Overview

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 nation's 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. Roosevelt's 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 'kids' musicals of the late 1930sThe problems of independent production exemplified in King Vidor's 'Our Daily Bread'Cary Grant's 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

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9781474431927

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Reviews

This stimulating collection energetically revisits and frequently revises the history of Hollywood's political engagements during the height of its cultural influence in the 1930s, offering new insights into the responses of writers, stars, moguls and distributors to the Depression and New Deal, and their expression in some of the decade's most memorable movies. -- Professor Richard Maltby, Flinders University

"The articles in this collection serve to bring new information to light, challenge some ideas about Depression-era film and deepen readers' understanding of other aspects of the film industry in the 1930s.--Richard Bodek, College of Charleston ""Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television"" This stimulating collection energetically revisits and frequently revises the history of Hollywood's political engagements during the height of its cultural influence in the 1930s, offering new insights into the responses of writers, stars, moguls and distributors to the Depression and New Deal, and their expression in some of the decade's most memorable movies.'--Professor Richard Maltby, Flinders University"

"""This stimulating collection energetically revisits and frequently revises the history of Hollywood's political engagements during the height of its cultural influence in the 1930s, offering new insights into the responses of writers, stars, moguls and distributors to the Depression and New Deal, and their expression in some of the decade's most memorable movies."" -- Professor Richard Maltby, Flinders University"

Author Information

Iwan Morgan is Professor of US Studies and Commonwealth Fund Professor of American History at University College London. He is a former chair of the Historians of the Twentieth Century United States, co-founder of the Presidential History Network, British Association of American Studies Honorary Fellow and Honorary Fellow of the Rothermere American Institute, University of Oxford. Philip John Davies, Director of the Eccles Centre for American Studies at the British Library, is the former President of the European Association for American Studies, and has also served as Chair of the American Politics Group of the UK, Chair of the UK Council of Area Studies Associations and Chair of the British Association for American Studies.

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