Royal Books

N.p. N.p., 1979-1997. Archive of 22 pieces of correspondence between writer Larry Gelbart and director Robert Parrish, consisting of nine typescripts, six of which are INSCRIBED, plus three autographed letters signed, one typed letter signed, and six autographed notes from Gelbart to Parrish, as well as three outgoing carbons of...

(read more)about Archive of Scripts and Letters from Larry Gelbart to Robert Parrish

New York: Simon and Schuster, 1935. First Edition. INSCRIBED in the year of publication by the author to legendary film director Tod Browning: "To Tod Browning / with admiration / Horace McCoy / Hollywood, August, 1935." A wonderful association. Horace McCoy was a Hollywood screenwriter in 1935, and at the...

(read more)about They Shoot Horses, Don't They

Tokyo: Toho Company, 1960. Draft script for the 1960 Japanese film. Holograph ink and stamp on the outer page edges. Production designer's script, with holograph underlining on numerous pages regarding objects needed for a given scene (swimsuits, sun cream, summer kimonos, Persian cat, etc.) Other annotations, in the same hand...

(read more)about Evening Stream [The Lovelorn Geisha

Universal City, CA: Universal Pictures, 1968. Second Revised Final script for the 1970 film. A Cold War-era science fiction film in the vein of Kubrick's "Dr. Strangelove," in which US and USSR supercomputers join forces to create either world peace or, if crossed, world destruction. When cast, actor Eric Braeden...

(read more)about Colossus: The Forbin Project

La Rochelle, France: 1975. Original poster for the 1975 stream-of-consciousness opera directed by Robert Wilson, for its debut in La Rochelle, France in 1975. Known for his deep concern for the use of language in his work, this piece is characteristic of Wilson's explicit attention to detail. In the play...

(read more)about A Letter for Queen Victoria: An Opera

Lausanne, Switzerland: Editions L'Age D'Homme, 2005. First Edition, a trade softcover original. INSCRIBED by director Alexandre Sokourov on the half title page: "Pierre Goulliard / [unknown] / Alexandre Sokourov / 2007." In 2007, Sokourov, a prolific Russian filmmaker of increasing complexity and daring, was nominated for the Palme d'Or at...

(read more)about Alexandre Sokourov

Paris: Albina Productions S.a.r.l., 1975. Vintage photograph of Romy Schneider dressed as Marlene Dietrich in a scene from the 1975 film. With the stamp of photographer Giancarlo Botti on the verso, as well as printed mimeo snipes in both English and French. Based on the 1972 novel "La Nuit americaine"...

(read more)about That Most Important Thing: Love [L'important c'est d'aimer

Los Angeles: Maverick International, 1979. Draft script for the 1981 film. Copy belonging to producer Cassius Weathersby, with his name in holograph ink on the front wrapper and title page, and holograph annotations on nearly every page. Also included is an extensive archive of material relating to the production, including...

(read more)about Getting Over

New York: Phoenix Press, 1935. First Edition. Fuller's first book, a sort of cynical screwball satire, about a New York reporter's rise, fall, triumphant return, and ultimate failure in Hollywood. One of three pulp novels he wrote prior to bringing the same sensibilities to his brilliant career as a film...

(read more)about Burn, Baby, Burn

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!...

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

New York: Francis Productions, Inc, circa 1968. First Draft script for the 1968 film. Copy belonging to Frank Perry, with his name in red holograph ink on the title page. Perry considered making the film, but it was ultimately directed by Christian Marquand. This draft is credited solely to Southern...

(read more)about Candy

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

N.p. N.p., Circa 1970s. Original typescript screenplay for an unproduced film called "After the Fall," based on Arthur Miller's 1964 play about a Jewish intellectual living in New York. Miller's play opened on Broadway in 1964, at the ANTA Washington Square Theatre, ran for 208 performances, and closed on May...

(read more)about After the Fall

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

Beverly Hills, CA: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer [MGM], 1962. Original US three-sheet poster for the 1962 film. An iconic image for an iconic film. Kubrick's rendition of Nabokov's masterpiece is legendary in its own right, a work that stands ten feet above the rhetoric later raised by Nabokov's son and the resulting forgettable...

(read more)about Lolita

New York: Arbor House, 1975. First Edition. Fine and unread in a Fine dust jacket. SIGNED by Block as Jill Emerson on the title page. The author's second book under this female pseudonym, as nice a copy as we have seen.

(read more)about A Week as Andrea Benstock

Los Angeles: Twentieth Century-Fox, 1957. Draft script for the 1957 film. In Selznick Studio wrappers, with the insignia on the front wrapper. An original production script, with a perforated distribution leaf preceding the title page. The second film version of Ernest Hemingway's 1929 novel, and also the last film produced...

(read more)about A Farewell to Arms

Studio City, CA: EMI Television Programs, Inc., 1976. Two Revised draft scripts, Part I and Part II, comprising the complete script, for the 1977 television film, which was broadcast in two parts on CBS on April 13 and 14, 1977.First script, titled "Howard: The Amazing Mr. Hughes" on front wrapper...

(read more)about The Amazing Howard Hughes [Howard: The Amazing Mr. Hughes

Hollywood: Paramount Pictures, 1974. Deluxe original press kit for the 1974 film. Includes 29 vintage black-and-white still photographs, each with the Paramount two-color folding snipe, a facsimile cover of Newsweek drawn from the film's content, a dense program that includes essays on the making of the film, and several stapled...

(read more)about Nashville

London: Vic Films / Governor Films, 1962. Final British Script for the 1962 film, based on the 1960 novel. Along with "Billy Liar" (1963), which he would make the following year, John Schlesinger's first feature film is perhaps the quintessential document of middle-class life in Northern England during the early...

(read more)about A Kind of Loving

New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1966. First Edition. INSCRIBED by Martha Graham to the late, legendary film director Sidney Lumet at the half-title page: "For Sidney Lumet / Martha Graham." Sidney Lumet's astounding catalog of films slightly predicted (and later joined) the work of the great filmmakers of the 1970s...

(read more)about Martha Graham: Portrait of the Lady as an Artist

Mexico: Era, 1966. First Mexican Edition, preceded by 1962 Madrid edition, but the first printing of the text as Garcia Marquez originally intended. One of just 2,000 copies, and much scarcer than the 1962 Madrid edition of which 5,000 copies were printed. In an author's note to this edition, Gracia...

(read more)about La mala hora [In Evil Hour

Hollywood: Paramount Pictures, 1943. Revised Draft script for the 1943 film. Co-written for the screen by Raymond Chandler and Frank Partos. Chandler's contribution to the script had mostly to do with Alan Ladd's character and his tough dialogue (elements sneered at by the media upon the film's release). Laid in...

(read more)about And Now Tomorrow

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

New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1913. First Edition. SIGNED by Biggers on the front endpaper. Near Fine lacking dust jacket. Gilt intact on front board and spine, tissue guard frontis intact. Neat owner stamp to front endpaper, else a lovely copy of the author's first book. Housed in a custom paper slipcase.

(read more)about Seven Keys to Baldpate

New York: St. Martin's Press, 2000. First Edition. Boldly SIGNED by Sonny Rollins in black marker on the front endpaper, along with a small doodle of a sixteenth note couplet. Fine and unread in a Fine dust jacket. Full provenance available.

(read more)about Open Sky: Sonny Rollins and His World of Improvisation

Vienna: Deutsch-Osterreichischer Verlag, 1924. First German Edition, preceding all others, this being the hardcover variant published simultaneously with a more common wrappered edition. INSCRIBED by Balazs in German on the half-title page to German expressionist writer Leonhard Frank: "Leonhard Frank / in herlzlicher Freundschaft / Bela Balazs / Berlin /...

(read more)about Der Sichtbare Mensch oder die Kultur des Films [The Visible Man

Los Angeles: Privately printed at the Pueblo Press, 1939. First Edition, one of a limited edition of 250 copies (this being no. 156). This copy additionally INSCRIBED by cinematographer and film historian Charles G. Clarke, who wrote the introduction, to director Richard Fleischer on the second blank: "For Richard: /...

(read more)about Edison's Invention of the Kineto-Phonograph

Weimer: Verlag der Hofbuchhandlung Alexander Buschke Nachf, 1908. First Edition. A very early work by writer, actress and film maker Thea von Harbou, best known for writing and co-directing "Metropolis" (1927) in collaboration with her then-husband Fritz Lang. The only recorded presentation copy, INSCRIBED by both Thea and her brother...

(read more)about Weimar: ein Sommertagstraum. Tiefurt: aus den Memoiren eines Sonnenstrahls. Belvedere: In einer...

France: Cinedis, Circa 1960. Archive of 207 vintage borderless single weight still photographs and contact sheets from the 1960 French film. Numerical annotations on the verso of nearly all photos in holograph pencil, several cropped contact sheets mounted on larger sheets. Housed in a vintage French Kodak brand photo paper...

(read more)about Quai du Point-du-Jour

Phoenix, AZ: Border House, 1971. First Edition, with the pictorial marijuana leaf design box top (replaced later with a white box top). Complete, with playing pieces, fake money, cards, and scoring pad in the original, unopened plastic bag. Rare, with no copies in OCLC. A Monopoly-esque game where players compete...

(read more)about Beat the Border: The Game of Narcotics Traffic

Universal City, CA: Universal Pictures, 1955. Revised Final Draft script for the 1956 film. Copy belonging to the script supervisor, Adele Cannon, profusely annotated throughout in holograph ink and pencil. Included is a studio still photograph from the film, featuring the Creature and people in peril. Third installment in the...

(read more)about The Creature Walks Among Us

Universal City, CA: Universal Pictures, Circa 1976. Early Draft script for the 1977 film. At 200 pages, this draft is 36 pages longer than the longest of the three we have encountered, meaning almost certainly that it is a First Draft or very close.The plot of William Friedkin's suspense thriller...

(read more)about Sorcerer

Burbank, CA: Warner Brothers, 1942. Draft script for the 1942 film. Actor Van Heflin's copy. A 1942 film musical with a somewhat controversial trajectory. Seven years after its release, Hungarian playwright and concentration camp survivor Ferenc Herczeg sued MGM for plagiarizing his 1903 play, "Seven Sisters." Paramount legally adapted the...

(read more)about Seven Sweethearts [Tulip Time

New York: Filmways Pictures, 1980. Revised Draft script for the 1981 film. Included is a second script, a revised draft in wrappers containing the latest revisions, and two shooting schedules, one detailing shooting dates beginning Week Three, and one detailing dates beginning about Week Nine. Notations throughout both scripts in...

(read more)about Four Friends

London: Hogarth Press, 1938. First Edition. An especially sharp copy, Fine and unread in a bright, fresh, very nearly Fine dust jacket. Jacket has a couple of tiny nicks at the crown, and just a hint of foxing at the front and rear panels, but with none of the toning...

(read more)about Three Guineas