Crime Films

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Crime Films

1.

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

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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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Title Page

Recent Titles in Bibliographies and Indexes in the Performing Arts

Contents

Preface

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Abbreviations

Distributors

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Appendix A: Cycles

Appendix B: Series

Bibliography

Index

About the Authors
2.

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

Book

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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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Title Page

Recent Titles in Bibliographies and Indexes in the Performing Arts

Contents

Preface

Introduction

Abbreviations

A

B

C

D

G

H

I

J

K

L

M

N

O

P

Q

R

S

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W

X

Y

Appendix A: Serials

Appendix B: Series

Bibliography

Index

About the Authors
3.

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

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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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Title Page

Recent Titles In Bibliographies and Indexes in the Performing Arts

Contents

Preface

Introduction

Abbreviations

A

B

C

D

E

F

G

H

I

J

K

L

M

N

O

P

Q

R

S

T

U

V

W

X

Y

Appendix A: Crime-Related Serials

Appendix B: Series

Bibliography

Index

About the Authors
4.

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

Book

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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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Title Page

Preface

Contents

Note on Use of Dates

Introduction

Notes

1: The History of Crime Films

Notes

2: Why They Went Bad Criminology in Crime Films

Notes

3: Cop Films

Notes

4: Courtroom Films

Notes

5: Prison and Execution Films

Notes

6: The Heroes of Crime Films

Types of Stories in Crime Films

7: The Future of Crime Films

Notes

Appendix

References

Index
5.

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

Book

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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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Title Page

Acknowledgements

Contributors

Contents

Special Features

List of Colour Illustrations

General Introduction

1: Silent Cinema 1895-1930

Introduction

Origins and Survival

Bibliography

Early Cinema

Bibliography

Transitional Cinema

Bibliography

The Hollywood Studio System

Bibliography

The World-Wide Spread of Cinema

The First World War and the Crisis in Europe

Bibliography

Bibliography

Tricks and Animation

Bibliography

Comedy

Bibliography

Documentary

Bibliography

Cinema and the Avant-Garde

Serials

Bibliography

Bibliography

French Silent Cinema

Bibliography

Italy: Spectacle and Melodrama

Bibliography

British Cinema from Hepworth to Hitchcock

Germany: the Weimar Years

Bibliography

The Scandinavian Style

Bibliography

Bibliography

Pre-Revolutionary Russia

Bibliography

The Soviet Union and the Russian émigrés

Yiddish Cinema in Europe

Bibliography

Bibliography

Japan: Before the Great Kanto Earthquake

Bibliography

Music and the Silent Film

Bibliography

The Heyday of the Silents

Bibliography

2: Sound Cinema 1930-1960

Introduction

The Introduction of Sound

Bibliography

Hollywood: the Triumph of the Studio System

Bibliography

Censorship and Self-Regulation

Bibliography

The Sound of Music

Bibliography

Technology and Innovation

Bibliography

Animation

Bibliography

Cinema and Genre

Bibliography

The Western

Bibliography

The Musical

Bibliography

Crime Movies

The Fantastic

Bibliography

Bibliography

Documentary

Socialism, Fascism, and Democracy

Bibliography

Bibliography

The Popular Art of French Cinema

Italy from Fascism to Neo-Realism

Bibliography

Bibliography

Britain at the End of Empire

Germany: Nazism and After

Bibliography

Bibliography

East Central Europe Before the Second World War

Bibliography

Soviet Film Under Stalin

Bibliography

Indian Cinema: Origins to Independence

China Before 1949

Bibliography

Bibliography

The Classical Cinema in Japan

Bibliography

The Emergence of Australian Film

Cinema in Latin America

Bibliography

Bibliography

After the War

Bibliography

Transformation of the Hollywood System

Independents and Mavericks

Bibliography

Bibliography

3: The Modern Cinema 1960-1995

Introduction

Television and the Film Industry

The New Hollywood

Bibliography

Bibliography

New Technologies

Bibliography

Sex and Sensation

Bibliography

The Black Presence in American Cinema

Bibliography

Exploitation and the Mainstream

Bibliography

Dreams and Nightmares in the Hollywood Blockbuster

Bibliography

CinÉma-VÉritÉ and the New Documentary

Avant-Garde Film: the Second Wave

Bibliography

Bibliography

Animation in the Post-Industrial Era

Bibliography

Modern Film Music

Bibliography

Art Cinema

Bibliography

New Directions in French Cinema

Italy: Auteurs and After

Bibliography

Bibliography

Spain After Franco

Bibliography

British Cinema: the Search for Identity

Bibliography

The New German Cinema

Bibliography

East Germany: the Defa Story

Changing States in East Central Europe

Bibliography

Bibliography

Russia After the Thaw

Bibliography

Cinema in the Soviet Republics

Bibliography

Turkish Cinema

Bibliography

The Arab World

The Cinemas of Sub-Saharan Africa

Bibliography

Bibliography

Iranian Cinema

Bibliography

India: Filming the Nation

Bibliography

Indonesian Cinema

China After the Revolution

Bibliography

Bibliography

Popular Cinema in Hong Kong

Taiwanese New Cinema

Bibliography

Bibliography

The Modernization of Japanese Film

Bibliography

New Australian Cinema

Bibliography

Bibliography

New Zealand Cinema

Canadian Cinema/Cinéma Canadien

Bibliography

New Cinemas in Latin America

Bibliography

New Concepts of Cinema

Bibliography

The Resurgence of Cinema

Bibliography

Index

List of Picture Sources
6.

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

Book

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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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Title Page

Contents

Preface

Notes

1: Introduction

Action/Adventure Genres

2: The Adventure Film

Bibliographical Checklist

Selected Filmography

3: The Western

Notes

Bibliographical Checklist

4: The Gangster Film

Notes

5: Film Noir

Notes

Bibliographical Checklist

Selected Filmography

6: The World War II Combat Film

Notes

Bibliographical Checklist

Selected Filmography

Comedy Genres

7: Screwball Comedy

Notes

Bibliographical Checklist

Selected Filmography

8: Populist Comedy

Notes

Bibliographical Checklist

Selected Filmography

9: Parody

Notes

Bibliographical Checklist

Selected Filmography

10: Black Humor

Notes

Bibliographical Checklist

Selected Filmography

11: Clown Comedy

Notes

Selected Filmography

Bibliographical Checklist

The Fantastic

12: Horror Film

Notes

Bibliographical Checklist

Selected Filmography

13: Science Fiction

Notes

Bibliographic Checklist

Selected Filmography

14: Fantasy

Notes

Bibliographical Checklist

Selected Filmography

Songs and Soaps

15: The Musical

Notes

Bibliographical Checklist

Selected Filmography

16: Melodrama

Notes

Bibliographical Checklist

Selected Filmography

Nontraditional Genres

17: The Social Problem Film

Notes

Bibliographical Checklist

Selected Filmography

18: Biographical Film

Notes

Selected Filmography

19: The Art Film

Notes

Bibliographical Checklist

Selected Filmography

Index

About the Editor and Contributors
7.

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

Book

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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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Title Page

Contents

Preface

Introduction

Abandoned Spouse

Alcoholism

Amnesia

Avenging Spouse

Backstage

Battered Women

Biographies

Black Hand

Burglary

Capital Punishment

Capital Vs. Labor

Childbirth

Circumstantial Evidence

Circus

City Vs. Country

Class Distinction

Courtroom

Cross Dressing

Detectives

Divorce

Drugs

Eugenics

Gangs and Gangsters

Greenwich Village

Jungle

Mythical Kingdoms

Patriotism

Political Corruption

Prejudice

Prostitution

Red Scare

Seduction and Abandonment

Slums

Vampires

White Slavery

Women's Rights

Bibliography

Name Index

Title Index
8.

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

Book

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Title Page

Contents

Illustrations

Author's Note

Introduction

Part I: Literary Antecedents

1: Tragedy

2: Hostages of Fate

Part II: Cinematic Antecedents

3: German Expressionist Cinema

4: American Cinema between the Wars

Part III: American Film Noir

5: The Film Noir Canon

6: Noir Women

7: Noir Men

8: Noir Directors

Notes

Chronology and Filmography of Films Noirs

Bibliography

Index

About the Author
9.

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

Book

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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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Pre-Code Hollywood

Pre-Code Hollywood: Sex, Immorality, and Insurrection in American Cinema, 1930–1934

For Sandra, Again

Contents

Preface

1: On the Cusp of Classical Hollywood Cinema

2: Breadlines and Box Office Lines

3: Preachment Yarns

4: Dictators and Democrats

5: Vice Rewarded

6: Criminal Codes

7: Comic Timing

8: News on Screen

9: Remote Kinships

10: Primitive Mating Rituals

11: Nightmare Pictures

12: Classical Hollywood Cinema

Appendix 1: The Motion Picture Production Code of 1930

Appendix 2: Particular Applications of the Code and the Reasons Therefore [addenda to 1930 Code]

Appendix 3: Amendments

Appendix 4: The Critical and Commercial Hits of 1930–1934

Notes

Index

Film Index
10.

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

Book

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Title Page

Contents

Preface

Introduction

Part I the System Breaks Down: the Individual as Victim, 1930-1933

1: Prototypes: Gangsters, Fallen Women, and Convicts

3: The Populists--Or, Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?

4: Desperation--Hollywood Turns to the Right

5: From Despair to Recovery: Warner Brothers and Fdr

Part II the System Upheld: the Individual Redeemed, 1933-1941

6: Unemployment-- Doing Your Part

7: Hollywood and the Worker

8: Rural Problems

9: The Juvenile Delinquent and Society

10: The Ex-Con and Society

11: Different Problems, Same Solutions

Part III Fascism and War

12: Native Fascists-- Lynching and Legions

13: Frank Capra's Super-Shysters and Little People

14: More Plutocrats and Would-Be Dictators

15: International Facism-- from Pacifism to War

Part IV the Postwar World

16: Readjustment-- "Nervous from the Service"

17: The Minorities

18: More Neuroses-- Alcoholism and Insanity

19: Postwar Labor Problems

20: The Individual and Society: Darker Views of the Postwar World

21: Huac and the End of an Era

Conclusion: Sullivan's Travels-- Hollywood Goes Slumming

Notes

Selected Bibliography

Selected Filmography

Index
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")
by Glenn Man. 220 pgs.

Book

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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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Title Page

Recent Titles In Contributions to the Study of Popular Culture

Copyright Acknowledgments

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

1. 1967-1968, the Wonder Year, Part I: Bonnie and Clyde

2. 1967-1968, the Wonder Year, Part II: the Graduate and 2001: A Space Odyssey

3. Westerns in Modern Dress: The Wild Bunch and Mccabe And Mrs. Miller

4. Counterculture: Midnight Cowboy, Five Easy Pieces, Carnal Knowledge, American Graffiti, Lenny

Conclusion

5. Gangsters and Private Eyes: The Godfather Films and Chinatown

6. Apocalypse: Nashville and Taxi Driver

Epilogue

Notes

Works Cited

Filmography (arranged By Chronology)

Index

About the Author
12.

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

Book

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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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Title Page

CONTENTS

SERIES FOREWORD

Notes

PREFACE

1: Making Movies

Notes

2: Watching Movies

Notes

3: Politics and the Film Industry

Notes

4: Approach, Avoidance, and Accomodation: Movies and the Great Depression

Notes

5: The Movies and the World War II

Notes

6: The Cold War and the Vietnam in Film

7: Aspiration, Disillusionment, and Ambivalence: Politics and Politicians in Film

Notes

REFERENCES

INDEX

About the Author
13.

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

Journal Article
14.

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

Journal Article
15.

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

Journal Article
16.

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

Book

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International Communication and Pop Culture

Contents

1: Introduction

2: "Hey, We Equatorial People": Popular Music and Contemporary Society in Malaysia

3: Music Culture in Singapore: Record Companies, Retailers, and Performers

4: Thai Cassettes and Their Covers: Two Case Histories

5: Blood, Brothers, and Hong Kong Gangster Movies: Pop Culture Commentary on "One China"

Southeast Asia Pop Art: The Movie Billboard

6: Mr. Atomic, Mr. Mercury, and Chime Trooper: Japan's Answer to the American Dream

7: Coffee Shop Culture: Days in the Life of Manila's Gossip Mill

8: Cartooning in Sri Lanka: A Precarious Tightrope Act

9: Sexism in Japanese Weekly Comic Magazines for Men

10: Sanmao: Classic Cartoons and Chinese Popular Culture

11: Immortal Picture-Stories: Comic Art in Early Indian Art

The Moving Art Galleries of South and Southeast Asia

12: Modern Malay Folkore: The Humor Magazines

13: Crossing Ethnolinguistic Boundaries: A Preliminary Look at the Gaijin Tarento in Japan

14: Pachinko, Japan's National Pastime

About the Book and Editor

About the Contributors

Index

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