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149-523: Walter Hill (born January 10, 1942) is an American film director, screenwriter and producer known for his action films and revival of the Western genre . He has directed such films as The Driver , The Warriors , Southern Comfort , 48 Hrs. and its sequel Another 48 Hrs. , Streets of Fire and Red Heat , and wrote the screenplay for the crime drama The Getaway . He has also directed several episodes of television series such as Tales from
298-711: A "Britannica Checked" stamp, to distinguish it from the user-generated content. On 14 September 2010, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. announced a partnership with mobile phone development company Concentric Sky to launch a series of iPhone products aimed at the K–12 market. On 20 July 2011, Encyclopædia Britannica, Incorporated announced that Concentric Sky had ported the Britannica Kids product line to Intel's Intel Atom -based Netbooks and on 26 October 2011 that it had launched its encyclopaedia as an iPad app . In 2010, Britannica released Britannica ImageQuest,
447-561: A "mythic vision of the plains and deserts of the American West". Specific settings include ranches, small frontier towns, saloons, railways, wilderness, and isolated military forts of the Wild West. Many Westerns use a stock plot of depicting a crime, then showing the pursuit of the wrongdoer, ending in revenge and retribution, which is often dispensed through a shootout or quick draw duel. The Western genre sometimes portrays
596-534: A bit different from the original—it's more Hawksian in flavour." The plot had a female doctor hire seven mercenaries to defend an intellectually disabled boy from a lynching. Western (genre) The Western is a genre of fiction typically set in the American frontier (commonly referred to as the "Old West" or the "Wild West") between the California Gold Rush of 1849 and the closing of
745-456: A box office failure, it gained a greater following in subsequent years (as many of Hill's films have). Hill was meant to follow it up with a big screen adaptation of Dick Tracy , replacing John Landis . Hill worked on Dick Tracy for several drafts of the script and screenwriter Jack Epps Jr. says he "played a big role in reducing and focusing the screenplay". Hill intended to make the film directly after Streets of Fire but eventually left
894-493: A career. "When you are that age, you think you are going to be in the army two years, it's a huge amount of time. You don't bother worrying about what you are doing. Suddenly, this whole thing was upon me." Through a friend Hill got a job in Los Angeles researching historical documentaries made by a company that was associated with Encyclopædia Britannica . He began seeing more and more scripts, writing scripts and developed
1043-463: A chance to tell stories in an open, loose, not constricted Hollywood kind of way. At the same time you wanted to work in Hollywood... I was tremendously interested in genre films. Wanted to work within genre films. After this contract to make historical documentaries finished, Hill worked for a time in the mail room at Universal ("Somebody told me that was a good way to meet people"). He then got into
1192-425: A database of images. In March 2012, it was announced that the company would cease printing the encyclopaedia set, and that it would focus on its online version. On 7 June 2018, Britannica released a Google Chrome extension , "Britannica Insights", which shows snippets of information from Britannica Online whenever the user performs a Google Search , in a box to the right of Google's results. Britannica Insights
1341-521: A detective story, Hickey & Boggs and the studio agreed to finance a draft. "Detective films were very old hat, not the kind of thing a young screenwriter was going to pitch," recalls Hill. "I think they were intrigued, maybe fresh air could be blown into a venerable genre." Warners liked the Hickey & Boggs script and hired Hill to rewrite the script for The Thief Who Came to Dinner , for which he ended up getting sole credit. Hickey & Boggs
1490-558: A director was The Driver starring Ryan O'Neal as a laconic getaway driver for hire and Bruce Dern as a driven cop pursuing him. No character in the film has a name; they are merely The Driver, The Detective, and so forth. Hill originally had wanted to cast Steve McQueen, but he turned down the role because he did not want to do another car film. "This Walter Hill is a force to be reckoned with," said O'Neal, "a first rate writer and an even better director. And he's fast. Most young directors today think they are David Lean ." The Driver
1639-468: A film if he wrote a screenplay for him. Hill made a deal to write and direct for scale and in turn got a shot at directing. The result was Hill's 1975 breakthrough film, Hard Times , made on location in New Orleans for just $ 2.7 million in 38 days. James Coburn played a fast-talking promoter of illegal street fights in 1930s New Orleans and Charles Bronson played the boxer protagonist. The film
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#17327943777351788-652: A guide to the Macropædia ; readers are advised to study the Propædia outline to understand a subject's context and to find more detailed articles. Over 70 years, the size of the Britannica has remained steady, with about 40 million words on half a million topics. Though published in the United States since 1901, the Britannica has for the most part maintained British English spelling . From 1985,
1937-418: A lawsuit with Warner Bros , with whom he was angry for selling Hickey & Boggs —Warners offered to settle the suit if Hill wrote them a screenplay, giving him the chance to adapt his choice of several novels that the studio owned the film rights to. He picked The Freedom Trap , by Desmond Bagley . "I wrote a quick script which I was not particularly enamored with myself," Hill said. However it attracted
2086-428: A more "structured narrative environment" that he "began to find my voice... I had a hard time finishing scripts. My problem was finding certain character narrative concerns. Once I finished scripts, I almost instantly made a living. Not only made a living, but got them made. From the time I finished them to the time they were getting made, making progress on the trail, that all happened pretty quickly. Hill later said, "I
2235-481: A number of occasions, famous examples being Support Your Local Sheriff! , Cat Ballou , Mel Brooks 's Blazing Saddles , and Rustler's Rhapsody . George Lucas 's Star Wars films use many elements of a Western, and Lucas has said he intended for Star Wars to revitalize cinematic mythology, a part the Western once held. The Jedi , who take their name from Jidaigeki , are modeled after samurai, showing
2384-594: A partnership with YouTube in which verified Britannica content appeared on the site as an antidote to user-generated video content that could be false or misleading. Krishnan, an educator at New York University 's Stern School of Business , believes in the "transformative power of education" and set steering the company toward solidifying its place among leaders in educational technology and supplemental curriculum. Krishnan aimed at providing more useful and relevant solutions to customer needs, extending and renewing Britannica's historical emphasis on "utility", which had been
2533-452: A popular art form. Western films commonly feature protagonists such as cowboys, gunslingers, and bounty hunters, who are often depicted as seminomadic wanderers who wear Stetson hats, bandannas , spurs, and buckskins , use revolvers or rifles as everyday tools of survival and as a means to settle disputes using frontier justice. Protagonists ride between dusty towns and cattle ranches on their trusty steeds. The first films that belong to
2682-570: A setting, where it tasked players to lead a party of settlers moving westward in a covered wagon from Independence, Missouri to Oregon City, Oregon. The game only grew popular in the 1980s and 1990s as an educational game. The first video game Westerns to engage the mass public arrived in arcade games focused on the gunfighter in Westerns based on depictions in television shows, films and Electro-mechanical games such as Dale Six Shooter (1950), and Sega 's Gun Fight (1970). The first of these games
2831-688: A sheriff in fictional Absaroka County, Wyoming . Originally aired on the A&;E network from 2012 to 2014, it was picked up by Netflix in 2015 until the show's conclusion in 2017. AMC and Vince Gilligan's critically acclaimed Breaking Bad is a much more modern take on the Western genre. Set in New Mexico from 2008 through 2013, it follows Walter White ( Bryan Cranston ), a chemistry teacher diagnosed with Stage III Lung Cancer who cooks and sells crystal meth to provide money for his family after he dies, while slowly growing further and further into
2980-627: A single article; however, 64 contributed to three articles, 23 contributed to four articles, 10 contributed to five articles, and 8 contributed to more than five articles. An exceptionally prolific contributor is Christine Sutton of the University of Oxford , who contributed 24 articles on particle physics . While Britannica 's authors have included writers such as Albert Einstein , Marie Curie , and Leon Trotsky , as well as notable independent encyclopaedists such as Isaac Asimov , some have been criticized for lack of expertise. In 1911,
3129-405: A study guide, as it puts subjects in their proper perspective and suggests a series of Britannica articles for the student wishing to learn a topic in depth. However, libraries have found that it is scarcely used for this purpose, and reviewers have recommended that it be dropped from the encyclopaedia. The Propædia contains color transparencies of human anatomy and several appendices listing
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#17327943777353278-526: A talent agent at ICM, recommended the role of the convict be played by an exciting new comic on Saturday Night Live , Eddie Murphy . The resulting film was a problematic shoot, with many clashes between Paramount and Hill, but it resulted in a massive box office success. Hill's box office success with 48 Hrs. enabled him to raise the money for a stylish "rock 'n' roll fable", Streets of Fire . He almost set this up at Paramount but they changed their mind; Universal decided to finance instead. While initially
3427-487: A while. Meaning a year or so. And what happened was the strike ended and the studios didn't have a lot of ready scripts. So this clever colleague, Larry Gordon , dusted off a script that had been shuttling around development and got it greenlit at Paramount with his friend Michael Eisner . And that script was 48 Hrs. 48 Hrs. was originally meant to star Clint Eastwood and Richard Pryor but both dropped out. Nick Nolte became attached as star and Hill's then-girlfriend,
3576-516: Is a general knowledge English-language encyclopaedia . It has been published by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. since 1768, although the company has changed ownership seven times. The encyclopaedia is maintained by about 100 full-time editors and more than 4,000 contributors. The 2010 version of the 15th edition, which spans 32 volumes and 32,640 pages, was the last printed edition. Since 2016, it has been published exclusively as an online encyclopaedia . Printed for 244 years,
3725-589: Is a genre of literature set in the American Old West, most commonly between 1860 and 1900. The first critically recognized Western was The Virginian (1902) by Owen Wister . Other well-known writers of Western fiction include Zane Grey , from the early 1900s, Ernest Haycox , Luke Short , and Louis L'Amour , from the mid 20th century. Many writers better known in other genres, such as Leigh Brackett , Elmore Leonard , and Larry McMurtry , have also written Western novels. The genre's popularity peaked in
3874-512: Is a series of seven books that meshes themes of Westerns, high fantasy , science fiction, and horror. The protagonist Roland Deschain is a gunslinger whose image and personality are largely inspired by the Man with No Name from Sergio Leone's films. In addition, the superhero fantasy genre has been described as having been derived from the cowboy hero, only powered up to omnipotence in a primarily urban setting. The Western genre has been parodied on
4023-443: Is a war film, but its action and characters are Western-like. The character played by Humphrey Bogart in noir films such as Casablanca and To Have and Have Not —an individual bound only by his own private code of honor—has a lot in common with the classic Western hero. In turn, the Western has also explored noir elements, as with films such as Colorado Territory and Pursued . In many of Robert A. Heinlein 's books,
4172-661: Is a website with more than 120,000 articles and is updated regularly. It has daily features, updates and links to news reports from The New York Times and the BBC . As of 2009 , roughly 60% of Encyclopædia Britannica's revenue came from online operations, of which around 15% came from subscriptions to the consumer version of the websites. As of 2006 , subscriptions were available on a yearly, monthly or weekly basis. Special subscription plans are offered to schools, colleges and libraries; such institutional subscribers constitute an important part of Britannica's business. Beginning in early 2007,
4321-485: Is comfortable with abstract ideas, dominated by stories, narrative, and characters. Hill became a film fan at an early age, and the first film he remembers seeing was Song of the South (1946). He later described his taste as "juvenile", stating: "I liked adventure, westerns, but I liked everything. Musicals. But the general, I remember not liking kid movies... still don't, I think that's hung on." His asthma receded when he
4470-417: Is considered to have a more left-leaning orientation. The 15th edition (1974–2010) has a three-part structure: a 12-volume Micropædia of short articles (generally fewer than 750 words), a 17-volume Macropædia of long articles (two to 310 pages), and a single Propædia volume to give a hierarchical outline of knowledge. The Micropædia was meant for quick fact-checking and as
4619-490: Is continually reprinted, with every article updated on a schedule. In the 21st century, the Britannica suffered first from competition with the digital multimedia encyclopaedia Microsoft Encarta , and later with the online peer-produced encyclopaedia Misplaced Pages . In March 2012, it announced it would no longer publish printed editions and would focus instead on the online version. Britannica has been assessed as being more politically centrist compared to Misplaced Pages, which
Walter Hill - Misplaced Pages Continue
4768-462: Is for children aged three to six (issued 1974 to 1991). There have been, and are, several abridged Britannica encyclopaedias. The single-volume Britannica Concise Encyclopædia has 28,000 short articles condensing the larger 32-volume Britannica ; there are authorized translations in languages such as Chinese created by Encyclopedia of China Publishing House and Vietnamese . Compton's by Britannica , first published in 2007, incorporating
4917-413: Is maintained predominantly through relatively impersonal institutions such as courtrooms . The popular perception of the Western is a story that centers on the life of a seminomadic wanderer, usually a cowboy or a gunfighter. A showdown or duel at high noon featuring two or more gunfighters is a stereotypical scene in the popular conception of Westerns. In some ways, such protagonists may be considered
5066-493: Is on the subject of the United States, and it resulted from merging separate articles on the individual US states . A 2013 "Global Edition" of Britannica contained approximately 40,000 articles. Information can be found in the Britannica by following the cross-references in the Micropædia and Macropædia ; these are sparse, however, averaging one cross-reference per page. Readers are instead recommended to consult
5215-757: Is the place to go for music (raucous piano playing), women (often prostitutes ), gambling (draw poker or five-card stud), drinking ( beer , whiskey , or tequila if set in Mexico), brawling, and shooting. In some Westerns, where civilization has arrived, the town has a church, a general store, a bank, and a school; in others, where frontier rules still hold sway, it is, as Sergio Leone said, "where life has no value". Author and screenwriter Frank Gruber identified seven basic plots for Westerns: Gruber said that good writers used dialogue and plot development to develop these basic plots into believable stories. The American Film Institute defines Western films as those "set in
5364-412: Is usually punctuated with a Western music score , including American folk music and Spanish / Mexican folk music such as country , Native American music , New Mexico music , and rancheras . Westerns often stress the harshness of the wilderness and frequently set the action in an arid , desolate landscape of deserts and mountains . Often, the vast landscape plays an important role, presenting
5513-1342: The Atari 2600 and Gun Fight (1978) for the Bally Astrocade were derivative of Midway's Gun Fight . These early video games featured limited graphical capabilities , which had developers create Westerns to the most easily recognizable and popular tropes of the gunfighter shootouts. Western radio dramas were very popular from the 1930s to the 1960s. There were five types of Western radio dramas during this period: anthology programs, such as Empire Builders and Frontier Fighters ; juvenile adventure programs such as Red Ryder and Hopalong Cassidy ; legend and lore like Red Goose Indian Tales and Cowboy Tom's Round-Up ; adult Westerns like Fort Laramie and Frontier Gentleman ; and soap operas such as Cactus Kate . Some popular shows include The Lone Ranger (first broadcast in 1933), The Cisco Kid (first broadcast in 1942), Dr. Sixgun (first broadcast in 1954), Have Gun–Will Travel (first broadcast in 1958), and Gunsmoke (first broadcast in 1952). Many shows were done live, while others were transcribed. Westerns have been showcased in short-episodic web series. Examples include League of STEAM , Red Bird , and Arkansas Traveler . Within
5662-414: The Britannica 's Board of Directors. In 2003, former management consultant Jorge Aguilar-Cauz was appointed President of Encyclopædia Britannica, Incorporated. Cauz is the senior executive and reports directly to the Britannica 's Board of Directors. Cauz has been pursuing alliances with other companies and extending the Britannica brand to new educational and reference products, continuing
5811-511: The Britannica consisted of four parts: the Micropædia , the Macropædia , the Propædia , and a two-volume index. The Britannica 's articles are contained in the Micro- and Macropædia , which encompass 12 and 17 volumes, respectively, each volume having roughly one thousand pages. The 2007 Macropædia has 699 in-depth articles, ranging in length from two pages to 310 pages, with references and named contributors. In contrast,
5960-590: The Britannica has been revised on a regular schedule, with at least 10% of the articles considered for revision each year. According to one Britannica website, 46% of the articles in the 2007 edition were revised over the preceding three years; however, according to another Britannica website, only 35% of the articles were revised over the same period. The alphabetization of articles in the Micropædia and Macropædia follows strict rules. Diacritical marks and non-English letters are ignored, while numerical entries such as " 1812, War of " are alphabetized as if
6109-425: The Britannica included five Senior Editors and nine Associate Editors, supervised by Dale Hoiberg and four others. The editorial staff helped to write the articles of the Micropædia and some sections of the Macropædia . As of 2012, Britannica had an editorial board of advisors, which included a number of distinguished figures, primarily scholars from a variety of disciplines. Past and present members of
Walter Hill - Misplaced Pages Continue
6258-479: The Britannica made articles freely available if they are hyperlinked from an external site. Non-subscribers are served pop-ups and advertising. On 20 February 2007, Encyclopædia Britannica, Incorporated announced that it was working with mobile phone search company AskMeNow to launch a mobile encyclopaedia. Users will be able to send a question via text message, and AskMeNow will search Britannica 's 28,000-article concise encyclopaedia to return an answer to
6407-493: The Britannica turned to focus more on its online edition. The Encyclopædia Britannica has been compared with other print encyclopaedias, both qualitatively and quantitatively. A well-known comparison is that of Kenneth Kister , who gave a qualitative and quantitative comparison of the 1993 Britannica with two comparable encyclopaedias, Collier's Encyclopedia and the Encyclopedia Americana . For
6556-521: The Britannica was the longest-running in-print encyclopaedia in the English language. It was first published between 1768 and 1771 in the Scottish capital of Edinburgh , in three volumes. The encyclopaedia grew in size; the second edition was 10 volumes, and by its fourth edition (1801–1810), it had expanded to 20 volumes. Its rising stature as a scholarly work helped recruit eminent contributors, and
6705-537: The Grand Canyon , Yosemite , and the giant redwoods , due in part to exhibitors' inability to switch over to widescreen during the Great Depression . After renewed commercial successes in the late 1930s, the popularity of Westerns continued to rise until its peak in the 1950s, when the number of Western films produced outnumbered all other genres combined. The period from 1940 to 1960 has been called
6854-586: The Jesse James Gang , The Long Riders , which United Artists were willing to finance if a suitable director were to be found. Hill was approached and eagerly agreed to film his first Western. The film is remembered for casting real-life acting brothers (the Keaches, Carradines, Quaids and Guests) as historical outlaw siblings (the James, Younger, Miller and Ford brothers). Hill later said his "code" for
7003-688: The Royal Society of Edinburgh , and cultural anthropologist Michael Wesch . The Propædia and its Outline of Knowledge were produced by dozens of editorial advisors under the direction of Mortimer J. Adler . Roughly half of these advisors have since died, including some of the Outline's chief architects – Rene Dubos (d. 1982), Loren Eiseley (d. 1977), Harold D. Lasswell (d. 1978), Mark Van Doren (d. 1972), Peter Ritchie Calder (d. 1982) and Mortimer J. Adler (d. 2001). The Propædia also lists just under 4,000 advisors who were consulted for
7152-457: The space opera series Firefly used an explicitly Western theme for its portrayal of frontier worlds. Anime shows such as Cowboy Bebop , Trigun and Outlaw Star have been similar mixes of science-fiction and Western elements. The science fiction Western can be seen as a subgenre of either Westerns or science fiction. Elements of Western films can be found also in some films belonging essentially to other genres. For example, Kelly's Heroes
7301-419: The "Golden Age of the Western". It is epitomized by the work of several prominent directors including Robert Aldrich , Budd Boetticher , Delmer Daves , John Ford , and others. Some of the popular films during this era include Apache (1954), Broken Arrow (1950), and My Darling Clementine (1946). The changing popularity of the Western genre has influenced worldwide pop culture over time. During
7450-432: The 1960s and 1970s, Spaghetti Westerns from Italy became popular worldwide; this was due to the success of Sergio Leone 's storytelling method. After having been previously pronounced dead, a resurgence of Westerns occurred during the 1990s with films such as Dances with Wolves (1990), Unforgiven (1992), and Geronimo (1993), as Westerns once again increased in popularity. When television became popular in
7599-416: The 1960s, due in part to the shuttering of many pulp magazines, the popularity of televised Westerns , and the rise of the spy novel. Readership began to drop off in the mid- to late 1970s and reached a new low in the 2000s. Most bookstores, outside of a few Western states, now only carry a small number of Western novels and short-story collections. Literary forms that share similar themes include stories of
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#17327943777357748-458: The 1970s. These games and drew on the imagery of a mythic West portrayed in stories, films, television shows, and other assorted Western-themed toys. When game developers went to the imaginary West to create new experiences, they often drew consciously or unconsciously from Western stories and films. The 1971 text-based, Mainframe computer game The Oregon Trail was first game to use the West as
7897-500: The 2007 Micropædia has roughly 65,000 articles, the vast majority (about 97%) of which contain fewer than 750 words, no references, and no named contributors. The Micropædia articles are intended for quick fact-checking and to help in finding more thorough information in the Macropædia . The Macropædia articles are meant as authoritative, well-written commentaries on their subjects, as well as storehouses of information not covered elsewhere. The longest article (310 pages)
8046-483: The 20th century, successful competitors included Collier's Encyclopedia , the Encyclopedia Americana , and the World Book Encyclopedia . Nevertheless, from the 9th edition onwards, the Britannica was widely considered to have the greatest authority of any general English-language encyclopaedia, especially because of its broad coverage and eminent authors. The print version of the Britannica
8195-478: The 9th (1875–1889) and 11th editions (1911) are landmark encyclopaedias for scholarship and literary style. Starting with the 11th edition and following its acquisition by an American firm, the Britannica shortened and simplified articles to broaden its appeal to the North American market. In 1933, the Britannica became the first encyclopaedia to adopt "continuous revision", in which the encyclopaedia
8344-582: The American West that [embody] the spirit, the struggle, and the demise of the new frontier ". Originally, these films were called "Wild West dramas", a reference to Wild West shows like Buffalo Bill Cody's . The term "Western", used to describe a narrative film genre, appears to have originated with a July 1912 article in Motion Picture World magazine. Most of the characteristics of Western films were part of 19th-century popular Western fiction , and were firmly in place before film became
8493-570: The American frontier, the gaucho literature of Argentina , and tales of the settlement of the Australian Outback. A number of visual artists focused their work on representations of the American Old West. American West-oriented art is sometimes referred to as "Western Art" by Americans. This relatively new category of art includes paintings, sculptures, and sometimes Native American crafts. Initially, subjects included exploration of
8642-534: The Crypt and Deadwood and produced films in the Alien franchise . He founded Brandywine Productions with David Giler and Gordon Carroll . Hill said in an interview that "every film I've done has been a Western", and elaborated in another that "the Western is ultimately a stripped down moral universe that is, whatever the dramatic problems are, beyond the normal avenues of social control and social alleviation of
8791-672: The Eastern Bloc, or action films involving the Russian Revolution , the Russian Civil War , and the Basmachi rebellion. Many elements of space-travel series and films borrow extensively from the conventions of the Western genre. This is particularly the case in the space Western subgenre of science fiction. Peter Hyams 's Outland transferred the plot of High Noon to Io, moon of Jupiter. More recently,
8940-579: The Google Chrome browser that served up edited, fact-checked Britannica information with queries on search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and Bing. Its purpose, the company said, was to "provide trusted, verified information" in conjunction with search results that were thought to be increasingly unreliable in the era of misinformation and "fake news." The product was quickly followed by Britannica School Insights, which provided similar content for subscribers to Britannica's online classroom solutions, and
9089-477: The Kid instead. The Thief Who Came to Dinner eventually came out. Walter Hill later said "Warren Oates was very good in the movie—better than the movie was. They cut a lot of things out of the movie they shouldn't have." Hill went on to write a pair of Paul Newman films, The Mackintosh Man and The Drowning Pool . By Hill's own admission, his work on The Mackintosh Man "wasn't much" and he did it to settle
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#17327943777359238-798: The Life and Works of the Bard (Wiley, 2006). The Britannica Ultimate Reference Suite 2012 DVD contains over 100,000 articles. This includes regular Britannica articles, as well as others drawn from the Britannica Student Encyclopædia , and the Britannica Elementary Encyclopædia. The package includes a range of supplementary content including maps, videos, sound clips, animations and web links. It also offers study tools and dictionary and thesaurus entries from Merriam-Webster . Britannica Online
9387-524: The Prairie , McCloud , The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams , and the short-lived but highly acclaimed How the West Was Won that originated from a miniseries with the same name. In the 1990s and 2000s, hour-long Westerns and slickly packaged made-for-TV movie Westerns were introduced, such as Lonesome Dove (1989) and Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman . Also, new elements were once again added to
9536-414: The United States. I remember the studio had this huge sheaf of Xeroxed reviews they'd handed me — you could stop a fucking .45 slug with this stack, it was so thick. And of all the reviews in this six-inch thick pile, there was only one good one." (In 2016 Hill would say that "whenever they show retrospectives of my stuff, it's usually the first thing they show. Sometimes you just have to wait it out.") Hill
9685-419: The Western formula, such as the space Western , Firefly , created by Joss Whedon in 2002. Deadwood was a critically acclaimed Western series that aired on HBO from 2004 through 2006. Hell on Wheels , a fictionalized story of the construction of the first transcontinental railroad , aired on AMC for five seasons between 2011 and 2016. Longmire is a Western series that centered on Walt Longmire ,
9834-881: The Western genre are a series of short single reel silents made in 1894 by Edison Studios at their Black Maria studio in West Orange, New Jersey . These featured veterans of Buffalo Bill's Wild West show exhibiting skills acquired by living in the Old West – they included Annie Oakley (shooting) and members of the Sioux (dancing). The earliest known Western narrative film is the British short Kidnapping by Indians , made by Mitchell and Kenyon in Blackburn , England, in 1899. The Great Train Robbery (1903, based on
9983-645: The Western states and cowboy themes. Frederic Remington and Charles M. Russell are two artists who captured the "Wild West" in paintings and sculpture. After the death of Remington Richard Lorenz became the preeminent artist painting in the Western genre. Some art museums, such as the Buffalo Bill Center of the West in Wyoming and the Autry National Center in Los Angeles, feature American Western Art. With anime and manga ,
10132-478: The Wild West and modern technology like cars and cellphones, while also focusing primarily on being a Crime drama makes the show a unique spin on both genres. Walter's reliance on the desert environment makes the Western-feel a pivotal role in the show, and would continue to be used in the spinoff series Better Call Saul . The neo-Western drama Yellowstone was streamed from 2018-2024. Western fiction
10281-427: The alphabetical index or the Propædia , which organizes the Britannica 's contents by topic. The core of the Propædia is its "Outline of Knowledge", which aims to provide a logical framework for all human knowledge. Accordingly, the Outline is consulted by the Britannica 's editors to decide which articles should be included in the Micro- and Macropædia . The Outline can also be used as
10430-418: The biggest hits of the year. Released through United Artists, Stagecoach made John Wayne a mainstream screen star in the wake of a decade of headlining B Westerns. Wayne had been introduced to the screen 10 years earlier as the leading man in director Raoul Walsh 's spectacular widescreen The Big Trail , which failed at the box office in spite of being shot on location across the American West, including
10579-518: The board have included: non-fiction author Nicholas Carr , religion scholar Wendy Doniger , political economist Benjamin M. Friedman , Council on Foreign Relations President Emeritus Leslie H. Gelb , computer scientist David Gelernter , Physics Nobel laureate Murray Gell-Mann , Carnegie Corporation of New York President Vartan Gregorian , philosopher Thomas Nagel , cognitive scientist Donald Norman , musicologist Don Michael Randel , Stewart Sutherland, Baron Sutherland of Houndwood , President of
10728-419: The call sheets and filling out time cards. He also worked as a first assistant director on a television advertisement . "I didn't have a shred of desire in those areas," says Hill of assistant directing. "I wanted to work and be around films. I certainly took my duties fairly seriously and all that. I didn't see it as a long term kind of commitment." During this time Hill was writing screenplays on nights and on
10877-618: The classic comics of the late 1940s and early 1950s (namely Kid Colt, Outlaw , Rawhide Kid , and Red Ryder ) or more modern ones as Blueberry ), cartoons, and parodies (such as Cocco Bill and Lucky Luke ). In the 1990s and 2000s, Western comics leaned towards the fantasy , horror and science fiction genres, usually involving supernatural monsters, or Christian iconography as in Preacher . More traditional Western comics are found throughout this period, though (e.g., Jonah Hex and Loveless ). Video game Westerns emerged in
11026-444: The company announced that the 2010 edition would be the last printed version. This was part of a move by the company to adapt to the times and focus on its future using digital distribution. The peak year for the printed encyclopaedia was 1990, when 120,000 sets were sold, but sales had dropped to 40,000 per annum by 1996. There were 12,000 sets of the 2010 edition printed, of which 8,000 had been sold by March 2012. By late April 2012,
11175-420: The company would be accepting edits and additions to the online Britannica website from the public. The published edition of the encyclopaedia will not be affected by the changes. Individuals wishing to edit the Britannica website will have to register under their real name and address prior to editing or submitting their content. All edits submitted will be reviewed and checked and will have to be approved by
11324-752: The conquest of the wilderness and the subordination of nature in the name of civilization or the confiscation of the territorial rights of the original, Native American, inhabitants of the frontier. The Western depicts a society organized around codes of honor and personal, direct or private justice–"frontier justice"–dispensed by gunfights. These honor codes are often played out through depictions of feuds or individuals seeking personal revenge or retribution against someone who has wronged them (e.g., True Grit has revenge and retribution as its main themes). This Western depiction of personal justice contrasts sharply with justice systems organized around rationalistic, abstract law that exist in cities, in which social order
11473-428: The culture, such as spaghetti Westerns (Italy), meat pie Westerns (Australia), ramen Westerns (Asia), and masala Westerns (India). Being period drama pieces, both the Western and samurai genre influenced each other in style and themes throughout the years. The Magnificent Seven was a remake of Akira Kurosawa 's film Seven Samurai , and A Fistful of Dollars was a remake of Kurosawa's Yojimbo , which itself
11622-407: The earlier British film A Daring Daylight Burglary ), Edwin S. Porter 's film starring Broncho Billy Anderson , is often erroneously cited as the first Western, though George N. Fenin and William K. Everson point out (as mentioned above) that the "Edison company had played with Western material for several years prior to The Great Train Robbery ". Nonetheless, they concur that Porter's film "set
11771-463: The early 1960s, and their replacement by hour-long television shows, increasingly in color. Traditional Westerns died out in the late 1960s as a result of network changes in demographic targeting along with pressure from parental television groups. Future entries in the genre would incorporate elements from other genera, such as crime drama and mystery whodunit elements. Western shows from the 1970s included Hec Ramsey , Kung Fu , Little House on
11920-417: The encyclopaedia's professional staff. Contributions from non-academic users will sit in a separate section from the expert-generated Britannica content, as will content submitted by non- Britannica scholars. Articles written by users, if vetted and approved, will also only be available in a special section of the website, separate from the professional articles. Official Britannica material would carry
12069-459: The encyclopaedias had an article on sexual harassment in 1994. In the accuracy category, the Britannica received one "D" and seven "A"s, Encyclopedia Americana received eight "A"s, and Collier's received one "D" and seven "A"s; thus, Britannica received an average score of 92% for accuracy to Americana 's 95% and Collier's 92%. In the timeliness category, Britannica averaged an 86% to Americana' s 90% and Collier's 85%. In 2013,
12218-486: The film "to improve his bank account and success quotient", and admitted it was "an aberration in the career line". He added that "whatever [the film's] deficiencies, I think the wistful quality was there. I was happy about that. The picture did well and made money." After making Brewster's Millions Hill said he had another comedy in development at Universal. He also wanted to do a new version of The Magnificent Seven (1960) which he had written with Lukas Heller , "quite
12367-434: The film was to keep "the jokes funny and the bullets real. It is about moral choices. I think people who object to violence shouldn't go to the movies.... The use of all the brothers can be perceived as a gimmick but I wanted a family feeling to the movie." Hill's next film was going to be adaptations of The Last Good Kiss (by James Crumley ) and then Red Harvest (by Dashiell Hammett ). However neither were made, though
12516-407: The film, which became a massive hit. John Hughes later recalled, "I had been writing scripts for quite a while, but I never really knew what screenwriting was about until I read the script Walter wrote for Alien ." By the early 1970s, Hill wanted to direct. I think in casual conversation I would have told anybody I wanted to direct. At the same time I knew Hollywood was a closed off place... It
12665-425: The final film were his—so he left the project to write Hard Times for Larry Gordon at Columbia Pictures . In the early years of his career, Hill set up his own production company, Brandywine Productions , to develop and produce films. A script came to him, Alien , which he optioned and rewrote with his partner, David Giler . Hill and Giler were not credited for their writing work. Hill decided not to direct
12814-607: The former Compton's Encyclopedia , is aimed at 10- to 17-year-olds and consists of 26 volumes and 11,000 pages. Since 1938, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. has published annually a Book of the Year covering the past year's events. A given edition of the Book of the Year is named in terms of the year of its publication, though the edition actually covers the events of the previous year. The company also publishes several specialized reference works, such as Shakespeare: The Essential Guide to
12963-562: The frontier in 1890, and commonly associated with folk tales of the Western United States , particularly the Southwestern United States , as well as Northern Mexico and Western Canada . The frontier is depicted in Western media as a sparsely populated hostile region patrolled by cowboys , outlaws , sheriffs , and numerous other stock gunslinger characters. Western narratives often concern
13112-426: The genre tends towards the science-fiction Western – e.g., Cowboy Bebop (1998 anime), Trigun (1995–2007 manga), and Outlaw Star (1996–1999 manga). Although contemporary Westerns also appear, such as Koya no Shonen Isamu , a 1971 shonen manga about a boy with a Japanese father and a Native American mother, or El Cazador de la Bruja , a 2007 anime television series set in modern-day Mexico. Part 7 of
13261-522: The gradual attempts to tame the crime-ridden American West using wider themes of justice , freedom, rugged individualism, manifest destiny , and the national history and identity of the United States . Native American populations were often portrayed as averse foes or savages . Originating in vaquero heritage and Western fiction , the genre popularized the Western lifestyle , country - Western music , and Western wear globally. Throughout
13410-464: The harshness and isolation of the wilderness, and frequently set the action in an arid, desolate landscape. Western films generally have specific settings, such as isolated ranches, Native American villages, or small frontier towns with a saloon. Oftentimes, these settings appear deserted and without much structure. Apart from the wilderness, the saloon usually emphasizes that this is the Wild West ; it
13559-466: The heroes of Westerns frequently rescue damsels in distress . Similarly, the wandering protagonists of Westerns share many characteristics with the ronin in modern Japanese culture. The Western typically takes these elements and uses them to tell simple morality tales, although some notable examples (e.g. the later Westerns of John Ford or Clint Eastwood 's Unforgiven , about an old contract killer ) are more morally ambiguous. Westerns often stress
13708-427: The historian George L. Burr wrote: With a temerity almost appalling, [the Britannica contributor, Mr. Philips] ranges over nearly the whole field of European history, political, social, ecclesiastical... The grievance is that [this work] lacks authority. This, too—this reliance on editorial energy instead of on ripe special learning—may, alas, be also counted an "Americanizing": for certainly nothing has so cheapened
13857-676: The history of the genre, it has seen popular revivals and been incorporated into various subgenres. The classic Western is a morality drama , presenting the conflict between wilderness and civilization . Stories commonly center on the life of a male drifter , cowboy , or gunslinger who rides a horse and is armed with a revolver or rifle . The male characters typically wear broad-brimmed and high-crowned Stetson hats, neckerchief bandannas , vests , and cowboy boots with spurs . While many wear conventional shirts and trousers, alternatives include buckskins and dusters . Women are generally cast in secondary roles as love interests for
14006-401: The illicit drug market, eventually turning into a ruthless drug dealer and killer. While the show has scenes in a populated suburban neighborhood and nearby Albuquerque , much of the show takes place in the desert, where Walter often takes his RV car out into the open desert to cook his meth, and most action sequences occur in the desert, similar to old-fashioned Western movies. The clash between
14155-765: The influence of Kurosawa. The character Han Solo dressed like an archetypal gunslinger, and the Mos Eisley cantina is much like an Old West saloon. Meanwhile, films such as The Big Lebowski , which plucked actor Sam Elliott out of the Old West and into a Los Angeles bowling alley, and Midnight Cowboy , about a Southern-boy-turned-gigolo in New York (who disappoints a client when he does not measure up to Gary Cooper), transplanted Western themes into modern settings for both purposes of parody and homage. Encyclop%C3%A6dia Britannica The Encyclopædia Britannica ( Latin for 'British Encyclopaedia')
14304-414: The interest of Paul Newman and John Huston. "One would like to think you are mistaken about the wonders of your work, but I didn't believe it," he said. "That part turned out to be true. I went over to work on the script with Huston. He wasn't very well, I ended up with sole screen credit, but one of the problems is the screen credit is misleading very often. I wrote 90% of the first half, various people wrote
14453-406: The larger scope of the Western genre, there are several recognized subgenres. Some subgenres, such as spaghetti Westerns , maintain standard Western settings and plots, while others take the Western theme and archetypes into different supergenres, such as neo-Westerns or space Westerns . For a time, Westerns made in countries other than the United States were often labeled by foods associated with
14602-788: The late 1940s and 1950s, Television Westerns quickly became an audience favorite. Beginning with rebroadcasts of existing films, a number of movie cowboys had their own TV shows. As demand for the Western increased, new stories and stars were introduced. A number of long-running TV Westerns became classics in their own right, such as: The Lone Ranger (1949–1957), Death Valley Days (1952–1970), The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp (1955–1961), Cheyenne (1955–1962), Gunsmoke (1955–1975), Maverick (1957–1962), Have Gun – Will Travel (1957–1963), Wagon Train (1957–1965), The Rifleman (1958–1963), Rawhide (1959–1966), Bonanza (1959–1973), The Virginian (1962–1971), and The Big Valley (1965–1969). The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp
14751-485: The literary descendants of the knights-errant , who stood at the center of earlier extensive genres such as the Arthurian romances . Like the cowboy or gunfighter of the Western, the knight-errant of the earlier European tales and poetry was wandering from place to place on his horse, fighting villains of various kinds, and bound to no fixed social structures, but only to his own innate code of honor. Like knights-errant,
14900-461: The major Hollywood studios rapidly abandoned Westerns, leaving the genre to smaller studios and producers. These smaller organizations churned out countless low-budget features and serials in the 1930s. An exception was The Big Trail, a 1930 American pre-Code Western early widescreen film shot on location across the American West starring 23-year-old John Wayne in his first leading role and directed by Raoul Walsh. The epic film noted for its authenticity
15049-563: The male lead; or in supporting roles as saloon girls, prostitutes or as the wives of pioneers and settlers . The wife character often provides a measure of comic relief . Other recurring characters include Native Americans of various tribes described as Indians or Red Indians, African Americans , Chinese Americans , Spaniards , Mexicans , law enforcement officers , bounty hunters , outlaws , bartenders , merchants , gamblers , soldiers (especially mounted cavalry ), and settlers ( farmers , ranchers , and townsfolk). The ambience
15198-683: The manga series JoJo's Bizarre Adventure is based in the American Western setting. The story follows racers in a transcontinental horse race, the "Steel Ball Run". Golden Kamuy (2014–2022) shifts its setting to the fallout of the Russo-Japanese War , specifically focusing on Hokkaido and Sakhalin , and featuring the Ainu people and other local tribes instead of Native Americans, as well other recognizable Western tropes. Western comics have included serious entries, (such as
15347-401: The movie very cheaply, which we did. So it came together within a matter of weeks." When The Warriors was released there were a series of shootings and killings at screenings involving filmgoers on their way to or from showings. This prompted Paramount to remove advertisements from radio and television completely and display ads in the press were reduced to the film's title. However the film
15496-637: The number had been written out ("Eighteen-twelve, War of"). Articles with identical names are ordered first by persons, then by places, then by things. Rulers with identical names are organized first alphabetically by country and then by chronology; thus, Charles III of France precedes Charles I of England , listed in Britannica as the ruler of Great Britain and Ireland. (That is, they are alphabetized as if their titles were "Charles, France, 3" and "Charles, Great Britain and Ireland, 1".) Similarly, places that share names are organized alphabetically by country, then by ever-smaller political divisions. In March 2012,
15645-570: The open PubMed Central library of the National Library of Medicine . The Internet tends to provide more current coverage than print media, due to the ease with which material on the Internet can be updated. In rapidly changing fields such as science, technology, politics, culture and modern history, the Britannica has struggled to stay up to date, a problem first analysed systematically by its former editor Walter Yust. Eventually,
15794-432: The pattern—of crime, pursuit, and retribution—for the Western film as a genre". The film's popularity opened the door for Anderson to become the screen's first Western star; he made several hundred Western film shorts. So popular was the genre that he soon faced competition from Tom Mix and William S. Hart . Western films were enormously popular in the silent film era (1894–1927). With the advent of sound in 1927–1928,
15943-847: The problem, and I like to do that even within contemporary stories". Hill was born in Long Beach, California , the younger of two sons. His paternal grandfather was a wildcat oil driller ; his father worked at Douglas Aircraft as a supervisor on the assembly line. Hill has said that his father and grandfather were "smart, physical men who worked with their heads and their hands" and had "great mechanical ability". Hill's family had originally come from Tennessee and Mississippi , "one of those fallen Southern families, shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations". "I got along with both my parents very well," Hill said. "I admired them enormously." Growing up in Southern California , Hill
16092-407: The project after a dispute over budget with Universal and with star Warren Beatty ; the project would be made several years later with Beatty directing . Hill's success directing Eddie Murphy in 48 Hrs. saw him receive an offer to work with Richard Pryor in a new version of Brewster's Millions (1985). This was Hill's first—and, as of 2016, only—full-fledged comedy. He says he purposefully made
16241-451: The quantitative analysis, ten articles were selected at random— circumcision , Charles Drew , Galileo , Philip Glass , heart disease , IQ , panda bear , sexual harassment , Shroud of Turin and Uzbekistan —and letter grades of A–D or F were awarded in four categories: coverage, accuracy, clarity, and recency. In all four categories and for all three encyclopaedias, the four average grades fell between B− and B+ , chiefly because none of
16390-586: The query. Daily topical features sent directly to users' mobile phones were also planned. On 3 June 2008, an initiative to facilitate collaboration between online expert and amateur scholarly contributors for Britannica's online content (in the spirit of a wiki ), with editorial oversight from Britannica staff, was announced. Approved contributions would be credited, though contributing automatically grants Encyclopædia Britannica, Incorporated perpetual, irrevocable license to those contributions. On 22 January 2009, Britannica's president, Jorge Cauz , announced that
16539-450: The remaining copies of the 2010 edition had sold out at Britannica's online store. As of 2016 , a replica of Britannica's 1768 first edition is available via the online store. Britannica Junior was first published in 1934 as 12 volumes. It was expanded to 15 volumes in 1947, and renamed Britannica Junior Encyclopædia in 1963. It was taken off the market after the 1984 printing. A British Children's Britannica edited by John Armitage
16688-432: The rest. I didn't think it was a very good film. Hill says he never saw the final product, but was told it was "a real bomb". Producers Larry Turman and David Foster asked Hill to adapt Ross Macdonald 's novel The Drowning Pool for Robert Mulligan to direct as a sequel to a previous Newman film, Harper (1965). The producers did not like the direction Hill took with his script—he later estimated only two scenes in
16837-642: The scholarship of our American encyclopaedias. As of 2007 in the 15th edition of Britannica , Dale Hoiberg , a sinologist , was listed as Britannica 's Senior Vice President and editor-in-chief. Among his predecessors as editors-in-chief were Hugh Chisholm (1902–1924), James Louis Garvin (1926–1932), Franklin Henry Hooper (1932–1938), Walter Yust (1938–1960), Harry Ashmore (1960–1963), Warren E. Preece (1964–1968, 1969–1975), Sir William Haley (1968–1969), Philip W. Goetz (1979–1991), and Robert McHenry (1992–1997). As of 2007 Anita Wolff
16986-637: The settlement of other planets is depicted in ways explicitly modeled on American settlement of the West. For example, in his Tunnel in the Sky , settlers set out to the planet New Canaan, via an interstellar teleporter portal across the galaxy, in Conestoga wagons , their captain sporting mustaches and a little goatee and riding a Palomino horse—with Heinlein explaining that the colonists would need to survive on their own for some years, so horses are more practical than machines. Stephen King 's The Dark Tower
17135-726: The staff members, advisors, and contributors to all three parts of the Britannica . Taken together, the Micropædia and Macropædia comprise roughly 40 million words and 24,000 images. The two-volume index has 2,350 pages, listing the 228,274 topics covered in the Britannica , together with 474,675 subentries under those topics. The Britannica generally prefers British spelling over American ; for example, it uses colour (not color ), centre (not center ), and encyclopaedia (not encyclopedia ). There are some exceptions to this rule, such as defense rather than defence . Common alternative spellings are provided with cross-references such as "Color: see Colour." Since 1936,
17284-460: The story of Last Man Standing (which he made in 1996) was very close to Red Harvest . Instead Hill did Southern Comfort , originally written in 1976. It was an intense Deliverance -style thriller about a group of U.S. Army National Guardsmen (including Keith Carradine , Powers Boothe and Fred Ward ) on weekend maneuvers in the Louisiana bayou who find themselves fighting for survival in
17433-569: The strategy pioneered by former CEO Elkan Harrison Powell in the mid-1930s. In the fall of 2017, Karthik Krishnan was appointed global chief executive officer of the Encyclopædia Britannica Group. Krishnan brought a varied perspective to the role based on several high-level positions in digital media, including RELX (formerly known as Reed Elsevier, and one of the constituents of the FTSE 100 Index) and Rodale, in which he
17582-465: The swamps after offending some local Cajuns . The film was seen by many as an allegory for America's involvement in the Vietnam War , although Hill denies this is the case. He and David Giler rewrote the script prepared by another writer. According to Hill, "No studio wanted to make it, but an independent guy showed up who had a relationship with Fox. Liked it, said he would finance it." The film
17731-505: The training program of the Directors Guild of America , which enabled him to work in television as an apprentice. He observed and worked for over a year on such shows as Gunsmoke , The Wild Wild West , Bonanza and Warning Shot . "I did a lot of shows for a couple of weeks, they would rotate you through," he says. Hill wound up as second assistant director on The Thomas Crown Affair in 1968. He then went on to work as
17880-526: The uncredited rewrite of Alien in this style. Following the movie Hill was approached to direct The Shootist with John Wayne but turned it down as he disliked the script. He created the TV series Dog and Cat which premiered in 1977 starring a young Kim Basinger as a police officer. It was not a ratings success and was soon cancelled. However Hill's pilot script later influenced Shane Black 's original script for Lethal Weapon . Hill's second film as
18029-507: The uncredited second assistant director on Bullitt —"It was my job to set background and also to set it up with the police. We had to organise every shot so people wouldn't wander out into the middle of the street and be hit... Every time we did a shot I was scared to death." In 1969, he was the second assistant director on Woody Allen 's mockumentary film, Take the Money and Run , but said he remembers doing very little except passing out
18178-467: The unsigned Micropædia articles. In January 1996, the Britannica was purchased from the Benton Foundation by billionaire Swiss financier Jacqui Safra , who serves as its current chair of the board. In 1997, Don Yannias, a long-time associate and investment advisor of Safra, became CEO of Encyclopædia Britannica, Incorporated. In 1999, a new company, Britannica.com Incorporated ,
18327-518: The urge to direct. Hill: Seeing so many of the European films, Japanese films, I was part of this isolated community in east Hollywood. I remembered thinking just a little further west they are making the films I want to see. I'm going to do this. Sink or swim... I wanted to be a writer on my way to being a director. Directors were already my heroes. Kurosawa , number of Italian directors... Movies from England, France, Sweden, Italy. Poland... One wanted
18476-685: The watchword of its first edition in 1768. As the Britannica is a general encyclopaedia, it does not seek to compete with specialized encyclopaedias such as the Encyclopaedia of Mathematics or the Dictionary of the Middle Ages , which can devote much more space to their chosen topics. In its first years, the Britannica 's main competitor was the general encyclopaedia of Ephraim Chambers and, soon thereafter, Rees's Cyclopædia and Coleridge's Encyclopædia Metropolitana . In
18625-425: The weekends. "I began to read screenplays that were being made, and I hesitate to say this, but I guess I read them and said: 'Christ, I could do that.'" It took him "four to five years to write my first screenplay writing at night, while I still had another day job." He says one of his earlier works "was intensely personal about a love affair I had. It was terrible, I knew it." It was not until he started writing in
18774-439: Was Midway 's Gun Fight , an adaptation of Taito 's Western Gun (1975) which featured two players against each other in a duel set on a sparse desert landscape with a few cacti and a moving covered wagon to hide behind. Atari 's Outlaw (1976) followed which explicitly framed the shootouts between "good guys" and "outlaws" also borrowing from gunfighter themes and imagery. Early console games such as Outlaw (1978) for
18923-427: Was asthmatic as a child and, as a result, missed several years of school. Despite the discomfort, it made you comfortable being alone with yourself. You weren't as surrounded by your peers as everybody else your age was... In my case it meant tremendous amount of reading at an early age... I read, listened to radio... I became utterly besotted with daytime serials... it enabled me to live in an imaginary world where one
19072-473: Was created to develop digital versions of the Britannica ; Yannias assumed the role of CEO in the new company, while his former position at the parent company remained vacant for two years. Yannias' tenure at Britannica.com Incorporated was marked by missteps, considerable lay-offs, and financial losses. In 2001, Yannias was replaced by Ilan Yeshua , who reunited the leadership of the two companies. Yannias later returned to investment management, but remains on
19221-483: Was 15 and he began to think about becoming a writer. He worked in the oil fields as a roustabout on Signal Hill, California , during high school and several more years while in college. During one summer, he ran an asbestos pipe-cutting machine and worked as a spray painter. As a teenager, Hill contemplated being a comic book illustrator and studied art at the Universidad de las Américas, Mexico City . "Mexico
19370-410: Was a big hit which Hill later described "of the films I wrote, I thought it was far and away the best one, and most interesting." He said the success of the film "was really how I got to be a director; the fact it had done so well put me in line to get a shot." Hill and Peckinpah got along well and for a time it seemed Peckinpah might direct Lloyd Williams but he decided to make Pat Garrett and Billy
19519-578: Was a financial failure due to Depression era theatres not willing to invest in widescreen technology. By the late 1930s, the Western film was widely regarded as a pulp genre in Hollywood, but its popularity was dramatically revived in 1939 by major studio productions such as Dodge City starring Errol Flynn , Jesse James with Tyrone Power , Union Pacific with Joel McCrea , Destry Rides Again featuring James Stewart and Marlene Dietrich , and especially John Ford's landmark Western adventure Stagecoach starring John Wayne , which became one of
19668-516: Was also a turning point for Hill as a screenwriter. He read Alexander Jacobs ' screenplay for the John Boorman film Point Blank and considered it a "revelation" in terms of style and format. He decided to tailor his own scripts in that manner, as he described it, "extremely spare, almost Haiku style. Both stage directions and dialogue." He was also influenced by Sam Peckinpah . Hill wrote Hard Times , The Driver , The Warriors , and
19817-500: Was also available as a Firefox extension but this was taken down due to a code review issue. The print version of the Britannica has 4,411 contributors, many eminent in their fields, such as Nobel laureate economist Milton Friedman , astronomer Carl Sagan , and surgeon Michael DeBakey . Roughly a quarter of the contributors are deceased, some as long ago as 1947 ( Alfred North Whitehead ), while another quarter are retired or emeritus . Most (approximately 98%) contribute to only
19966-590: Was as far away as I could get without any money," he says. He then transferred and majored in history at Michigan State University . He said that, during this period, he was a particular fan of Ernest Hemingway 's writing and came to believe that "the hardest thing to do is write clearly and simply, and make your point in an elegant way". Upon graduation, Hill was called up for the United States Army in 1964, but childhood asthma saw him ruled ineligible. This forced him to think about what he wanted to do for
20115-599: Was critically acclaimed but, in Hill's words, it "didn't make a... nickel anywhere. Foreign, domestic, anything... I was proud of the film... But I was disappointed in the lack of response. It was a universal audience failure... Usually you can say they loved it in Japan or something. I don't think anybody loved it anywhere." Hill tried to make Lone Star , from the play by James McLure to star Powers Boothe and Sigourney Weaver (1981). Like Red Harvest and The Last Good Kiss it
20264-469: Was financed by EMI Films who announced they would make a second film with Hill, a Western he wrote with Roger Spottiswoode , The Last Gun . However The Driver was a commercial failure in the United States. "To say it did not do well would be kind," said Hill. "Had I not been shooting The Warriors at the time, I don't think my career would have survived. They loved it overseas, but in those days, that didn't matter that much. It made exactly zero dollars in
20413-441: Was going to make The Last Gun with Larry Gordon but when the financing on the project failed to materialize, Gordon showed Hill a copy of the novel The Warriors by Sol Yurick . They took it to Paramount Pictures because they were interested in youth films at the time and succeeded in getting the project financed. Hill remembers "it came together very quickly. Larry had a special relationship with Paramount and we promised to make
20562-558: Was going to make with Steve McQueen. Bogdanovich and Hill worked on the script together in San Francisco while Bogdanovich was directing What's Up, Doc? Hill says that Bogdanovich was interested in making the film a more Hitchcock -type film. They had completed 25 pages when they went back to L.A., whereupon McQueen fired Bogdanovich without reading any of their work. Sam Peckinpah came on to direct; Hill started from scratch and wrote his own script in six weeks. The resulting film
20711-470: Was inspired by Red Harvest , an American detective novel by Dashiell Hammett . Kurosawa was influenced by American Westerns and was a fan of the genre, most especially John Ford . Despite the Cold War , the Western was a strong influence on Eastern Bloc cinema, which had its own take on the genre, the so-called Red Western or Ostern. Generally, these took two forms: either straight Westerns shot in
20860-725: Was issued in London in 1960. Its contents were determined largely by the eleven-plus standardized tests given in Britain. Britannica introduced the Children's Britannica to the US market in 1988, aimed at ages seven to 14. In 1961, a 16-volume Young Children's Encyclopaedia was issued for children just learning to read. My First Britannica is aimed at children ages six to 12, and the Britannica Discovery Library
21009-402: Was later sold to United Artists and rewritten by director Robert Culp . Hill said he felt the film "had some nice moments, but it was cast much differently than it was written. I wasn't too excited about it." Meanwhile, Peter Bogdanovich 's ex-wife Polly Platt , a film editor, had read Hill's script for Hickey & Boggs and recommended him to co-write The Getaway , which Bogdanovich
21158-518: Was listed as the Deputy Editor and Theodore Pappas as Executive Editor. Prior Executive Editors include John V. Dodge (1950–1964) and Philip W. Goetz. Paul T. Armstrong remains the longest working employee of Encyclopædia Britannica. He began his career there in 1934, eventually earning the positions of treasurer, vice president, and chief financial officer in his 58 years with the company, before retiring in 1992. The 2007 editorial staff of
21307-531: Was much harder to get in. To be an older director was a very positive thing. It meant you had survived, knew your way, could make things and make them meet your economic responsibilities. It was always paramount in studio minds, especially in those days... If I was going to direct I was going to write my way in. No TV, no play, I was simply somebody who said I have a sensibility, I think I can do this, based on nothing other than my scripts basically. Hill met producer Lawrence Gordon in 1973. He agreed to let Hill direct
21456-447: Was not made. Larry Gross later recalled meeting Hill in the early 1980s: He'd had some success, but then he had a series of setbacks. And there was also the scandal around The Warriors ; any success had been eclipsed by the killings in the theaters. So there was that, as well as the noncommercial success of Southern Comfort and Long Riders and the fact that there was a writer's strike. All of that meant that Walter hadn't worked in
21605-400: Was responsible for "driving business and cultural transformation and accelerating growth". Taking the reins of the company as it was preparing to mark its 250th anniversary and define the next phase of its digital strategy for consumers and K–12 schools, Krishnan launched a series of new initiatives in his first year. First was Britannica Insights, a free, downloadable software extension to
21754-466: Was significantly more expensive than its competitors. Since the early 1990s, the Britannica has faced new challenges from digital information sources. The Internet, facilitated by the development of search engines , has grown into a common source of information for many people, and provides easy access to reliable original sources and expert opinions, thanks in part to initiatives such as Google Books , MIT 's release of its educational materials and
21903-515: Was the first Western television series written for adults, premiering four days before Gunsmoke on September 6, 1955. The peak year for television Westerns was 1959, with 26 such shows airing during primetime. At least six of them were connected in some extent to Wyatt Earp : The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp , Bat Masterson , Tombstone Territory , Broken Arrow , Johnny Ringo , and Gunsmoke . Increasing costs of American television production weeded out most action half-hour series in
22052-408: Was very popular and received excellent reviews. "Hollywood forgives a lot when you have a hit," said Hill. "I don't know what to say about it, other than the fact that it was just a gift in terms of getting it. The studio hated it, and didn't even want to release it. There was a lot of friction with management at the time. Some of it might have been my fault." James Keach had developed a script about
22201-472: Was very sympathetic and identified with the New Hollywood ." But his films "are, or were, rather retro. That is to say, I didn't tackle subjects. I wanted to do genre films." Hill's first completed screenplay, a Western called Lloyd Williams and His Brother , was optioned by Joe Wizan . It was never made but the script was admired at Warner Bros who asked Hill to pitch some projects. He came up with
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