William Hootkins

Longfellow’s great narrative poem has been unjustly neglected in recent years though it gives a sympathetic portrait especially of Hiawatha, reared by Nokomis, daughter of the Moon, and his bride Minehaha. It is famously underpinned by its hypnotic...

‘Call me Ishmael’ Thus starts the greatest American novel. Melville said himself that he wanted to write ‘a mighty book about a mighty theme’ and so he did. It is a story of one man’s obsessive revenge-journey against the white whale, Moby-Dick, who...

Terry Malloy is a hoodlum, caught between the beginnings of a conscience and the racketeers for whom he works. Katie is t hat conscience. But she is torn between her love for him and her belief he killed her brother. Together with a slum-reared...

When the Bates Motel looms up out of the storm, Mary Crane thinks it is her salvation. The rooms are musty but clean. The manager, Norman Bates, seems like a nice enough fellow, if a little strange. Then Mary decides to take a shower and the nightmare...