Author: Ian Scott
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
ISBN: 0813159660
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 302
Book Description
Because screenwriter Robert Riskin spent most of his career collaborating with legendary Hollywood director Frank Capra, Riskin's own unique contributions to film have been largely overshadowed. With five Academy Award nominations to his credit for the monumental films Lady for a Day, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, You Can't Take It with You, Here Comes the Groom, and It Happened One Night (for which he won the Oscar), Riskin is often imitated but rarely equaled. In Capra's Shadow: The Life and Career of Screenwriter Robert Riskin is the first detailed critical examination of the Hollywood pioneer's life and work. In addition to being one of the great screenwriters of the classic Hollywood era, Riskin was also a producer and director, founding his own film company and playing a crucial role in the foundation of the Screen Writers Guild. During World War II, Riskin was one of the major forces behind propaganda filmmaking. He worked in the Office of War Information and oversaw the distribution -- and later, production -- of films and documentaries in foreign theaters. He was interested in showing the rest of the world more than just an idealized version of America; he looked for films that emphasized the spiritual and cultural vibrancy within the U.S., making charity, faith, and generosity of spirit his propaganda tools. His efforts also laid the groundwork for a system of distribution channels that would result in the dominance of American cinema in Europe in the postwar years. Riskin's postwar work included his production of the 1947 film Magic Town, the tale of a marketing executive who discovers the perfect American small town and uses it for polling. What Riskin created onscreen is not simply a community stuck in an antiquarian past; rather, the town of Grandview observes its own traditions while at the same time confronting the possibilities of the modern world and the challenges of postwar America. Author Ian Scott provides a unique perspective on Riskin and the ways in which his brilliant, pithy style was realized in Capra's enduring films. Riskin's impact on cinema extended far beyond these films as he helped spread Hollywood cinema abroad and articulated his vision of a changing America.
In Capra's Shadow
Author: Ian Scott
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
ISBN: 0813159660
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 302
Book Description
Because screenwriter Robert Riskin spent most of his career collaborating with legendary Hollywood director Frank Capra, Riskin's own unique contributions to film have been largely overshadowed. With five Academy Award nominations to his credit for the monumental films Lady for a Day, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, You Can't Take It with You, Here Comes the Groom, and It Happened One Night (for which he won the Oscar), Riskin is often imitated but rarely equaled. In Capra's Shadow: The Life and Career of Screenwriter Robert Riskin is the first detailed critical examination of the Hollywood pioneer's life and work. In addition to being one of the great screenwriters of the classic Hollywood era, Riskin was also a producer and director, founding his own film company and playing a crucial role in the foundation of the Screen Writers Guild. During World War II, Riskin was one of the major forces behind propaganda filmmaking. He worked in the Office of War Information and oversaw the distribution -- and later, production -- of films and documentaries in foreign theaters. He was interested in showing the rest of the world more than just an idealized version of America; he looked for films that emphasized the spiritual and cultural vibrancy within the U.S., making charity, faith, and generosity of spirit his propaganda tools. His efforts also laid the groundwork for a system of distribution channels that would result in the dominance of American cinema in Europe in the postwar years. Riskin's postwar work included his production of the 1947 film Magic Town, the tale of a marketing executive who discovers the perfect American small town and uses it for polling. What Riskin created onscreen is not simply a community stuck in an antiquarian past; rather, the town of Grandview observes its own traditions while at the same time confronting the possibilities of the modern world and the challenges of postwar America. Author Ian Scott provides a unique perspective on Riskin and the ways in which his brilliant, pithy style was realized in Capra's enduring films. Riskin's impact on cinema extended far beyond these films as he helped spread Hollywood cinema abroad and articulated his vision of a changing America.
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
ISBN: 0813159660
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 302
Book Description
Because screenwriter Robert Riskin spent most of his career collaborating with legendary Hollywood director Frank Capra, Riskin's own unique contributions to film have been largely overshadowed. With five Academy Award nominations to his credit for the monumental films Lady for a Day, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, You Can't Take It with You, Here Comes the Groom, and It Happened One Night (for which he won the Oscar), Riskin is often imitated but rarely equaled. In Capra's Shadow: The Life and Career of Screenwriter Robert Riskin is the first detailed critical examination of the Hollywood pioneer's life and work. In addition to being one of the great screenwriters of the classic Hollywood era, Riskin was also a producer and director, founding his own film company and playing a crucial role in the foundation of the Screen Writers Guild. During World War II, Riskin was one of the major forces behind propaganda filmmaking. He worked in the Office of War Information and oversaw the distribution -- and later, production -- of films and documentaries in foreign theaters. He was interested in showing the rest of the world more than just an idealized version of America; he looked for films that emphasized the spiritual and cultural vibrancy within the U.S., making charity, faith, and generosity of spirit his propaganda tools. His efforts also laid the groundwork for a system of distribution channels that would result in the dominance of American cinema in Europe in the postwar years. Riskin's postwar work included his production of the 1947 film Magic Town, the tale of a marketing executive who discovers the perfect American small town and uses it for polling. What Riskin created onscreen is not simply a community stuck in an antiquarian past; rather, the town of Grandview observes its own traditions while at the same time confronting the possibilities of the modern world and the challenges of postwar America. Author Ian Scott provides a unique perspective on Riskin and the ways in which his brilliant, pithy style was realized in Capra's enduring films. Riskin's impact on cinema extended far beyond these films as he helped spread Hollywood cinema abroad and articulated his vision of a changing America.
Frank Capra's Eastern Horizons
Author: Elizabeth Rawitsch
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 0857725572
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 266
Book Description
Frank Capra has long had a reputation as being the quintessential American director - the man who perfectly captured the identity and core values of the United States with a string of classic films in the 1930s and '40s, including It Happened One Night, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and It's a Wonderful Life. However, as Elizabeth Rawitsch argues, Capra's construction of national identity did not occur within an exclusively national context. She points out that many of his films are actually set in, or include sequences set in, China, Latin America, the Philippines and the South Seas. Featuring in-depth textual analysis supported by original archival research, Frank Capra's Eastern Horizons explains that Capra's view of what constituted 'America' changed over time, extending its boundaries to embrace countries often far from the United States. Complicating Edward Said's theory of Orientalism as a strict binary in which the West constructs the East as an inferior 'other', it demonstrates that East and West often intermingle in films such as The Bitter Tea of General Yen and in Capra's orientation documentaries for World War II American servicemen; Capra imagined a kind of global community, albeit one with heavy undertones of British and American imperialism. Investigating shifts in what Capra's America has meant over time, both to Capra and to those who have watched and studied his films, this innovative book offers a startlingly fresh perspective on one of the most iconic figures in American film history.
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 0857725572
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 266
Book Description
Frank Capra has long had a reputation as being the quintessential American director - the man who perfectly captured the identity and core values of the United States with a string of classic films in the 1930s and '40s, including It Happened One Night, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and It's a Wonderful Life. However, as Elizabeth Rawitsch argues, Capra's construction of national identity did not occur within an exclusively national context. She points out that many of his films are actually set in, or include sequences set in, China, Latin America, the Philippines and the South Seas. Featuring in-depth textual analysis supported by original archival research, Frank Capra's Eastern Horizons explains that Capra's view of what constituted 'America' changed over time, extending its boundaries to embrace countries often far from the United States. Complicating Edward Said's theory of Orientalism as a strict binary in which the West constructs the East as an inferior 'other', it demonstrates that East and West often intermingle in films such as The Bitter Tea of General Yen and in Capra's orientation documentaries for World War II American servicemen; Capra imagined a kind of global community, albeit one with heavy undertones of British and American imperialism. Investigating shifts in what Capra's America has meant over time, both to Capra and to those who have watched and studied his films, this innovative book offers a startlingly fresh perspective on one of the most iconic figures in American film history.
An Archaeology of Sympathy
Author: James Chandler
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022603495X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 453
Book Description
In the middle of the eighteenth century, something new made itself felt in European culture—a tone or style that came to be called the sentimental. The sentimental mode went on to shape not just literature, art, music, and cinema, but people’s very structures of feeling, their ways of doing and being. In what is sure to become a critical classic, An Archaeology of Sympathy challenges Sergei Eisenstein’s influential account of Dickens and early American film by tracing the unexpected history and intricate strategies of the sentimental mode and showing how it has been reimagined over the past three centuries. James Chandler begins with a look at Frank Capra and the Capraesque in American public life, then digs back to the eighteenth century to examine the sentimental substratum underlying Dickens and early cinema alike. With this surprising move, he reveals how literary spectatorship in the eighteenth century anticipated classic Hollywood films such as Capra’s It Happened One Night, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, and It’s a Wonderful Life. Chandler then moves forward to romanticism and modernism—two cultural movements often seen as defined by their rejection of the sentimental—examining how authors like Mary Shelley, Joseph Conrad, James Joyce, and Virginia Woolf actually engaged with sentimental forms and themes in ways that left a mark on their work. Reaching from Laurence Sterne to the Coen brothers, An Archaeology of Sympathy casts new light on the long eighteenth century and the novelistic forebears of cinema and our modern world.
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022603495X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 453
Book Description
In the middle of the eighteenth century, something new made itself felt in European culture—a tone or style that came to be called the sentimental. The sentimental mode went on to shape not just literature, art, music, and cinema, but people’s very structures of feeling, their ways of doing and being. In what is sure to become a critical classic, An Archaeology of Sympathy challenges Sergei Eisenstein’s influential account of Dickens and early American film by tracing the unexpected history and intricate strategies of the sentimental mode and showing how it has been reimagined over the past three centuries. James Chandler begins with a look at Frank Capra and the Capraesque in American public life, then digs back to the eighteenth century to examine the sentimental substratum underlying Dickens and early cinema alike. With this surprising move, he reveals how literary spectatorship in the eighteenth century anticipated classic Hollywood films such as Capra’s It Happened One Night, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, and It’s a Wonderful Life. Chandler then moves forward to romanticism and modernism—two cultural movements often seen as defined by their rejection of the sentimental—examining how authors like Mary Shelley, Joseph Conrad, James Joyce, and Virginia Woolf actually engaged with sentimental forms and themes in ways that left a mark on their work. Reaching from Laurence Sterne to the Coen brothers, An Archaeology of Sympathy casts new light on the long eighteenth century and the novelistic forebears of cinema and our modern world.
Out of the Mouths of Babes
Author: Thomas A. Robinson
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199790957
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 251
Book Description
The 1920s saw one of the most striking revolutions in manners and morals to have marked North American society, affecting almost every aspect of life, from dress and drink to sex and salvation. Protestant Christianity was being torn apart by a heated controversy between traditionalists and the modernists, as they sought to determine how much their beliefs and practices should be altered by scientific study and more secular attitudes. Out of the controversy arose the Fundamentalist movement, which has become a powerful force in twentieth-century America. During this decade, hundreds (and perhaps thousands) of young girl preachers, some not even school age, joined the conservative Christian cause, proclaiming traditional values and condemning modern experiments with the new morality. Some of the girls drew crowds into the thousands. But the stage these girls gained went far beyond the revivalist platform. The girl evangelist phenomenon was recognized in the wider society as well, and the contrast to the flapper worked well for the press and the public. Girl evangelists stood out as the counter-type of the flapper, who had come to define the modern girl. The striking contrast these girls offered to the racy flapper and to modern culture generally made girl evangelists a convenient and effective tool for conservative and revivalist Christianity, a tool which was used by their adherents in the clash of cultures that marked the 1920s.
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199790957
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 251
Book Description
The 1920s saw one of the most striking revolutions in manners and morals to have marked North American society, affecting almost every aspect of life, from dress and drink to sex and salvation. Protestant Christianity was being torn apart by a heated controversy between traditionalists and the modernists, as they sought to determine how much their beliefs and practices should be altered by scientific study and more secular attitudes. Out of the controversy arose the Fundamentalist movement, which has become a powerful force in twentieth-century America. During this decade, hundreds (and perhaps thousands) of young girl preachers, some not even school age, joined the conservative Christian cause, proclaiming traditional values and condemning modern experiments with the new morality. Some of the girls drew crowds into the thousands. But the stage these girls gained went far beyond the revivalist platform. The girl evangelist phenomenon was recognized in the wider society as well, and the contrast to the flapper worked well for the press and the public. Girl evangelists stood out as the counter-type of the flapper, who had come to define the modern girl. The striking contrast these girls offered to the racy flapper and to modern culture generally made girl evangelists a convenient and effective tool for conservative and revivalist Christianity, a tool which was used by their adherents in the clash of cultures that marked the 1920s.
Myrna Loy
Author: Emily W. Leider
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520253205
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 424
Book Description
From the beginning, Myrna Loy's screen image conjured mystery, a sense of something withheld. This first ever biography of the wry and sophisticated actress, best known for her role as Nora Charles in The Thin Man, offers an unprecedented picture of her life and a career that spanned six decades. Opening with Loy's rough-and-tumble upbringing in Montana, the book takes us to Los Angeles from the 1920s, through the thirties, when Loy became a top box office draw, and to her robust post-World War II career. Throughout, Emily W. Leider illuminates the actress's friendships with luminaries such as Cary Grant, Clark Gable, and Joan Crawford and her collaborations with the likes of John Barrymore, David O. Selznick, Sam Goldwyn, and William Wyler, among many others. This biography offers a fascinating slice of studio era history and gives us the first full picture of a woman who has often been overlooked.--From publisher description.
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520253205
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 424
Book Description
From the beginning, Myrna Loy's screen image conjured mystery, a sense of something withheld. This first ever biography of the wry and sophisticated actress, best known for her role as Nora Charles in The Thin Man, offers an unprecedented picture of her life and a career that spanned six decades. Opening with Loy's rough-and-tumble upbringing in Montana, the book takes us to Los Angeles from the 1920s, through the thirties, when Loy became a top box office draw, and to her robust post-World War II career. Throughout, Emily W. Leider illuminates the actress's friendships with luminaries such as Cary Grant, Clark Gable, and Joan Crawford and her collaborations with the likes of John Barrymore, David O. Selznick, Sam Goldwyn, and William Wyler, among many others. This biography offers a fascinating slice of studio era history and gives us the first full picture of a woman who has often been overlooked.--From publisher description.
Hollywood and the Great Depression
Author: Iwan Morgan
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
ISBN: 1474414028
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 364
Book Description
Examines how Hollywood responded to and reflected the political and social changes that America experienced during the 1930sIn the popular imagination, 1930s Hollywood was a dream factory producing escapist movies to distract the American people from the greatest economic crisis in their nations history. But while many films of the period conform to this stereotype, there were a significant number that promoted a message, either explicitly or implicitly, in support of the political, social and economic change broadly associated with President Franklin D. Roosevelts New Deal programme. At the same time, Hollywood was in the forefront of challenging traditional gender roles, both in terms of movie representations of women and the role of women within the studio system. With case studies of actors like Shirley Temple, Cary Grant and Fred Astaire, as well as a selection of films that reflect politics and society in the Depression decade, this fascinating book examines how the challenges of the Great Depression impacted on Hollywood and how it responded to them.Topics covered include:How Hollywood offered positive representations of working womenCongressional investigations of big-studio monopolization over movie distributionHow three different types of musical genres related in different ways to the Great Depression the Warner Bros Great Depression Musicals of 1933, the Astaire/Rogers movies, and the MGM akids musicals of the late 1930sThe problems of independent production exemplified in King Vidors Our Daily BreadCary Grants success in developing a debonair screen persona amid Depression conditionsContributors Harvey G. Cohen, King's College LondonPhilip John Davies, British LibraryDavid Eldridge, University of HullPeter William Evans, Queen Mary, University of LondonMark Glancy, Queen Mary University of LondonIna Rae Hark, University of South CarolinaIwan Morgan, University College LondonBrian Neve, University of BathIan Scott, University of ManchesterAnna Siomopoulos, Bentley UniversityJ. E. Smyth, University of WarwickMelvyn Stokes, University College LondonMark Wheeler, London Metropolitan University
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
ISBN: 1474414028
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 364
Book Description
Examines how Hollywood responded to and reflected the political and social changes that America experienced during the 1930sIn the popular imagination, 1930s Hollywood was a dream factory producing escapist movies to distract the American people from the greatest economic crisis in their nations history. But while many films of the period conform to this stereotype, there were a significant number that promoted a message, either explicitly or implicitly, in support of the political, social and economic change broadly associated with President Franklin D. Roosevelts New Deal programme. At the same time, Hollywood was in the forefront of challenging traditional gender roles, both in terms of movie representations of women and the role of women within the studio system. With case studies of actors like Shirley Temple, Cary Grant and Fred Astaire, as well as a selection of films that reflect politics and society in the Depression decade, this fascinating book examines how the challenges of the Great Depression impacted on Hollywood and how it responded to them.Topics covered include:How Hollywood offered positive representations of working womenCongressional investigations of big-studio monopolization over movie distributionHow three different types of musical genres related in different ways to the Great Depression the Warner Bros Great Depression Musicals of 1933, the Astaire/Rogers movies, and the MGM akids musicals of the late 1930sThe problems of independent production exemplified in King Vidors Our Daily BreadCary Grants success in developing a debonair screen persona amid Depression conditionsContributors Harvey G. Cohen, King's College LondonPhilip John Davies, British LibraryDavid Eldridge, University of HullPeter William Evans, Queen Mary, University of LondonMark Glancy, Queen Mary University of LondonIna Rae Hark, University of South CarolinaIwan Morgan, University College LondonBrian Neve, University of BathIan Scott, University of ManchesterAnna Siomopoulos, Bentley UniversityJ. E. Smyth, University of WarwickMelvyn Stokes, University College LondonMark Wheeler, London Metropolitan University
Hollywood and the American Historical Film
Author: J.E. Smyth
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 023035789X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 267
Book Description
How do Hollywood filmmakers construct and interpret American history? Is film's visual historical language inherently different from the traditions of written history? This definitive collection of essays by leading scholars probes the theoretical and historical contexts of films made about the American past - from the silent era to the present. Exploring issues deeply connected with historical filmmaking, from historiography to censorship, to race, gender, and sexuality, the book discusses a wide range of films and genres- including classics such as The Virginian, Gone with the Wind and Citizen Kane. This collection is essential reading for anyone interested in studying, or researching American history and film. Includes essays by Susan Courtney, David Culbert, Nicholas J. Cull, Vera Dika, David Eldridge, Vittorio Hösle, Marcia Landy, Mark W. Roche, Robert Rosenstone, Ian Scott, Robert Sklar, J.E. Smyth, and Warren I. Susman.
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 023035789X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 267
Book Description
How do Hollywood filmmakers construct and interpret American history? Is film's visual historical language inherently different from the traditions of written history? This definitive collection of essays by leading scholars probes the theoretical and historical contexts of films made about the American past - from the silent era to the present. Exploring issues deeply connected with historical filmmaking, from historiography to censorship, to race, gender, and sexuality, the book discusses a wide range of films and genres- including classics such as The Virginian, Gone with the Wind and Citizen Kane. This collection is essential reading for anyone interested in studying, or researching American history and film. Includes essays by Susan Courtney, David Culbert, Nicholas J. Cull, Vera Dika, David Eldridge, Vittorio Hösle, Marcia Landy, Mark W. Roche, Robert Rosenstone, Ian Scott, Robert Sklar, J.E. Smyth, and Warren I. Susman.
Dashiell Hammett and the Movies
Author: William H. Mooney
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
ISBN: 0813562546
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 227
Book Description
As the father of the hardboiled detective genre, Dashiell Hammett had a huge influence on Hollywood. Yet, it is easy to forget how adaptable Hammett’s work was, fitting into a variety of genres and inspiring generations of filmmakers. Dashiell Hammett and the Movies offers the first comprehensive look at Hammett’s broad oeuvre and how it was adapted into films from the 1930s all the way into the 1990s. Film scholar William H. Mooney reveals the wide range of films crafted from the same Hammett novels, as when The Maltese Falcon was filmed first as a pre-Code sexploitation movie, then as a Bette Davis screwball comedy, and finally as the Humphrey Bogart classic. He also considers how Hammett rose to Hollywood fame not through the genre most associated with him, but through a much fizzier concoction, the witty murder mystery The Thin Man. To demonstrate the hold Hammett still has over contemporary filmmakers, the book culminates in an examination of the Coen brothers’ pastiche Miller’s Crossing. Mooney not only provides us with an in-depth analysis of Hammett adaptations, he also chronicles how Hollywood enabled the author’s own rise to stardom, complete with a celebrity romance and a carefully crafted public persona. Giving us a behind-the-scenes look at the complex power relationships, cultural contexts, and production concerns involved in bringing Hammett’s work from the page to the screen, Dashiell Hammett and the Movies offers a fresh take on a literary titan.
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
ISBN: 0813562546
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 227
Book Description
As the father of the hardboiled detective genre, Dashiell Hammett had a huge influence on Hollywood. Yet, it is easy to forget how adaptable Hammett’s work was, fitting into a variety of genres and inspiring generations of filmmakers. Dashiell Hammett and the Movies offers the first comprehensive look at Hammett’s broad oeuvre and how it was adapted into films from the 1930s all the way into the 1990s. Film scholar William H. Mooney reveals the wide range of films crafted from the same Hammett novels, as when The Maltese Falcon was filmed first as a pre-Code sexploitation movie, then as a Bette Davis screwball comedy, and finally as the Humphrey Bogart classic. He also considers how Hammett rose to Hollywood fame not through the genre most associated with him, but through a much fizzier concoction, the witty murder mystery The Thin Man. To demonstrate the hold Hammett still has over contemporary filmmakers, the book culminates in an examination of the Coen brothers’ pastiche Miller’s Crossing. Mooney not only provides us with an in-depth analysis of Hammett adaptations, he also chronicles how Hollywood enabled the author’s own rise to stardom, complete with a celebrity romance and a carefully crafted public persona. Giving us a behind-the-scenes look at the complex power relationships, cultural contexts, and production concerns involved in bringing Hammett’s work from the page to the screen, Dashiell Hammett and the Movies offers a fresh take on a literary titan.
Hollywood Musicals You Missed
Author: Edwin M. Bradley
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 1476639930
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 307
Book Description
Pre-World War II Hollywood musicals weren't only about Astaire and Rogers, Mickey and Judy, Busby Berkeley, Bing Crosby, or Shirley Temple. The early musical developed through tangents that reflected larger trends in film and American culture at large. Here is a survey of select titles with a variety of influences: outsized songwriter personalities, hubbub over "hillbilly" and cowboy stereotypes, the emergence of swing, and the brief parade of opera stars to celluloid. Featured movies range from the smash hit Alexander's Ragtime Band (1938), to obscurities such as Are You There? (1930) and Swing, Sister, Swing (1938), to the high-grossing but now forgotten Mountain Music (1937), and It's Great to Be Alive (1933), a zesty pre-Code musical/science-fiction/comedy mishmash. Also included are some of the not-so-memorable pictures made by some of the decade's greatest musical stars.
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 1476639930
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 307
Book Description
Pre-World War II Hollywood musicals weren't only about Astaire and Rogers, Mickey and Judy, Busby Berkeley, Bing Crosby, or Shirley Temple. The early musical developed through tangents that reflected larger trends in film and American culture at large. Here is a survey of select titles with a variety of influences: outsized songwriter personalities, hubbub over "hillbilly" and cowboy stereotypes, the emergence of swing, and the brief parade of opera stars to celluloid. Featured movies range from the smash hit Alexander's Ragtime Band (1938), to obscurities such as Are You There? (1930) and Swing, Sister, Swing (1938), to the high-grossing but now forgotten Mountain Music (1937), and It's Great to Be Alive (1933), a zesty pre-Code musical/science-fiction/comedy mishmash. Also included are some of the not-so-memorable pictures made by some of the decade's greatest musical stars.
Why We Fought
Author: Peter C. Rollins
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
ISBN: 081312493X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 625
Book Description
Looks at war films, from depictions of the American Revolution to portrayals of September 11 and its aftermath. This volume contrasts recognized history and historical fiction with the versions appearing on the big screen. It reveals how film depictions of the country's wars have shaped our values, politics, and culture.
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
ISBN: 081312493X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 625
Book Description
Looks at war films, from depictions of the American Revolution to portrayals of September 11 and its aftermath. This volume contrasts recognized history and historical fiction with the versions appearing on the big screen. It reveals how film depictions of the country's wars have shaped our values, politics, and culture.