'Un-American' Hollywood: Politics and Film in the Blacklist Era

The concept of “un-Americanism,” so vital to the HUAC crusade of the 1940s and 1950s, was resoundingly revived in the emotional rhetoric that followed the September 11th terrorist attacks. Today’s political and cultural climate makes it more crucial than ever to come to terms with the consequences of this earlier period of repression and with the contested claims of Americanism that it generated.

            “Un-American” Hollywood  reopens the intense critical debate on the blacklist era and on the aesthetic and political work of the Hollywood Left. In a series of fresh case studies focusing on contexts of production and reception, the contributors offer exciting and original perspectives on the role of progressive politics within a capitalist media industry.

            Original essays scrutinize the work of individual practitioners, such as Robert Rossen, Joseph Losey, Jules Dassin, and Edward Dmytryk, and examine key films, including The Robe, Christ in Concrete, The House I Live In, The Lawless, The Naked City, The Prowler, Body and Soul, and FTA.

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'Un-American' Hollywood: Politics and Film in the Blacklist Era

The concept of “un-Americanism,” so vital to the HUAC crusade of the 1940s and 1950s, was resoundingly revived in the emotional rhetoric that followed the September 11th terrorist attacks. Today’s political and cultural climate makes it more crucial than ever to come to terms with the consequences of this earlier period of repression and with the contested claims of Americanism that it generated.

            “Un-American” Hollywood  reopens the intense critical debate on the blacklist era and on the aesthetic and political work of the Hollywood Left. In a series of fresh case studies focusing on contexts of production and reception, the contributors offer exciting and original perspectives on the role of progressive politics within a capitalist media industry.

            Original essays scrutinize the work of individual practitioners, such as Robert Rossen, Joseph Losey, Jules Dassin, and Edward Dmytryk, and examine key films, including The Robe, Christ in Concrete, The House I Live In, The Lawless, The Naked City, The Prowler, Body and Soul, and FTA.

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'Un-American' Hollywood: Politics and Film in the Blacklist Era

'Un-American' Hollywood: Politics and Film in the Blacklist Era

'Un-American' Hollywood: Politics and Film in the Blacklist Era

'Un-American' Hollywood: Politics and Film in the Blacklist Era

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Overview


The concept of “un-Americanism,” so vital to the HUAC crusade of the 1940s and 1950s, was resoundingly revived in the emotional rhetoric that followed the September 11th terrorist attacks. Today’s political and cultural climate makes it more crucial than ever to come to terms with the consequences of this earlier period of repression and with the contested claims of Americanism that it generated.

            “Un-American” Hollywood  reopens the intense critical debate on the blacklist era and on the aesthetic and political work of the Hollywood Left. In a series of fresh case studies focusing on contexts of production and reception, the contributors offer exciting and original perspectives on the role of progressive politics within a capitalist media industry.

            Original essays scrutinize the work of individual practitioners, such as Robert Rossen, Joseph Losey, Jules Dassin, and Edward Dmytryk, and examine key films, including The Robe, Christ in Concrete, The House I Live In, The Lawless, The Naked City, The Prowler, Body and Soul, and FTA.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780813543970
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
Publication date: 12/27/2007
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: eBook
Pages: 416
File size: 4 MB

About the Author


Frank Krutnik teaches film at Sussex University. Steve Neale is a professor of film studies at Exeter University. Brian Neve is a senior lecturer in politics at the University of Bath. Peter Stanfield is a reader in film studies at the University of Kent.

Table of Contents

Introduction   Frank Krutnik   Steve Neale   Brian Neve   Peter Stanfield     3
Are You Now or Have You Ever Been a Christian? The Strange History of The Robe as Political Allegory   Jeff Smith     19
Un-American: Dmytryk, Rossellini, and Christ in Concrete   Erica Sheen     39
"A Living Part of the Class Struggle": Diego Rivera's The Flower Carrier and the Hollywood Left   Frank Krutnik     51
A Monarch for the Millions: Jewish Filmmakers, Social Commentary, and the Postwar Cycle of Boxing Films   Peter Stanfield     79
The Violent Poetry of the Times: The Politics of History in Daniel Mainwaring and Joseph Losey's The Lawless   Doug Dibbern     97
Dark Passages: Jazz and Civil Liberty in the Postwar Crime Film   Sean McCann     113
Documentary Realism and the Postwar Left   Will Straw     130
Cloaked in Compromise: Jules Dassin's "Naked" City   Rebecca Prime     142
The Progressive Producer in the Studio System: Adrian Scott at RKO, 1943-1947   Jennifer Langdon-Teclaw     152
The House I Live In: Albert Maltz and the Fight against Anti-Semitism   Art Simon     169
Red Hollywood in Transition: The Case of Robert Rossen   Brian Neve     184
Swashbuckling, Sapphire, and Salt: Un-American Contributions to TV Costume Adventure Series in the 1950s   Steve Neale     198
Hollywood, the New Left, and FTA   Mark Shiel     210
Red Hollywood   Thom Andersen     225
Afterword   Thom Andersen     264
Acknowledgments     277
Notes     279
Notes on the Contributors     337
Index     339
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