Table of Contents

Series Editor's Preface. Preface.Acknowledgments. Introduction: Why Movies Matter.1. Going to the Movies: Early Audiences.Introduction to the Article. Article: From The Making of American Audiences: From Stage to Television, 1750 - 1990 (Richard Butsch) Documents: Introduction to the Documents. "The Nickel Madness": Barton W. Carrie.Report of Censorship of Motion Pictures and of Investigation of Motion Picture Theatres of Cleveland (1913): Robert O. Bartholomew."House Fly Panics Pittsburgh Movie Audience".Readings and Screenings.2. Heroes and Heroines of Their Own Entertainment: Progressive-Era Cinema.Introduction to the Article. Article: From The Loud Silents: Origins of the Social Problem Film: Kay Sloan.Documents: Introduction to the Documents. "The Social Uses of the Moving Picture": W. Stephen Bush.Los Angeles Socialist Movie Theater.Readings and Screenings.3. The Rise of Hollywood: Movies, Ideology, and Audiences in the Roaring Twenties:Introduction to the Article. Article: From Working-Class Hollywood: Silent Film and the Shaping of Class in America (Steven J. Ross)Documents: Introduction to the Documents. "The Deluxe Picture Palace": Lloyd Lewis."Petting At the Movies": E. J. Mitchell."The Actor's Part": Milton Sills.Readings and Screenings.4. Who Controls What We See?: Censorship and the Attack on Hollywood "Immorality"Introduction to the Article. Article: Hollywood Censored: The Production Code Administration and the Hollywood Film Industry, 1930-1940: Gregory D. Black.Documents: Introduction to the Documents. The Power of the Movies and Debates Over Censorship.Readings and Screenings.5. Confronting the Great Depression: Renewing Democracy in Hard Times.Introduction to the Article. Article: From The Big Tomorrow: Hollywood and the Politics of the American Way (Lary May)Documents: Introduction to the Documents. "The Movies and Political Propaganda": Upton Sinclair.Readings and Screenings.6. Alternative Cinemas: Movies on the Margins.Introduction to the Article. Article: From Hollywood's High Noon: Moviemaking and Society Before Television (Thomas Cripps)Documents: Introduction to the Documents. "The Negro and the Photo-Play": Oscar Micheaux."'The Symbol of the Unconquered, New Play"."Some New American Documentaries: In Defense of Liberty: John H. Winge.Readings and Screenings.7. Seeing Red: Cold War Hollywood.Introduction to the Article. Article: From American Cinema/American Culture (John Belton)Documents: Introduction to the Documents. FBI Report, "Communist Political Influence and Activities in the Motion Picture Business in Hollywood, California.""The Waldorf Statement," issued by the Association of Motion Picture Producers.Readings and Screenings.8. Eisenhower's America: Prosperity and Problems in the 1950s.Introduction to the Article. Article: From American Film and Society Since 1945 (Leonard Quart and Albert Auster)Documents: Introduction to the Documents. Teen Idol: Hedda Hopper Interviews James Dean.Reviews of Rebel Without a Cause. Readings and Screenings.9. Black and White in Color: Race and Film in the 1960s and 1970s.Introduction to the Article. Article: From Framing Blackness: The African American Image in Film (Ed Guerrero)Documents: Introduction to the Documents. Variety Reports Reactions to Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?. "Blaxploitation Movies: Cheap Thrills That Degrade Blacks": Alvin F. Poussaint. Readings and Screenings.10. Vietnam and the Crisis of American Power: Movies, War, and Militarism:Introduction to the Article. Article: From Camera Politica: The Politics and Ideology of Contemporary Hollywood Film (Michael Ryan and Douglas Kellner)Documents: Introduction to the Documents. Correspondence Regarding the Making of The Green Berets. "Platoon "Marks "End of a Cycle" for Oliver Stone."Reunion: Men of a Real Platoon".Readings and Screenings.11. Reagan's America: The Backlash Against Women and Men:Introduction to the Article. Article: From Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women (Susan Faludi)Documents: Introduction to the Documents. Equal Rights Amendment, 1972."A Backlash Manifesto": Phyllis Schlafly. A Film That Gives Feminism a Bad Name.Readings and Screenings.12. Hollywood Goes Global: The Internationalization of American Cinema.Introduction to the Article. Article: Is Hollywood America? The Transnationalization of the American Film Industry (Frederick Wasser)Documents:Introduction to the Documents. Hearing Before the Subcommittee on Telecommunications and Finance of the Committee On Energy and Commerce."Films Without Frontiers": David Puttnam.Readings and Screenings. Index.

About the Author

Steven J. Ross is Professor of History at the University of Southern California. He is co-founder and co-director of the Los Angeles Institute for the Humanities and the author of Workers on the Edge: Work, Leisure, and Politics in Industrializing Cincinnati (1985) and Working-Class Hollywood: Silent Film and the Shaping of Class in America (1998), which won the Theater Library Association Book Award.

Reviews

"I know from personal experience that historians have often wanted a good book on American film in the twentieth century to assign in their classes. This is it. It combines excellent primary sources, and stimulating commentary by one of the major historians of film, Steven Ross."--Lary May, University of Minnesota "Steven Ross brings together a compelling mix of essays and contemporaneous documents, which provide essential insights into the collective power of the movies from the late nineteenth to the early twenty-first centuries."--Charles Musser, Yale University