STOP YELLIN': BEN PIVAR AND THE HORROR, MYSTERY AND ACTION-ADVENTURE FILMS OF HIS UNIVERSAL B-UNIT (paperback)

HORROR, ACTION-ADVENTURE, MYSTERIES, COMEDIES, FILM NOIR: Hollywood producer Ben Pivar’s output encompassed most film genres, with even a musical, some serials, and Japan’s first full-color anime thrown into the mix! Never heard of him?  Not surprising, as Ben Pivar was one of the faceless craftsmen who inhabited the sizeable world of Hollywood’s cinematic underbelly, the B film. But while often disparaged and mocked for their low-budget look, breakneck storytelling, and low wattage casts, B films occupied the second half of most theaters’ bill during the thirties and forties—something  most patrons expected to fill out their evening’s entertainment. And Ben Pivar was responsible for a staggering number of them.STOP YELLIN’ chronicles Pivar’s life, both the highs and lows, concentrating on his most productive years while at Universal Studios. From his late-1920s start as a film cutter at Universal, Pivar advanced into film production in the 1930s at Columbia, Grand National, and Republ