Blake Edwards

The first critical analysis of its kind to focus on the dramatic works of Blake Edwards

Blake Edwards, best known for popular comedies such as The Pink Panther series with Peter Sellers, enjoyed a successful 70-year career as a writer, producer, actor, and director in radio, television, film, and theater. Perhaps one of the most important and influential film directors of his generation, many of Edwards's serious films have been forgotten, overlooked, or marginalized.

In Blake Edwards: Film Director as Multitalented Auteur, William Luhr and Peter Lehman provide a detailed critical analysis of Edwards's serious works, including his dramas, radio and television works, theatrical productions, one-man art shows, and unproduced screenplays. Drawing on original research from numerous set visits and personal interviews, this in-depth volume explores the relationship between Edwards's comedies and dramas, considers how he worked creatively in disparate genres, discusses how Edwards used composition, editing, screen space, and visual motifs to shape his films, and much more. Luhr and Lehman also examine films written by Edwards that he did not direct, such as Drive a Crooked Road, challenging the assumption of auteur critics that serious artistic achievement is the sole province of cinema marginalizing radio and television as well as writing, producing, and acting. Exploring the complex and creative way Edwards approached genre conventions in his works, Blake Edwards: Film Director as Multitalented Auteur:

* Features interviews with Edwards and many of his creative and business collaborators, including composer Henry Mancini and writer-director Richard Quine.
* Analyzes non-comedic films including Experiment in Terror, Days of Wine and Roses, The Tamarind Seed, and Sunset.
* Reviews theater works such as Victor/Victoria: The Musical and unproduced film adaptations such as The Pink Panther Musical and A Shot in the Dark Surveys Peter Gunn, Richard Diamond: Private Detective, and other early radio, television, and movie work.
* Applies important work in contemporary film theory such as the global digital convergence of radio, television and film to auteur criticism of Edwards's films.

Blake Edwards: Film Director as Multitalented Auteur is an excellent text for university courses in American cinema, genres, auteurs, and film criticism, and a must-read for critics, scholars, and general readers interested in the works of Blake Edwards.