Roosevelt's New Deal introduced sweeping social, political and cultural change across the United States, which the Hollywood film community embraced enthusiastically. When the heady idealism of the 1930s was replaced by the paranoia and fear of the post-war years, Hollywood became an easy target for the anti-communists. A Divided World examines some of the important programs of the New Deal and the subsequent response of the Hollywood film community - especially in relation to social welfare, women's rights and international affairs. The book then charts what happened in Hollywood when the mood turned sour as the Cold War set in. A Divided World also provides in-depth analysis of the major works of three European directors in particular - Billy Wilder, Ernst Lubitsch and Fritz Lang. The contributions of these three are compared and contrasted with the products of mainstream Hollywood. The author utilizes extensive new archival material to shed light on the production histories of the emigres' films. This is a new interpretation of an influential period in American film history and it is sure to generate debate and further scholarship.

Few directors of the 1930s and 40s were as distinctive and popular as Preston Sturges, whose whipsmart comedies have entertained audiences for decades. This book offers a new critical appreciation of Sturges' whole oeuvre, incorporating a detailed study of the last ten years of his life from new primary sources. Preston Sturges details the many unfinished projects of Sturges' last decade, including films, plays, TV series and his autobiography. Drawing on diaries, sketchbooks, correspondence, unpublished screenplays and more, Nick Smedley and Tom Sturges present the writer-director's final years in more detail than we've ever seen, showing a master still at work - even if very little of that work ultimately made it to the screen or stage.

In this insightful study of Hollywood cinema since 1969, film historian Nick Smedley traces the cultural and intellectual heritage of American films, showing how the more thoughtful recent cinema owes a profound debt to Hollywood's traditions of liberalism, first articulated in the New Deal era. Although American cinema is not usually thought of as politically or socially engaged, Smedley demonstrates how Hollywood can be seen as one of the most value-laden of all national cinemas. Drawing on a long historical view of the persistent trends and themes in Hollywood cinema, Smedley illustrates how films from recent decades have continued to explore the balance between unbridled individualistic capitalism and a more socially engaged liberalism. He also brings out the persistence of pacifism in Hollywood's consideration of American foreign policy in Vietnam and the Middle East. His third theme concerns the treatment of women in Hollywood films, and the belated acceptance by the film community of a wider role for the American post-feminist woman. Featuring important new interviews with four of Hollywood's most influential directors--Michael Mann, Peter Weir, Tony Gilroy, and Paul Haggis--"The Roots of Modern Hollywood "is an incisive account of where Hollywood is today and the path it has taken to get there.