Showmanship: The Cinema of William Castle

William Castle was cinema’s Abominable Showman – the marketing genius who thought “outside the coffin” to dream up outrageous PR gimmicks like PERCEPTO! and EMERGO! He was also the talented director of 56 feature films, from the noir When Strangers Marry and the Whistler mysteries, to Westerns, swashbucklers and – his fearsome forte – celebrated shockers such as House on Haunted Hill, Strait-Jacket, Homicidal, The Tingler, and more! Author Joe Jordan provides exhaustive scholarly analysis of each of Castle’s directorial efforts, as well as production background, little-known anecdotes, and succinct plot synopses. “Joe Jordan dissects the films of William Castle with delicious abandon, as if he wields the razor edge of Joan Crawford’s axe from Strait-Jacket. Like slicing tendons from marrow, he carves into the masterful showman’s work with surgical precision and pulls the mask from the myths. A genuine thriller from A-Z. Hardly a shadow misses his myopic scrutiny. Every page keeps you on the edge of your seat.” – David W. Menefee, Pulitzer nominated author of Wally: The True Wallace Reid Story. “Fills in the missing ‘Fright Break’ in every horror aficionado’s film library!” – Lucy Chase Williams, The Complete Films of Vincent Price.