Books in the Cinema and Society series

Focusing on the 1950s when Hollywood's interest in the past was at its peak, this book reconstructs how filmmakers understood their treatment of the past, suggesting why many of them saw their work as superior to that of professional historians. It explains how and why Hollywood blurs the boundaries between fiction and historical reality.

In this new edition of Licence To Thrill, James Chapman builds upon the success of his classic work, regarded as the definitive scholarly study of the history of the James Bond film series from the first picture, Dr No (1962), to the present. He considers the origins of the films in the spy thrillers of Ian Fleming and examines the production histories of the films in the contexts of the British and international film industries.This edition includes a new introduction and chapters on Quantum of Solace (2008), Skyfall (2012), Spectre (2015) and No Time to Die (2021). Chapman explores how the films have changed over time in response to developments in the wider film culture and society at large. He charts the ever-evolving Bond formula, analysing the films' representations of nationhood, class, and gender in a constantly shifting cinematic and ideological landscape.

The first study to contextualise fully the changes brought about by railways and cinema, and demonstrate the resultant impact on everyday life.

A young man leaves his home to look for work in the cinema industry and is not heard of again, disappearing after a first rejection: one hopeful actor of hundreds seeking a route to stardom.

Noel Brown celebrates and explores popular children's films from the Harry Potter franchise to Paddington, revealing the industrial, social and cultural history behind cherished classics.

Focuses on previously unstudied Italian, German and British films

Where Hollywood and China meet

How does film censorship work in Britain? Robertson examines the history of the British Board of Film Censors and shows that censorship has had a greater influence on film history than is often assumed.

An exploration of the development of anti-war cinema in Britain, America, Germany and France from the ground-breaking Lay Down Your Arms in 1914 through to Stanley Kubrick's Paths of Glory

Combining archival research and interviews with Rank's contemporaries and family, this study charts the 1940s "golden era" of the British film industry that Rank, having bought the Odeon and Gaumont British chains and made inroads into the American market, helped to create.

Provides a history of masculinity in British films from World War II onwards. The study explores in detail the changing nature of the dominant male cultural types: the debonair gentleman; the Byronic hero; the Angry Young Man; the delinquent; the maladjusted veteran; villains; and comic fools.

A detailed study of the workings of the American film industry during the 1930s. Schindler illustrates how the studios helped to foster ideas of social unity and patriotism.

Travelling from Warsaw to Blackpool, Marseilles to Madrid, this study investigates the postmodern nature of contemporary Europe's urban life and cinema, showing how European films represent these cities across old and new Europe. It tackles changes wrought under the effects of political change.

This text employs the Western film as a vital medium for examining the many tensions - political, racial, sexual, social and religious - which have beset modern America from "Stagecoach" and the Depression's last years to the decline of the genre in the 1970s.

Looking at popular British film in the 1940s, Realism and Tinsel goes beyond the established histories of the Ealing Comedies to excavate a rich tradition of melodrama, morbid thrillers and costume pictures.

Exploring debates about children and how they use and respond to the media, the author researches attempts to control children's viewing, the ideas that supported these approaches and the extent to which they were successful. She develops a proposition that children are agents in the regulation of their own viewing and not passive consumers.

This innovative book offers a startlingly fresh perspective on one of the most iconic figures in American film history.

Making use of the files of the US Production Code Administration, this is a film-by-film study of the way in which British films were censored in the USA between 1933 and 1960.

Examining the diverse industrial, institutional and cultural contexts which have allowed Scottish film to evolve and grow since the 1970s, this book narrates a story of interest to any student of contemporary British film.

Cult has entered the cultural psyche in a profound and pervasive way. There is no corner of popular culture beyond the potential for cult transformation. Indeed, in entering common parlance the term has lost its clandestine mystique. This book charts the journey of cult in culture through an exploration of British cult films and their fans.

At the outbreak of the WWII, all cinemas in Britain were closed. Ten days later, they were opened again as a way of boosting morale. Over the next six years, some 300 feature films and thousands of short films were produced in what is seen as British cinema's 'finest hour'. This work charts this period through the eyes of thirteen key films.

This text focuses on the dynamic relationship between narrative and spectacle in Hollywood cinema. It shows how narrative - far from being eclipsed by special effects - remains integral to the cinematic "blockbuster", citing the continuing relevance of the mythic American frontier.

Over 400 Spaghetti Westerns were produced during the 1960s and 1970s peak period. This book deals with several interesting examples, not to mention French, German, and Russian Westerns along the way.

A comprehensive analysis of Nazi film propaganda in its political, social and economic contexts. It considers more than 100 films, identifying those aspects of Nazi ideology that were concealed in the framework of popular entertainment under the direction of Joseph Goebbels, Propaganda Minister.

This book questions how films create and interpret what Christmas means to societies across the Anglo-Saxon and European world, examining topics such as Santa Claus in cinema, Dickens and Christmas and Spanish and German seasonal creations. In the CINEMA AND SOCIETY series.

Lenin, Stalin, Trotsky, Hitler and Goebbels regarded cinema as their most important weapon for mass political propaganda. This book examines the ways in which cinema was used for political purposes by two of the most highly politicised societies in 20th-century European history.