American
Cinema of the 1940s
Price: $24.95
Subtitle: Themes and Variations
Author: Wheeler Winston Dixon
Subject: Film Studies/American Studies
Paper ISBN 0-8135-3700-2
Cloth ISBN 0-8135-3699-5
Pages: 272 pp. 33 b&w illus.
Series:
The
Screen Decades
Description:
The 1940s was a watershed decade for American cinema and the
nation. Shaking off the grim legacy of the Depression, Hollywood
launched an unprecedented wave of production, generating some of its
most memorable classics, including Citizen Kane, Rebecca, The Lady Eve,
Sergeant York, and How Green Was My Valley. In 1942, Hollywood joined
the national war effort with a vengeance, creating a series of
patriotic and escapist films, such as Casablanca, Mrs. Miniver, The
Road to Morocco, and Yankee Doodle Dandy.
With the end of the war, returning GIs faced a new America,
in which the country had been transformed overnight. Film Noir
reflected a new public mood of pessimism and paranoia, in such classic
films of betrayal and conflict as Kiss of Death, Force of Evil, Caught,
and Apology for Murder, depicting a poisonous universe of femme
fatales, crooked lawyers, and corrupt politicians.
With the threat of the atom bomb lurking in the background
and the beginnings of the Hollywood blacklist, the 1940s was a decade
of crisis and change. Featuring essays by a group of respected film
scholars and historians, American Cinema of the 1940s brings this
dynamic and turbulent decade to life. Illustrated with many rare stills
and filled with provocative insights, American Cinema of the 1940s will
appeal to students, teachers, and to all those interested in cultural
history and American film of the twentieth century.
About the Author:
Wheeler Winston Dixon is the James Ryan Endowed Professor of
Film Studies at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, and editor of the
Quarterly Review of Film and Video.
Table of Contents:
Contents
Acknowledgments
Timeline: The 1940s
Wheeler Winston Dixon
Introduction: Movies and the 1940s
Matthew Bernstein
1940: Movies and the Reassessment of America
Sarah Kozloff
1941: Movies on the Edge of War
Steven Jay Schneider
1942: Movies and the March to War
Catherine Preston
1943: Movies and National Identity
Nicholas Spencer
1944: Movies and the Renegotiation of Genre
Kristine Butler Karlson
1945: Movies and the March Home
Wheeler Winston Dixon
1946: Movies and Postwar Recovery
Tony Williams
1947: Movies and the Blacklist
Joanna Rapf
1948: Movies and the Family
Marcia Landy
1949: Movies and the Fate of Genre
Select Academy Awards, 1940-1949
Works Cited and Consulted
Contributors
Index
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Price: $24.95
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