Read complete books and articles on: Crime Films

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16 of the Best Books and Articles on: Crime Films

as selected by Questia librarians

1.

A Guide to American Silent Crime Films » Read Now
by Larry Langman, Daniel Finn. 356 pgs.

Collections: Entire Library

The immense popularity of movies has its roots in the silent films of the early 1900s, this being especially true of the crime genre. This extensive guide features the entire history of the crime genre during the silent era, including more than 2,000 film entries, complete with names of directors...
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The immense popularity of movies has its roots in the silent films of the early 1900s, this being especially true of the crime genre. This extensive guide features the entire history of the crime genre during the silent era, including more than 2,000 film entries, complete with names of directors, screenwriters, and major players, and offers a wealth of data supported by plot evaluations and occasional thematic commentaries. For the serious student of crime films, this work provides a comprehensive treatment of genre, but, most importantly, it revives an almost forgotten genre for generations of students and movie fans both old and new.
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2.

A Guide to American Crime Films of the Thirties » Read Now
by Larry Langman, Daniel Finn. 347 pgs.

Collections: Entire Library

Recent crime films such as Scarface, the Dirty Harry series, and The Godfather have captured the American imagination, but they owe a large debt to the early crime talkies such as The Public Enemy, Paul Muni's Scarface, and Little Caesar. More than 1,000 entries are featured in this volume, complete...
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Recent crime films such as Scarface, the Dirty Harry series, and The Godfather have captured the American imagination, but they owe a large debt to the early crime talkies such as The Public Enemy, Paul Muni's Scarface, and Little Caesar. More than 1,000 entries are featured in this volume, complete with the names of directors, screen writers, and major players offering a wealth of data supported by plot evaluations. For the serious student of crime films, this work provides a comprehensive treatment of the genre. It is the only one-volume work that includes all crime sub-genres (detective, mystery, cops-and-robbers, and courtroom dramas) in addition to gangster films.
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3.

A Guide to American Crime Films of the Forties and Fifties » Read Now
by Larry Langman, Daniel Finn. 376 pgs.

Collections: Entire Library

The only comprehensive guide to the crime films of the forties and fifties, this volume focuses on the major events that shaped and molded the genre: war, alienation, drugs, and organized crime. The body of the work offers over 1,200 entries that feature concise summaries, analyses, and credits. The...
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The only comprehensive guide to the crime films of the forties and fifties, this volume focuses on the major events that shaped and molded the genre: war, alienation, drugs, and organized crime. The body of the work offers over 1,200 entries that feature concise summaries, analyses, and credits. The volume is a continuation of the author's earlier work A Guide to American Crime Films of the Thirties (Greenwood, 1995). The book includes those stars that the public had already embraced as gangsters in the thirties such as James Cagney, Humphrey Bogart, and Edward G. Robinson and brings them into a new era in which they are transformed into enforcers of the law. This work will be of interest to scholars, students, and film buffs alike.
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4.

Shots in the Mirror: Crime Films and Society » Read Now
by Nicole Rafter. 210 pgs.

Collections: Entire Library

Movies play a central role in shaping our understanding of crime and the world generally, helping us define what is good and bad, desirable and unworthy, lawful and illicit, strong and weak. Crime films raise controversial issues about the distribution of social power and the meanings of deviance...
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Movies play a central role in shaping our understanding of crime and the world generally, helping us define what is good and bad, desirable and unworthy, lawful and illicit, strong and weak. Crime films raise controversial issues about the distribution of social power and the meanings of deviance, and they provide a safe space for fantasies of rebellion, punishment, and the restoration of order. In this, the first comprehensive study of its kind, well-known criminologist Nicole Rafter examines the relationship between society and crime films from the perspectives of criminal justice, film history and technique, and sociology. Dealing with over 300 films ranging from gangster and cop to trial and prison movies, Shots in the Mirror concentrates on works in the Hollywood tradition but also identifies a darker strain of critical films that portray crime and punishment more bleakly.
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5.

The Oxford History of World Cinema ("Crime Movies" begins on p. 304) » Read Now
by Geoffrey Nowell-Smith. 824 pgs.

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From its humble beginnings as a novelty in a handful of cities, cinema has risen to become a billion-dollar industry and the most spectacular and original contemporary art form. In The Oxford History of World Cinema, an international team of film historians traces the history of this enduringly...
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From its humble beginnings as a novelty in a handful of cities, cinema has risen to become a billion-dollar industry and the most spectacular and original contemporary art form. In The Oxford History of World Cinema, an international team of film historians traces the history of this enduringly popular entertainment medium. Covering all aspects of its development, stars, studios, and cultural impact, the book celebrates and chronicles over one hundred years of diverse achievement from westerns to the New Wave, from animation to the avant-garde, and from Hollywood to Hong Kong. The Oxford History of World Cinema tells the story of the major inventions and developments in the cinema business, its institutions, genres, and personnel, and they outline the evolution of national cinemas round the world--the varied and distinctive film traditions that have developed alongside Hollywood. A unique aspect of the book are the special inset features on the film-makers and personalities--Garbo and Godard, Keaton and Kurosawa, Bugs Bunny and Bergman--who have had an enduring impact in popular memory and cinematic lore. With over 280 illustrations, a full bibliography, and an extensive index, this is the buff's ultimate guide to cinema worldwide.
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6.

Handbook of American Film Genres (Chap. 4 "The Gangster Film") » Read Now
by Wes D. Gehring. 412 pgs.

Collections: Entire Library

"More genres, 19 in fact, are discussed than in other standard works. The 14 genres considered here by film scholar contributors other than Gehring include the adventure film, the western, the gangster film, film noir, the WW II combat film, the horror film, science fiction, fantasy, the musical...
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"More genres, 19 in fact, are discussed than in other standard works. The 14 genres considered here by film scholar contributors other than Gehring include the adventure film, the western, the gangster film, film noir, the WW II combat film, the horror film, science fiction, fantasy, the musical, melodrama, the social problem film, the biographical film, and the art film. The discussion of fine comedy genres by Gehring himself is far more extensive than in other genre studies, embracing screwball comedy, populist comedy, parody, black humor, and clown comedy. . . . Recommended for both undergraduate and graduate collections." Choice
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7.

American Film Cycles: The Silent Era ("Detectives" begins on p. 179) » Read Now
by Larry Langman. 400 pgs.

Collections: Entire Library

Examining 40 cycles or themes and more than 1,000 silent films, the author attempts to discern how the screen reflected contemporary social, political, and national trends during the silent years. The period has been divided into the early silent years (1900-1919), with films of one or two reels...
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Examining 40 cycles or themes and more than 1,000 silent films, the author attempts to discern how the screen reflected contemporary social, political, and national trends during the silent years. The period has been divided into the early silent years (1900-1919), with films of one or two reels dominating for the first 15 years, and the later silent period (1920-1929), known as the Golden Age of the Silents, in which feature-length films dominated. One of the author's goals is to establish the success, and sometimes the failure, of these films to capture the social and political times of their release. Other film books approach the dramas and comedies by genre, not by specific cycles, which makes this work unique.
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8.

Dark Cinema: American Film Noir in Cultural Perspective (Chap. 4 "American Cinema between the Wars") » Read Now
by Jon Tuska. 305 pgs.

Collections: Entire Library

...episode. But in certain crime films, those which eschewed...who committed a crime, there are some who...fiction and detective films, I do not believe...the character of...
9.

Pre-Code Hollywood: Sex, Immorality, and Insurrection in American Cinema, 1930-1934 (Chap. 6 "Criminal Codes: Gangsters Unbound, Felons in Custody") » Read Now
by Thomas Doherty. 423 pgs.

Collections: Entire Library

Pre-Code Hollywood explores the fascinating period in American motion picture history from 1930 to 1934 when the commandments of the Production Code Administration were violated with impunity in a series of wildly unconventional films -- a time when censorship was lax and Hollywood made the most of...
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Pre-Code Hollywood explores the fascinating period in American motion picture history from 1930 to 1934 when the commandments of the Production Code Administration were violated with impunity in a series of wildly unconventional films -- a time when censorship was lax and Hollywood made the most of it. Though more unbridled, salacious, subversive, and just plain bizarre than what came afterwards, the films of the period do indeed have the look of Hollywood cinema -- but the moral terrain is so off-kilter that they seem imported from a parallel universe. In a sense, Doherty avers, the films of pre-Code Hollywood are from another universe. They lay bare what Hollywood under the Production Code attempted to cover up and push offscreen: sexual liaisons unsanctified by the laws of God or man, marriage ridiculed and redefined, ethnic lines crossed and racial barriers ignored, economic injustice exposed and political corruption assumed, vice unpunished and virtue unrewarded -- in sum, pretty much the raw stuff of American culture, unvarnished and unveiled. No other book has yet sought to interpret the films and film-related meanings of the pre-Code era -- what defined the period, why it ended, and what its relationship was to the country as a whole during the darkest years of the Great Depression... and afterward.
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10.

The Hollywood Social Problem Film: Madness, Despair, and Politics from the Depression to the Fifties (Chap. 1 "Prototypes: Gangsters, Fallen Women, and Convicts") » Read Now
by Peter Roffman, Jim Purdy. 366 pgs.

Collections: Entire Library

...address social injustice, crime films where criminality is viewed...of the times. Though the films allow for the fact that crime and sin are justifiable...believable as the...
11.

Radical Visions: American Film Renaissance, 1967-1976 (Chap. One "1967-1968, The Wonder Year, Part I: Bonnie and Clyde" and Chap. Five "Gangsters and Private Eyes: The Godfather Films and Chinatown") » Read Now
by Glenn Man. 220 pgs.

Collections: Entire Library

Radical Visions discusses an important period in American film history: Films such as Bonnie and Clyde, The Graduate, McCabe and Mrs. Miller, Midnight Cowboy, Nashville, and Taxi Driver challenged the narrative structure and style of the classical Hollywood paradigm, transformed its conventional...
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Radical Visions discusses an important period in American film history: Films such as Bonnie and Clyde, The Graduate, McCabe and Mrs. Miller, Midnight Cowboy, Nashville, and Taxi Driver challenged the narrative structure and style of the classical Hollywood paradigm, transformed its conventional genres, exploded traditional American myths, and foregrounded a consciousness of the cinematic process. Film students, scholars, and aficionados will gain insight into generic conventions and narrative style presented within the cultural attitudes of the time.
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12.

Politics and Politicians in American Film (Chap. 4 "Approach, Avoidance, and Accomodation: Movies and the Great Depression") » Read Now
by Phillip L. Gianos. 216 pgs.

Collections: Entire Library

Films have been a part of U.S. society for a century--a source of great enjoyment for the audience and of great profit to filmmakers. How does a mass entertainment medium deal with some of the great sources of dramatic real-life political and economic conflict--the Great Depression, the Cold War--in...
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Films have been a part of U.S. society for a century--a source of great enjoyment for the audience and of great profit to filmmakers. How does a mass entertainment medium deal with some of the great sources of dramatic real-life political and economic conflict--the Great Depression, the Cold War--in a way that attracts an audience without making it angry? How does an industry, which has from its beginnings been the subject of attacks from social, political and religious groups deal with political issues and conflicts? This book is an attempt to examine these questions; it is also an examination of some of the greatest and most interesting American films ever made--westerns, gangster films, comedies, war films, satires, and film biographies--to see what American films say about politics and politicians, and what these films, in turn, say about the audience for which they were produced.
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13.

Film Gris: Crime, Critique and Cold War Culture in 1951, in Film Criticism » Read Now
by Charles J. Maland. 31 pgs.

Collections: Entire Library

...of film gris--social realist crime films--by examining two of the least...through criminal means. In both films, then, class and crime are inextricably linked with...sense...
14.

Class, Crime, and Film Noir: Labor, the Fugitive Outsider, and the Anti-Authoritarian Tradition, in Social Justice » Read Now
by Dennis Broe. 20 pgs.

Collections: Entire Library

...accounting for over 40% of all crime films (171 of 414). (4) Other strands...John Garfield, continued to make crime films with strong social content...
15.

Marginal Marginalia: The African-American Voice in the Nouvelle Gangster Film, in Velvet Light Trap » Read Now
by Mark Winokur. 14 pgs.

Collections: Entire Library

...conspicuously in gangster and crime films rather than, say, westerns...different from more recent films like the Godfather series...point is to legitimate a crime family by...
16.

Asian Popular Culture (Chap. 5 "Blood, Brothers, and Hong Kong Gangster Movies: Pop Culture Commentary on 'One China'") » Read Now
by John A. Lent. 232 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

...augmentation of prostitution, gambling, and crime; the conversion of the "exotic to modern...cartoons, comic books and comic strips, films, games, gossip, language...