps one of the most popular early paperback film guides was Roger Manville’s The Film and the Public, a Pelican book published in 1955.
One of the most interesting aspects of film paperbacks was that their popularity helped usher in the “trade-sized” paperback. The trade paperback was larger than a mass market paperback but smaller than a hardback. The reasoning behind the increase in size was primarily one of profit. Publishers could charge more money for a larger-sized paperback and since it was for a targeted reader (the student) they felt the price increase (sometimes over 100%) would be accepted by student buyers and college bookstores.
When film studies started becoming their own departments in colleges, the market for film books/guides really took off. BFI (the British Film Institute) series of paperbacks on classic films had a big impact on the popularity of film guides and is still going strong.
My favorite of the modern film guides is the Cultographies series published by Columbia University Press in their Wallflower imprint. Sadly, after 20 books were published in the series, Columbia stopped publication. Note: I mistakenly say 13 books were published, but it’s 20. The books are short (100-125 pages) and written primarily in a non-theoretical style emphasizing the production history, popular reception, and the writer’s response to the film.
LINKS
The BFI film series (modern, classic) is now being published by Bloomsbury. Still in lovely trade-sized paperbacks with striking graphic design on the covers. I think the full list of titles published in both series is over 150 now. I couldn’t find a complete list, screenstudies.com has a list that numbers 167 titles.
Cultographies is still listed on the Columbia University Press Wallflower Press website. There is a complete list (with covers) of all books published in the series.
You can find out more about Cody Goodfellow at his website, codygoodfellow.com. And Kim Vodicka has just released Dear Ted, a poetic/diatribe about/not about the infamous serial killer, Ted Bundy.
My thanks to Kim and Cody for sharing their time and ideas with me in this podcast.
