Royal Books

N.p., Various dates, mostly circa 1961 - 1963. Three composition books. Small quartos. Modest wear, mostly Near Fine. Illustrated entirely by Ben Talbert, one of the most important artists in the Los Angeles circle that revolved around Wallace Berman and his publication Semina. Berman and his circle were at the...

(read more)about Three Notebooks of Sketches and Plans for Installations, with related material

New York: Rinehart, 1946. First Edition. Publisher's colophon on the copyright page as called for. Gresham's first book, a dispassionate descent into the world of the carnival sideshows, based largely on the author's own experiences and investigations. Basis for the notable 1947 film noir, directed by Edmund Goulding and starring...

(read more)about Nightmare Alley

Universal City, CA: Universal Pictures, 1936. Vintage sepia toned double weight photograph from the filming of the 1936 Universal Studios newsreel "You Can't Get Away With It." Shot in the office of J. Edgar Hoover, Director of the FBI, on October 14, 1936, the photo shows Hoover filming his Assistant...

(read more)about Photograph of J. Edgar Hoover during filming of "You Can't Get Away With It"

Munich: Universum Film [UFA], 1927. Vintage black-and-white still photograph from the original German release of the 1927 film. With the UFA logo at the bottom right corner. Director Lang's expressionist masterpiece, based on the novel and written for the screen by then-wife von Harbou, one of the most enduring and...

(read more)about Metropolis

Hollywood: Paramount Pictures, 1979. Final Draft script for the 1980 film. A shining credit for John Travolta, based on an article in Esquire magazine (1978) by Aaron Latham. A country boy moves to the city to take a job with his uncle, meets a cowgirl and the two fall in...

(read more)about Urban Cowboy

N.p. N.p., 1966. Vintage program from Otis Redding's 1966 tour, where he headlined the "Winter Carnival of Stars," which also included Aaron Neville, James and Bobby Purify, The Marvelettes, The Original Drafters, Lorraine Ellison, Sad Sam, and comedian Irwin C. Watson. With a full page photograph and biography of each...

(read more)about The Otis Redding Show

Los Angeles: Paramount Pictures, 1987. Revised Draft script for the 1988 film, seen here under the title "Police Squad." Production designer John J. Lloyd's working copy, with his name and numerous notations on the front wrapper, and throughout the script. Based on the television show "Police Squad!" (1982), created by...

(read more)about The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! [Police Squad]

Paris: Societe d'Exploitation et de Distribution de Films, 1938. Set of 3 black-and-white still photographs from the US premiere of the 1964 film. Each with a mimeo snipe affixed to the verso, as issued, noting that the film is making its debut at the Esquire Theatre in Los Angeles. Also...

(read more)about Hotel du Nord

France: Euro International Film, 1972. Vintage borderless photograph of Jean-Paul Melville on the set of the 1972 film. A police detective, played by Delon in a switch from his usual criminal roles in Melville's films, is on the trail of a gang of thieves, unaware that they are led by...

(read more)about Un Flic

Hollywood: Paramount Pictures, 1934. Archive for the 1934 film, including a Draft script with holograph corrections, the resulting mimeograph Final script, and signed "Certificate of Authorship," Certificate of Authorship notarized by the County of Los Angeles and signed by each of the film's writers, including J.P. McEvoy, Claude Binyon, Garnett...

(read more)about The Old Fashioned Way

Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott, 1963. First Edition. The author's first book. About Fine in a Near Fine, first issue dust jacket. Small sticker shadows to the front and rear pastedowns. Jacket has light fading to the yellow of the spine panel and a hint of rubbing at the spine ends and...

(read more)about V.

New York: Harper and Brothers, 1935. First Edition. Winner of both the 1935 Harper Prize and the Pulitzer Prize. Very Good plus in a Very Good, unclipped first state dust jacket. Book has light foxing to the boards and page edges, with toning to two pages where a laid-in newspaper...

(read more)about Honey in the Horn

Beverly Hills, CA: EK Corp. / United Artists, Circa 1974. Early Draft British script for the 1974 British heist film. Based on Gerald Browne's 1972 novel, adapted by Charles Grodin. Howard Chesser (Grodin) is a diamond merchant supervising the cutting of a large and rare diamond. When the diamond is...

(read more)about 11 Harrowhouse

Los Angeles: Twentieth Century-Fox, 1958. Final script for the 1959 film. Based on the novel of the same name by Pulitzer Prize winning author A.B. Guthrie, Jr., the third installment in Guthrie's trilogy about the Old West. SIGNED by actor Don Murray on the title page. An unusual Western, with...

(read more)about These Thousand Hills

St. Louis: N.p., 1912-1916. Album containing over 300 vintage black and white and sepia tone vernacular photographs belonging to St. Louis Cycling Club member Lloyd H. Faidley, shot between 1912 and 1916. Housed in a leather bound volume with gilt titles. An uncommonly large and intimate album illustrating the adventures...

(read more)about Photo album of the St. Louis Cycling Club, 1912-1916

Burbank, CA: Warner Brothers, 1976. First Draft script for the 1976 film. The third entry in the wildly popular and paradigm-shifting crime film franchise set in San Francisco, featuring Clint Eastwood as "Dirty" Harry Callahan, a cop who cares little for bureaucracy. This entry finds Harry working with similar resistance...

(read more)about The Enforcer

Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 1907 - 1908. First Edition. Warwickshire Edition. Twenty five volumes. An attractive and comprehensive set of Eliot's work, together with a biography of her life written by her husband, which includes entries from her letters and journals. All volumes Near Fine to Fine and unread, with maroon...

(read more)about The Writings of George Eliot, Together with The Life by J.W. Cross

London: Wardour Films / Universum Film [UFA], 1927. Original program for the London premiere of the film on March 21st, 1927 at the Marble Arch Pavilion, preceded in English by the US release earlier that month but with different title cards. Director Lang's expressionist masterpiece, based on the novel and...

(read more)about Metropolis

Beverly Hills, CA: Orion, 1986. Fourth Draft script for the 1987 film. Copying belonging to actor Stephen Berrier, who played Roosevelt, one of the scientists responsible for transforming police officer Alex Murphy into The Future of Law Enforcement. With Berrier's name, character name, and signature in holograph ink on the...

(read more)about Robocop

London: Robert Hale, 1957. First Edition. SIGNED by the author on the title page. A very presentable copy of what is, in our experience, perhaps the author's rarest title, much more difficult than the already-scarce American edition published by Houghton Mifflin. Leonard's third novel, a Western, the only copy we...

(read more)about Escape from Five Shadows

New York: Boni and Liveright, 1926 [1925]. Hardcover. Thirteenth printing, published in May 1926 (first printing having been published in November 1925). INSCRIBED by Anita Loos to director George Cukor on the front endpaper some years later: "April 7, 1954 / So now after 25 years you want my autograph! / My love you've always had / Anita." With Cukor's...

(read more)about Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (Hardcover, inscribed by Anita Loos to George Cukor]

N.p. Cliff Leary, 1929. Vintage sepia photograph of the world premiere of the landmark 1929 film, at the legendary Criterion Theatre in New York. Shot by photographer Cliff Leary, with his stamp on the verso, as well as a numeric reference number (6434), and the stamp of a Scandanavian press...

(read more)about The Love Parade [Parade d'amour]

New York: Clifford Hayman, Circa 1965. Draft script for the 1959 British play. Copy belonging to Dana Andrews, from Clifford Hayman, the producer for the play in London, with a mimeograph letter signed by Hayman, dated August 25, 1965, suggesting Andrews' production company bring the play to the US for...

(read more)about A Clean Kill

Universal City, CA: Universal Pictures, 1943. Revised Final Draft script for the 1944 film. Screenwriter Hartmann's final submission for the master mimeo, with profuse holograph corrections, typeovers, attached text, and pasted-in text throughout. The second of Universal's Technicolor fantasy adventures (after "Arabian Nights," 1942, and "White Savage," 1943), loosely based...

(read more)about Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves

Hollywood: RKO Radio Pictures, circa 1944. Collection of eight original preliminary advertising concept art sketches for the release of the seminal 1944 film noir. Executed variously in graphite, charcoal, and gouache on onion skin paper, each leaf tipped on to card stock at the corners, some with notations at the...

(read more)about The Woman in the Window

New York: The Vanguard Press, 1944. First Edition. The author's first book, with a price of $2.50 at the bottom of the jacket front flap as called for. Near Fine in a bright, about Near Fine dust jacket, with a lovely, deep brown topstain. Backstrip and jacket spine panel both...

(read more)about The Dangling Man

New York: Bantam Books, 1973. No. R7678. First Edition, a paperback original. Melvin Van Peebles' copy, with his name, company name ("Y.E.A.H., Inc."), address, and phone number in holograph ink on the inside front wrapper. Contains the script and lyrics for Van Peebles' Broadway play, a series of 19 politically...

(read more)about Ain't Supposed to Die a Natural Death

Tokyo: Gendai Eigasha, 1969. Draft script for the 1969 film. Front wrapper notes a date of 1969 and credit as a Gendai Eigasha production. The second page is a elegaic introduction to the film story: "On the erotology and insurrection of sugi Sakae, who wrote of dancing as flowers strangled...

(read more)about Eros + Massacre [Eros Plus Massacre]

Prague: Elektafilm, 1940. Collection of 44 vintage oversize, double weight photographs from the 1940 film, based on the 1897 novel by Vilem Mrstik. The photographs have been tipped into a contemporary photo album with a title page executed in holograph paint, and tissue paper between each page. The sweet and...

(read more)about Pohadka maje

Paris: Jean-Michel Place, 1999. First printing of this edition, originally published by Reynal and Hitchcock in 1939. Husband and wife team Dorothea Lange and Paul Taylor were hired by the Farm Security Administration to document the 300,000 strong, Depression-era exodus, and the struggles theses migrant workers overcame in search of...

(read more)about An American Exodus: A Record of Human Erosion

Oxford, MS: Square Books, 2006. Broadside, one of 300 non-numbered copies. While not called for, this copy is elegantly SIGNED by Richard Ford. A nicely designed broadside excerpt from the author's book, "The Lay of the Land." Quite scarce.

(read more)about The Lay of the Land - Broadside Excerpt

Los Angeles: Twentieth Century-Fox, 1958. Revised Final script for the 1959 film. Copy belonging to Clifton Webb, with every inclusion of his character's dialogue, underlined in holograph ink. Notations on nearly every page in holograph pencil, including penciled vertical lines indicating that a scene is complete. Based on the 1957...

(read more)about Holiday for Lovers

Paris: France Cinema, 1962. Collection of 75 original black-and-white film still photographs for the 1962 French-Italian film, here under the original French title. Starring actress Saval is prominently featured, as is costar Poiret, with metal crutches in tow, and actress Maillan. Several images show members of the crew during filming...

(read more)about How to Succeed in Love [Comment reussir en amour]

New York: National Lampoon, 1974. Archive of 26 episodes of "The National Lampoon Radio Hour" on 1/4 inch magnetic tape, individually housed in cardboard boxes with a National Lampoon label and holograph marker noting the episode number, running sequentially from episode 21 (April 5, 1974) through episode 46 (September 26, 1974). Also included is an unlabeled 1/4 inch video tape...

(read more)about The National Lampoon Radio Hour

Venice, CA: Blum Group, 1977. Third Draft script for the 1978 film. A Hollywood agent has racked up huge gambling debt and needs to quickly pay back the bookie. He organizes a group of talented skateboarders and enters them into a major competition with a $20,000 prize. Shot on location...

(read more)about Skateboard

Beverly Hills, CA: Faces, 1974. Original poster for the US premiere of the 1974 film at Columbia I and Columbia II on 2nd Avenue at 64th Street in New York. Cassavetes had only screened the film at two festivals prior to the date advertised here, the San Sebastian Film Festival...

(read more)about A Woman Under the Influence