Overview

At the turn of the past century, the main function of a newspaper was to offer “menus” by which readers could make sense of modern life and imagine how to order their daily lives. Among those menus in the mid-1910s were several that mediated the interests of movie manufacturers, distributors, exhibitors, and the rapidly expanding audience of fans. This writing about the movies arguably played a crucial role in the emergence of American popular film culture, negotiating among national, regional, and local interests to shape fans’ ephemeral experience of moviegoing, their repeated encounters with the fantasy worlds of “movieland,” and their attractions to certain stories and stars. Moreover, many of these weekend pages, daily columns, and film reviews were written and consumed by women, including one teenage girl who compiled a rare surviving set of scrapbooks. Based on extensive original research, Menus for Movieland substantially revises what moviegoing meant in the transition to what we now think of as Hollywood.

Full Product Details

Author:   Richard Abel
Publisher:   University of California Press
Imprint:   University of California Press
Dimensions:   Width: 15.20cm , Height: 2.80cm , Length: 22.90cm
Weight:   0.635kg
ISBN:  

9780520286771

ISBN 10:   0520286774
Pages:   424
Publication Date:   01 September 2015
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Out of stock  
The supplier is temporarily out of stock of this item. It will be ordered for you on backorder and shipped when it becomes available.

Table of Contents

"List of Illustrations Acknowledgments PROLOGUE Document: ""Tomorrow's Sunday Tribune"" INTRODUCTION: THE NEWSPAPER, A CULTURAL PARTNER OF THE MOVIES Document: ""Best Film Ad Medium"" 1. THE INDUSTRY GOES TO TOWN (AND COUNTRY) ENTR'ACTE: LOCAL AND REGIONAL NEWSREELS Document: ""Right Off the Reel!"" 2. ""NEWSPAPERS MAKE PICTURE-GOERS"" ENTR'ACTE: NEWSPAPER MOVIE CONTESTS Document: ""The Movies"" 3. ""IN MOVIE LAND, WITH THE FILM STARS"" ENTR'ACTE: CARTOONS AND COMIC STRIPS Document: ""Close Ups Are Very Important"" 4. ""FILM GIRLS"" AND THEIR FANS IN FRONT OF THE SCREEN Document: Kitty Kelly ad ENTR'ACTE: MOTION PICTURE WEEKLIES Document: ""Today's Best Moving Picture Story"" 5. EDNA VERCOE'S ""ROMANCE WITH THE MOVIES"" AFTERWORD Appendix: U. S. Newspapers Newspaper Abbreviations Notes Selected Bibliography Index"

Reviews

"""Fascinating and original."" -- Martin Rubin Washington Times"

Fascinating and original. -- Martin Rubin Washington Times

Author Information

"Richard Abel is Emeritus Professor of International Cinema and Media Studies at the University of Michigan. He is the author of The Red Rooster Scare: Making Cinema American, 1900--1910,Encyclopedia of Early Cinema, Americanizing the Movies and ""Movie-Mad"" Audiences, 1910--1914, and Early Cinema, among other books."

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