Written in the style of an oral history and often displaying a dreamlike logic, My Last Sigh provides a portal into the mind of cinema’s great master of the subconscious. This volume traces Buñuel’s life from his boyhood in Aragon and schooling in Madrid, to his association with the Surrealists in Paris, the years of the Spanish Civil War, his stint at MOMA’s film department in the 1940s, the Mexican cinema of the 1950s, and his later European masterpieces.
Often taking serendipitous detours to expound on such topics as the perfect martini or the relationship between Mexicans and guns, My Last Sigh recounts an artist’s life lead to the fullest and with no regrets, save one. “I hate to leave while there’s so much going on. It’s like quitting in the middle of a serial. I doubt there was so much curiosity about the world after death in the past, since in those days the world didn’t change quite so rapidly or so much. Frankly, despite my horror of the press, I’d love to rise from the grave every 10 years or so and go buy a few newspapers. Ghostly pale, sliding silently along the wall, my papers under my arm, I’d return to the cemetery and read about all the disasters in the world before falling back to sleep, safe and secure in my tomb.” JAT

Publisher: Vintage
Paperback: 256 pages
Illustrated

A perfect guide for the voyeuristic cineaste, The Bare Facts sees that your favorite film stars and personalities get the widest possible exposure. Organized into three broad categories, this guide provides alphabetical listings by actor, actress and film title. Each scene featuring nudity is described in detail, giving the length of the scene and what body parts are available for viewing within the scene. Also, each scene is rated with one to three stars, with three stars being “Wow! Don’t miss it.” For example, under The Night Porter, three scenes are listed, with the favorite scene earning a three-star rating. Lasting over one minute the scene features “breasts doing a song and dance number wearing pants, suspenders and a Nazi hat. Long scene.” JAT

Publisher: Bare Facts
Paperback: 870 pages

“My mother, Eva, was the Baroness Erisso. She came from a long line of Austro-Hungarian aristocrats, the von Sacher-Masochs. Her great-uncle was Leopold Baron von Sacher-Masoch, whose novel Venus in Furs had given rise to the term masochism. During the war, Eva and my grandparents, Flora and Arthur, lived in the Hungarian Institute in Vienna, where they were more or less free from harassment by the Nazis. My grandmother was Jewish, and the family was in great danger throughout the war (and even greater danger after the Russians invaded Austria in 1945). Eva was raped by occupying Russians soldiers, got pregnant and had an abortion. She was worn out by the privations of the war, and then along came my father, Major Glynn Faithfull, who was working as a spy behind the lines with British Intelligence.” Into this world was born Marianne Faithfull, who was to become the angel of Swinging London. Her first single, “As Tears Go By,” was written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards and became an international hit. She settled into a love affair with Jagger, however her increasing passion for drugs would soon leave her a street junkie living among the remains of a wall bombed out during WWII. From these depths, she managed to reinvent herself artistically and take hold of her demons. Told with a survivor’s frankness, Faithfull’s tale is populated by the likes of Dylan, the Beatles, Kenneth Anger, Madonna, James Fox, Anita Pallenberg, Brian Jones, Keith Richards, and especially Mick Jagger. Roughly two-thirds of the book is devoted to her years in the Rolling Stones Women’s Auxiliary, however, this is, after all, the part of her tale which most readers will hunger for. While never appearing evasive or less than forthright, her descriptions of Mick are told with the class befitting a women of her breeding. JAT

Publisher: Little, Brown
Paperback: 310 pages
Illustrated

Originally published in hardcover as The Sewing Circle, Forbidden Lovers was renamed to appeal to the paperback audience. Providing an overview of same-sex romances among some of the greatest female stars of Hollywood’s Golden Age, Forbidden Lovers is arranged chronologically from the silent era through the fall of the studio system. Madsen uses both eyewitness accounts from survivors of this closed circle and varied star biographies as source material for this book. Since most of the legendary women led extremely guarded lives, the author frequently can provide only the scantiest of details of these private affairs. Offering 24 pages of predominantly publicity photographs, which tend to feature these icons in their most manly of costumes; plus a scant two compromising shots of Garbo and Crawford. Not fully succeeding as either a scholarly text or as a lurid exposé, Forbidden Lovers is best left to the completist. JAT

Publisher: Carol
Paperback: 240 pages
Illustrated

“Now I hate the killer’s guts. I shriek into his face that I want to see him croak like the llama he executed. He should be thrown alive to the crocodiles! An anaconda should strangle him slowly! A poisonous spider should sting him and paralyze his lungs. The most venomous serpent should bite him and make his brain explode! No panther claws should rip open his throat—that would be too good for him! No! The huge red ants should piss into his lying eyes and gobble up his balls and guts! He should catch the plague! Syphilis! Malaria! Yellow fever! Leprosy! It’s no use; the more I wish him the most gruesome deaths, the more he haunts me.”
The late Klaus Kinski was an actor possessed of a unique, demonic energy, whether applied to his life, his art, or to comments about Werner Herzog, the film director most closely associated with him. He was fond of saying, “I am like a wild animal born in captivity, in a zoo. But where a beast would have claws, I was born with talent.” Emerging from the dire poverty of pre-war Berlin and serving in the German army during the last year of World War II, he rose to international film stardom. Yet he always carried a personal hell with him as he strove to alleviate an unendurable sense of isolation through his acting or by having sex. His Casanova-like pursuit of sex started as a child with his sister and continued with countless others. In order to maintain his lifestyle, Kinski appeared in over 160 films, ranging from the classics Aguirre, the Wrath of God, Nosferatu and Doctor Zhivago to such schlock as The Creature With the Blue Hand.
An edition of Kinski’s very personal and idiosyncratic memoirs appeared briefly in the United States in 1988. Approximately 55 pages shorter than this edition, it was abruptly withdrawn just prior to its publication. Now available for the first time is unexpurgated Kinski, blisteringly candid and with the charm of a must-see car crash. Includes a thorough cross-section of photographs from Kinski’s life and career. JAT

Publisher: Viking
Hardback: 325 pages
Illustrated

Worm Lady rules! This well-conceived videotape and study guide are proof that learning can be fun on a budget. Muffy wants a ride to the mall but dad can't drive her there until he finishes writing his “worm song.” As the subject of worms gets bandied about, a lot of questions arise. Enter (from seemingly nowhere) the Worm Lady. Wearing a green hardhat, a red raincoat and yellow rubber boots, she not only has the answers, but seems to be the very voice of reason in this all-too-perky family unit (which is rounded out by a “dude” older brother and a younger brother with thick glasses, but no mom).
The overall tone of this piece is not unlike a Syd and Marty Krofft production with a female “Wizard of Oz” instead of a Pufnstuf. Footage of every phase of a worm's existence is frequently shown while the Worm Lady answers questions. Since kids like squirmy things anyway and it is the fecal matter of worms which creates fertile soil, there are a lot of opportunities to get the kids really worked up about this whole subject as well as related curricular areas such as math, the arts, communication skills and creativity. Includes a top-notch teaching guide. Oh, and Dad manages to write not just one worm song but four of them. Here are some sample lyrics:
“So when that worm
gets done with that leaf,
like all animals,
it poops for relief.
Now talking about worm poop
might sound rude,
but worm poop is
important plant food.” JAT

Publisher: Flower
Video: 42 pages
Illustrated