The popular Citadel Press "100" Series takes an exciting new twist with The Film 100, a listing of cinematic luminaries, ranked in order by the sheer magnitude of their impact on the motion picture industry. Hailed by scholars and filmmakers, this collection details an elite group of artists from Hollywood and around the world.Had the future of motion pictures been left in the hands of Thomas Edison, there would be no Hollywood, no buttered popcorn, and no Star Wars. Edison simply wasn't interested in motion pictures. So it took the courage and persistence of an assistant in the Edison laboratory named William Kennedy Laurie Dickson to seek out a method for recording the moving image. His determination has become legend among film historians and places him first in The Film 100.The book examines all of the significant developments in filmmaking and sheds a surprising new light on many familiar faces. Did you know, for example, that the lovable silent-screen urchin Jackie Coogan (79) was involved in a landmark legal decision that forever protected the rights of child actors? Or that Orson Welles (5) once drafted a script for Charlie Chaplin's (3) final cinematic performance? Is it possible that the famous shower scene in Alfred Hitchcock's (6) film Psycho, was actually directed by poster artist Saul Bass (56)?In giving credit to the most deserving contributors of this unique art form, some unheralded heroes emerge as well: Natalie Kalmus (73), the wife of Technicolor creator Herbert T. Kalmus, who saved color films from an early death; Mike Todd (53), the daring showman who championed wide-screen and new sound processes as a way to stave off television's encroachments on movieprofits; and the relentless Richard Hollingshead (92), whose open-air drive-in movie theaters became a distinct part of American culture.Filled with alluring screen idols, flamboyant producers, and eccentric inventors, The Film 100 offers readers new and engaging biogr