As the leading fan magazine in the postwar era, Photoplay constructed female stars as social types who embodied a romantic and leisured California lifestyle. Addressing working- and lower-middle-class readers who were prospering in the first mass consumption society, the magazine published not only publicity stories but also beauty secrets, fashion layouts, interior design tips, recipes, advice columns, and vacation guides. Postwar femininity was constructed in terms of access to commodities in suburban houses as the site of family togetherness. As the decade progressed, however, changing social mores regarding female identity and behavior eroded the relationship between idolized stars and worshipful fans. When the magazine adopted tabloid conventions to report sex scandals like the Debbie-Eddie-Liz affair, stars were demystified and fans became scandalmongers. But the construction of female identity based on goods and performance that resulted in unstable, fragmented selves remains a legacy evident in postmodern culture today.

As the leading fan magazine in the postwar era, Photoplay constructed female stars as social types who embodied a romantic and leisured California lifestyle. Addressing working- and lower-middle-class readers who were prospering in the first mass consumption society, the magazine published not only publicity stories but also beauty secrets, fashion layouts, interior design tips, recipes, advice columns, and vacation guides. Postwar femininity was constructed in terms of access to commodities in suburban houses as the site of family togetherness. As the decade progressed, however, changing social mores regarding female identity and behavior eroded the relationship between idolized stars and worshipful fans. When the magazine adopted tabloid conventions to report sex scandals like the Debbie-Eddie-Liz affair, stars were demystified and fans became scandalmongers. But the construction of female identity based on goods and performance that resulted in unstable, fragmented selves remains a legacy evident in postmodern culture today.

During the 1920s, sound revolutionized the motion picture industry and cinema continued as one of the most significant and popular forms of mass entertainment in the world. Film studios were transformed into major corporations, hiring a host of craftsmen and technicians including cinematographers, editors, screenwriters, and set designers. The birth of the star system supported the meteoric rise and celebrity status of actors including Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, Joan Crawford, Greta Garbo, and Rudolph Valentino while black performers (relegated to 'race films') appeared infrequently in mainstream movies. The classic Hollywood film style was perfected and significant film genres were established: the melodrama, western, historical epic, and romantic comedy, along with slapstick, science fiction, and fantasy. In ten original essays, American Cinema of the 1920s examines the film industry's continued growth and prosperity while focusing on important themes of the era. Some of the films discussed in this volume include: Flesh and the Devil, Applause, The Jazz Singer, Salome, The Affairs of Anatol, and The Electric House.

From cold war hysteria and rampant anticommunist witch hunts to the lure of suburbia, television, and the new consumerism, the 1950s was a decade of sensational commercial possibility coupled with dark nuclear fears and conformist politics. Amid this amalgamation of social, political, and cultural conditions, Hollywood was under siege: from the Justice Department, which pressed for big film companies to divest themselves of their theater holdings; from the middleclass, whose retreat to family entertainment inside the home drastically decreased the filmgoing audience; and from the House Un-American Activities Committee, which was attempting to purge the country of dissenting political views. In this difficult context, however, some of the most talented filmmakers of all time, including John Ford, Alfred Hitchcock, Vincente Minnelli, Nicholas Ray, and Billy Wilder produced some of their most remarkable work.

Bringing together original essays by ten respected scholars in the field, American Cinema of the 1950s explores the impact of the cultural environment of this decade on film, and the impact of film on the American cultural milieu. Contributors examine the signature films of the decade, including "From Here to Eternity," "Sunset Blvd.", "Singin' in the Rain," "Shane," " Rear Window," and" Rebel Without a Cause," as well as lesser-known but equally compelling films, such as "Dial 1119," "Mystery Street," "Suddenly," Summer Stock, "The Last Hunt," and many others.

Provocative, engaging, and accessible to general readers as well as scholars, this volume provides a unique lens through which to view the links between film and the prevailing social and historical events of the decade.

Cecil B. DeMille, best remembered as the director of biblical epics, was, in his early days as a filmmaker, an exemplar of genteel culture. In 1913, when DeMille co-founded the Jesse L. Lasky Feature Play Company, the movie industry was struggling to attain cultural legitimacy and attract "high-class" patrons. During the Progressive Era, DeMille artfully inserted cinema into middle-class culture. By the 1920s, he had become a trendsetter, producing films the advertising industry used to shape a consumer culture based on female desire. In this work - which blends cultural history and cultural studies - the author examines how DeMille articulated middle-class ideology across class and ethnic barriers to appeal to an increasingly female audience. Based on research into the DeMille Archives and other sources, the book provides an analysis of the director's early features with respect to the dynamics of social change. Further, by demonstrating the congruence of cultural forms such as feature films, theatre, Orientalist world's fairs, and department store displays, Higashi shows the relationship of the emerging popular culture to highbrow modes of expression.