Gary's Writing • Essays and Articles
Film History
Silent Cinema, A Different World (1915–29)- 8mm Home Movies, 1932-1982
- Bios of Directors Walsh, Capra and Huston (1915–75)
- Andrzej Wajda 1926-2016 (PDF)
- Newsreels (1927-67)
- It's Raining at the Movies
- The Bel-Air Circuit
- Hollywood Agents
- Blaxploitation Films of the 70s
- Studio Scandals, 1977–83
- Miramax: How Did They Do It?
- Saul Bass: The Main Title
- American Playboy
- Barry Lyndon-Kubrick’s Grandest Gamble
- Beats, Beatniks and Route 66
- Cinerama: Winning the West
- Jewish Americans on Screen
- Oppenheimer 1980
- Nashville: It Don’t Worry Me
- Sarafina ’92: Riots and Disney’s Fate
Films and Shows
Spy Shows of the '60s (1964–73)- Shadow on the Land (1967)
- On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969)
- How 1967 Changed 2001
- When ‘2001’ Beat the Press (1968)
- A Clockwork Orange (1971)
- 1971: Filming on Location—The Godfather
- Star Wars (1977): The Power of Editing
- 1977: We Are Not Alone (Close Encounters of the Third Kind)
- 1978, A Carter-Era Odyssey: Battlestar Galactica
- Fridays, the TV Show (1980-’82)
- Quiz Show (1994) at 25: The Fifties on Trial
Film Craft
Primer on Digital Cinema for a general readership (2016)- Doing Sound for Films
- Reels and Electronic Editing
- Colorization
- Smooth Sorcery-High Frame Rate
- What’s a Studio?
- What’s a Producer?
- 3D: Still Comin’ At Ya!
- Filming the Past
- When the Star is Fired
- Give ‘Em Props and Sets
- Film Going Amateur to Pro
- When the Star Dies Suddenly
- Anachronism
- Hollywood’s Ultimate Values
- VFX 1: Classic Visual Effects
- VFX 2: A Golden Age
- VFX 3: Morphing to Digital
- What Is a Director?
TV History and Craft
It could have happened a generation earlier: Thirties Alternative to TV History- 1946: Radio’s Futures
- The Dawn of Rural and Small Market TV (1947–55)
- What’s a TV Show?
- Syndication and Reruns (1949–89)
- TV's Color Wars (1946, 49, 51 and 53)
- Daytime Drama (1925-2020)
- The Television Curfew (1951)
- PBS (1955–1990)
- Video Tape Recording (1955–85)
Cable and Home Satellite (1970–90)- High Definition TV (1980–2010)
- Surveillance Television (1925-2015)
- Face-to-Face Television (1925–2020)
- Broadcast Tech Tricks
- ABC, 1943—1961: The Untouchable(s) Network
- ABC, Part 2: Road to the ‘70s
- TV Animation: A Page Right Out of History
Other Topics
- US History/Popular Culture
- Ernest O. Lawrence and the Atomic Age
- Was Henry Ford a Nazi?
- Futurama, the Ride 1939/40–1964/65
- Cuban Missile Crisis, in Life and on Screen
- A Distant Mirror: 1970–72 in Film and TV
- 1972: Choose Your Futures
- Nixon and the Space Shuttle
- Requiem for a Record Store: Tower Records 1960–2000
- Christmas Moon: America in Winter
- Crimes of the Fifties
- BUtterfield 8
- Hinges of History: 1939
- Product Launches that Fail
- Who Gets the Credit—Inventors
- Gary McVey Anecdotes
- USSR/Russia
- Automobiles
These articles are derived from lectures, talks and web posts. Most have also been posted on Ricochet.com.