Public Enemies, Public Heroes: Screening the Gangster from Little Caesar to Touch of EvilIn this study of Hollywood gangster films, Jonathan Munby examines their controversial content and how it was subjected to continual moral and political censure. Beginning in the early 1930s, these films told compelling stories about ethnic urban lower-class desires to "make it" in an America dominated by Anglo-Saxon Protestant ideals and devastated by the Great Depression. By the late 1940s, however, their focus shifted to the problems of a culture maladjusting to a new peacetime sociopolitical order governed by corporate capitalism. The gangster no longer challenged the establishment; the issue was not "making it," but simply "making do." Combining film analysis with archival material from the Production Code Administration (Hollywood's self-censoring authority), Munby shows how the industry circumvented censure, and how its altered gangsters (influenced by European filmmakers) fueled the infamous inquisitions of Hollywood in the postwar '40s and '50s by the House Committee on Un-American Activities. Ultimately, this provocative study suggests that we rethink our ideas about crime and violence in depictions of Americans fighting against the status quo. |
From inside the book
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Page xi
... group support I received in executing earlier versions of the manuscript — especially the encouragement gleaned from the American Studies dissertation reading group at the University of Minnesota . Our monthly gather- ings over pizza ...
... group support I received in executing earlier versions of the manuscript — especially the encouragement gleaned from the American Studies dissertation reading group at the University of Minnesota . Our monthly gather- ings over pizza ...
Page 6
... groups on the other . Throughout the pre - Code era , the risk of upset- ting the audience was as big a concern with the studios as the fear of inciting antimovie legislation . In this sense , it could be argued that the inception of a ...
... groups on the other . Throughout the pre - Code era , the risk of upset- ting the audience was as big a concern with the studios as the fear of inciting antimovie legislation . In this sense , it could be argued that the inception of a ...
Page 7
... groups from interfering in the business of making , distrib- uting , and exhibiting their products . This did not mean , however , that the Production Code was toothless . Studios were forced to make compromises over their more candid ...
... groups from interfering in the business of making , distrib- uting , and exhibiting their products . This did not mean , however , that the Production Code was toothless . Studios were forced to make compromises over their more candid ...
Page 9
... disenfranchised social groups as a privileged site of sociocultural disputes with discriminatory forms of authority is also to redress tendencies to dismiss commercial cinema all too easily as " co - opted " SCREENING CRIME IN THE USA.
... disenfranchised social groups as a privileged site of sociocultural disputes with discriminatory forms of authority is also to redress tendencies to dismiss commercial cinema all too easily as " co - opted " SCREENING CRIME IN THE USA.
Page 10
... groups and the so - called masses . Censorship studies are one rare area that has sought to identify the mechanisms that actually control and determine this exchange , which mediate dissent and the problem of competing interests , and ...
... groups and the so - called masses . Censorship studies are one rare area that has sought to identify the mechanisms that actually control and determine this exchange , which mediate dissent and the problem of competing interests , and ...
Contents
The Gangsters Silent Backdrop Contesting Victorian Uplift and the Culture of Prohibition | 19 |
The Enemy Goes Public Voicing the Cultural Other in the Early 1930s Talking Gangster Film | 39 |
Manhattan Melodramas Art of the Weak Tactics of Survival and Dissent in the PostProhibition Gangster Film | 66 |
Ganging Up against the Gangster Censorship the Movies and Cultural Transformation 19151935 | 83 |
Crime Inc Beyond the GhettoBeyond the Majors in the Postwar Gangster Film | 115 |
Screening Crime the Liberal Consensus Way Postwar Transformations in the Production Code | 144 |
The UnAmerican Film Art Robert Siodmak Fritz Lang and the Political Significance of Film Noirs German Connection | 186 |
From Gangster to Gangsta Against a Certain Tendency of Film Theory and History | 221 |
Appendix | 227 |
Bibliography | 239 |
| 249 | |
| 253 | |
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1930s gangster film aesthetic American AMPAS argued Asphalt Jungle attempt audience Blackie Cagney's capitalist Catholic censors censorship character cinema civic classic Code's concerns context crime cycle criminal Depression Dillinger Doorway to Hell dramatic economic encoded ethnic urban exile fear film analysis form film form film industry film noir film's filmmakers Force of Evil Fritz Lang gang gangster film gangster narrative gangster-syndicate gangsterdom genre ghetto groups Hays Holly Hollywood HUAC HUAC's Ibid ideals ideological industry's interest James Cagney Key Largo Lang's liberal consensus Little Caesar Manhattan Melodrama modern moral Motion Picture nativist noir's old-stock PCA file PCA's played police political popular problem Production Code Administration Prohibition Public Enemy realm representation Richard Maltby Robert Siodmak role Scarface screen significant social society sociocultural stars ster story Street studios talking gangster film tion tradition transformation underworld University Press Weimar woman York