Dr. K — I’ve got DARK CITY DAMES, but I’ve never heard of SHEPPERTON BABYLON. Amazon, here I come!

Eddie Muller’s follow up to DARK CITY, called DARK CITY DAMES: THE WICKED WOMEN OF FILM NOIR is also worth checking out for similar reasons: great writing and lots of images.

I’d also highly recommend Matthew Sweet’s SHEPPERTON BABYLON: THE LOST WORLDS OF BRITISH CINEMA. Sweet takes a contrarian approach to British film history, harshly criticizing some of the classic British actors and films while championing unknowns. The book covers dozens of films that I’ve never heard of but now desperately want to track down. He also includes some juicy tidbits of scandals and behind-the-scenes shenanigans in British cinema, and Sweet managed to track down many of the retired and forgotten stars and filmmakers of the day.

By the way, you’ve mentioned David Bordwell and his wife Kristin Thompson in past columns. I really enjoyed and got a lot out of his book “The Way Hollywood Tells It: Story and Style in Modern Movies.” Bordwell is a retired film teacher, but he still lends some of his incredible knowledge about what goes into moviemaking and how they’re composed and edited in this book.

For great essays on great movies, you can’t do wrong with Roger Ebert’s GREAT MOVIES series, although you can also read them online for free on his website.