SHOWMANSHIP: THE CINEMA OF WILLIAM CASTLE by Joe Jordan (paperback)

  William Castle was cinema’s Abominable Showman – the marketing genius who thought “outside the coffin” to dream up outrageous public relations gimmicks, such as PERCEPTO! and EMERGO! He was also the talented director of fifty-six feature films, from the Film Noir When Strangers Marry and the Whistler mysteries to Westerns, swashbucklers, and – his fearsome forte – celebrated shockers, such as House on Haunted Hill, Strait-Jacket, Homicidal, and The Tingler.   Author Joe Jordan provides exhaustive scholarly analysis of each of Castle’s directorial efforts, as well as production background, little-known anecdotes, and succinct plot synopses. “Joe Jordan dissects the films of William Castle with delicious abandon, as if he wields the razor edge of Joan Crawford’s axe from Strait-Jacket. Like slicing tendons from marrow, he carves into the masterful showman’s work with surgical precision and pulls the mask from the myths. A genuine thriller from A-Z. Hardly a shadow misses his myopic sc