"Knockout: The Boxer and Boxing in American Cinema" is the first book-length study of the Hollywood boxing film, a popular movie entertainment since the 1930s, that includes such classics as "Million Dollar Baby," "Rocky," and "Raging Bull." The boxer stands alongside the cowboy, the gangster, and the detective as a character that shaped America's ideas of manhood. Leger Grindon relates the Hollywood boxing film to the literature of Jack London, Ernest Hemingway, and Clifford Odets; the influence of ring champions, particularly Joe Louis and Muhammad Ali; and controversies surrounding masculinity, race, and sports.

"Knockout" breaks new ground in film genre study by focusing on the fundamental dramatic conflicts uniting both documentary and fictional films with compelling social concerns. The boxing film portrays more than the rise and fall of a champion; it exposes the body in order to reveal the spirit. Not simply a brute, the screen boxer dramatizes conflicts and aspirations central to an American audience's experience. This book features chapters on the conventions of the boxing film, the history of the genre and its relationship to famous ring champions, and self-contained treatments of thirty-two individual films including a chapter devoted to Raging Bull.

Known as the 'Edgar Allen Poe of cinema', Tod Browning is truly the dark master of filmmaking. However, despite the commercial success he enjoyed during his lifetime, he has never received the critical acclaim his work deserves. Studying under the great master, DW Griffiths, Browning employed a unique cinematic style, involving cross-cutting between scenes, dark noir-ish shadows, and macabre subject matter. Best known for his films "Freaks", "The Unknown", "Mark of the Vampire", "The Devil Doll and Dracula", his dark, gothic style has influenced such filmmakers as Sam Raimi, David Lynch and Tim Burton. This book at last pays tribute to Browning's cinematic legacy. The contributors include academics from the fields of film studies, gender studies and disability studies from universities the world over. "The Monstrous Body Politic of Freaks", "The Film Historian as Archaeologist", "Theatrical Illusion and Browning's films of the 1920s" and "Cultural Alterity and Sexual Desire in Where East is East", are just some of the essays by contributors including Matthew Sweney, Vivian Sobchack and Alec Charles. It is a definitive academic text on Tod Browning's singularly complex body of work, and looks at the entire pantheon of the director's films, analysing his choice of subject matter and cinematic approaches. In a similar vein to Black Dog Publishing's previous success, "For Ever Godard", the book is packaged in colourful, richly illustrated format. Film stills, publicity shots and promotional material will exemplify the various points made in the essays, and will give the book a level of accessibility that is not usually achieved in academic publications. "The Films of Tod Browning" is a long overdue consideration of this influential auteur, and is an essential for film buffs and academics alike.

Studying popular Hollywood films from "Gone With the Wind" to "Reds" and such distinguished European films as "La Marseillaise" and "The Rise to Power of Louis XIV", Leger Grindon examines how historical fiction films interpret the present through a representation of the past. The historical fiction film is characterized by a set of motives and, Grindon argues, deserves to be considered a genre unto itself. Appropriation of historical events can insinuate a film's authority of its subject, veil an intention, provide an escape into nostalgia, or direct a search for knowledge and origins. Utilizing the past as a way of responding to social conflicts in the present, Grindon shows how the genre promotes a political agenda, superseding the influence of scholarship on the public's perception and interpretation of history. Leger Grindon is Assistant Professor of Film and Television Studies at Middlebury College.