Alain Silver
Alain Silver is a US film producer, film director, and screenwriter; music producer; film critic, film historian, DVD commentator, author and editor of books and essays on film topics, especially film noir and horror films.
Career
Education
Silver graduated from UCLA with degrees in film production (B.A.) and critical studies (M.A. and PhD).
Film production
Silver entered the film industry through the Assistant Directors Training Program[1] and was a trainee, second assistant and first assistant director on movies such as Every Which Way But Loose, The Manitou, and The Bad News Bears in Breaking Training and on television series such as Police Woman, Angie, Mork and Mindy and Laverne and Shirley. In 1981, Silver began working as a production manager and producer. Since 1984, Silver has been executive or supervising producer on a number of movies such as The Ratings Game, The Quickie, 10th & Wolf and The 7. Silver has also produced eleven independent features, including Night Visitor, Cyborg 2 and Beat, as well documentaries, music videos, and segments for the TV reality series America's Most Wanted and I, Survived.
Silver has given lectures on production and appeared on and moderated panels for the Directors Guild of America and various other venues such as the Slamdance Film Festival and Cinequest Film Festival.
Writing
Silver has written and edited twenty books, mostly with James Ursini or Elizabeth Ward, including The Noir Style; L.A. Noir; Film Noir Readers 1, 2, 3 and 4; Gangster Film Reader; Raymond Chandler's Los Angeles; The Samurai Film; Horror Film Reader; Film Noir the Encyclopedia; Film Noir the Directors; David Lean and his Films; What Ever Happened to Robert Aldrich; More Things than Are Dreamt Of; The Vampire Film; Roger Corman: Metaphysics on a Shoestring; Steve McQueen, Frank Sinatra, and Katharine Hepburn for the Taschen Icon series; The Film Director's Team; and Film Budgeting. Silver also reviews films and has written numerous articles on Raymond Chandler, samurai cinema, film noir, vampire films, and other topics on film history and production. He has provided audio and video commentary on DVD versions of over a score of classic period film noir and gangster films as part of the "extra" features often included with DVD releases of movies such as Call Northside 777, The Dark Corner, Double Indemnity, Panic in the Streets, The Street with No Name and Thieves' Highway. He has done film noir visual presentations on the long take for Hillsdale College and "A Noir Tour of L.A." at the Los Angeles Film Festival.[2]
He has also produced a number of soundtrack albums for Citadel Records and Bay Cities Music. He is a member of the Directors Guild of America, the Screen Actors Guild, and the Writers Guild of America, West.
List of audio commentaries
- Boomerang, with film historian James Ursini
- Brute Force, with James Ursini
- Call Northside 777, with James Ursini
- Crossfire, with James Ursini, plus audio interview excerpts of director Edward Dmytryk
- The Dark Corner, with James Ursini
- Hobson's Choice, with James Ursini
- House of Bamboo, with James Ursini
- Invisible Stripes, with James Ursini
- Kiss Me Deadly, with James Ursini
- Kiss of Death, with James Ursini
- Lady in the Lake, with James Ursini
- The Lodger, with James Ursini
- Murder, My Sweet
- Mystery Street, with film historian Elizabeth Ward
- Nightmare Alley, with James Ursini
- Panic in the Streets, with James Ursini
- Ride the Pink Horse, with James Ursini
- The River's Edge, with James Ursini
- Smart Money, with James Ursini
- The Street with No Name, with James Ursini
- Tension, with Elizabeth Ward and actress Audrey Totter
- Thieves' Highway
- Where Danger Lives, with James Ursini