Books in the Hollywood History series

Sports on Film documents key events in American sports history through the films that depict them, starting with the integration of major-league baseball when Jackie Robinson signed with the Brooklyn Dodgers. Other significant events and personalities examined include the college basketball point-shaving incident of the 1950s; journalist George Plimpton's attempt to go through the Detroit Lions' NFL training camp in the early 1960s; the originations and popularity of rodeo; the brief run of women's professional baseball during World War II; the underdog racehorse Seabiscuit during the Great Depression; the rise of African American boxer Muhammad Ali; the unique 1970s "e;Battle of the Sexes"e; tennis event between Bobby Riggs and Billie Jean King; and Ford Motor Company's run in the 1960s to take motorsports to Europe's premier event in Le Mans, France.

Films create both an impression of and - at times for younger audiences - a primary definition of events, people, and issues of an era. The 1960s on Film examines the 1960s as the decade was presented in ten films that focused on that decade. Discussion will focus on both what the films have to say about the era and how close they come to accurately depicting it.For example, films such as Mississippi Burning and Selma tell the story of racial conflict and hope for reconciliation in the 1960s. Other films such as The Right Stuff and Hidden Figures show the deep fascination America had at that time with the burgeoning space program and NASA, while Easy Rider analyzes the role of rock music and drugs among young people of the decade. The Deer Hunter studies the controversies surrounding the war in Vietnam. The Graduate, Mad Men, JFK, and Thirteen Days also receive significant treatment in this exciting volume.

Memories of the Cold War have often been shaped by the popular films that depict it-for example, The Manchurian Candidate, The Hunt for Red October, and Charlie Wilson's War, among others. The Cold War on Film examines how the Cold War has been portrayed through a selection of 10 iconic films that represent it through dramatization and storytelling, as opposed to through documentary footage.The book includes an introduction to the war's history and a timeline of events. Each of the 10 chapters that follow focuses on a specific Cold War film. Chapters offer a uniquely detailed level of historical context for the films, weighing their depiction of events against the historical record and evaluating how well or how poorly those films reflected the truth and shaped public memory and discourse over the war. A comprehensive annotated bibliography of print and electronic sources aids students and teachers in further research.

The Civil War on Film will inform high school and college readers interested in Civil War film history on issues that arise when film viewers confuse entertainment with historical accuracy. The nation's years of civil war were painful, destructive, and unpleasant.

The American West on Film chronicles 12 Hollywood motion pictures that are set in the post-Civil War American West, including The Ox-Bow Incident, Red River, High Noon, The Searchers, The Magnificent Seven, Little Big Man, and Tombstone. Each film overview summarizes the movie's plot, details how the film came to be made, the critical and box-office reactions upon its release, and the history of the time period or actual event. This is followed by a comparison and contrast of the filmmakers' version of history with the facts, as well as an analysis of the film's significance, then and now.Relying on contemporary accounts and historical analysis as well as perspectives from filmmakers, historians, and critics, the author describes what it took to get each movie made and how close to the historical truth the movie actually got. Readers will come away with a better understanding of how movies often reflect the time in which they were made, and how Westerns can offer provocative social commentary hidden beneath old-fashioned "e;shoot-em-ups."e;

"Vietnam War on Film illustrates how to employ film as a teaching tool. It also stands on its own as an account of the war and the major films that have depicted it"--