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Radical Hollywood: The Untold Story Behind America's Favorite Movies
Radical Hollywood The Untold Story Behind America's Favorite Movies
Author: Paul Buhle, David Wagner
A revealing and affectionate account of the personal and political lives of the left-wing screenwriters, directors, and actors behind Hollywood's Golden Age. The first comprehensive book about Hollywood's future blacklistees and the hundreds of films they wrote or directed from the dawn of sound movies to the early 1950s, Radical...  more » traces the political and personal lives of the activists along with the often-decisive impact of their work upon American film's Golden Age.

A highly readable, anecdotal history, featuring an insert of classic film stills, Radical Hollywood describes the story-behind-the-story of such famous films as Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Casablanca, and Woman of the Year, alongside such campy items as The Adventures of Captain Marvel, Sherlock Holmes and the Voice of Terror, and Kiss the Blood off My Hands. Genres like crime and women's films, family cinema, war, animation and, above all, film noir are reconsidered here, with fresh evidence drawn from interviews and recent archival breakthroughs. A long-awaited rediscovery of an overlooked intellectual-artistic milieu, Radical Hollywood will interest all film-lovers and devotees of political culture. 16 pages b/w photographs.
ISBN-13: 9781565847187
ISBN-10: 1565847180
Publication Date: 5/2002
Pages: 460
Rating:
  • Currently 3/5 Stars.
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3 stars, based on 1 rating
Publisher: New Press
Book Type: Hardcover
Other Versions: Paperback
Members Wishing: 0
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Barbllm avatar reviewed Radical Hollywood: The Untold Story Behind America's Favorite Movies on + 241 more book reviews
The truth is hard to find when everyone has an agenda. Hollywood and politics have had a complicated relationship for many years, and this excellent book shows how Leftist influence (and the controversial blacklist) changed Hollywood during the 1920s through the 1950s. The authors mix research (a lot of interesting facts about the films, actors, and directors are scattered throughout the book) and political acumen to produce a detailed analysis of progressive politics and how they shaped the resulting films like Hopalong Cassidy, Public Enemy, and The Wizard of Oz. The authors have a real love of cinema, and this shows in the stills from the films as well as the detailed footnotes in each chapter.


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