Get Free Shipping on orders over $79
Public Enemies, Public Heroes : Screening the Gangster from Little Caesar to Touch of Evil - Jonathan Munby

Public Enemies, Public Heroes

Screening the Gangster from Little Caesar to Touch of Evil

By: Jonathan Munby

Paperback | 15 March 1999 | Edition Number 1

At a Glance

Paperback


$102.75

or 4 interest-free payments of $25.69 with

 or 

Ships in 15 to 25 business days

In this study of Hollywood gangster films, Jonathan Munby examines their controversial content and how it was subjected to continual moral and political censure.

Beginning in the early 1930s, these films told compelling stories about ethnic urban lower-class desires to "make it" in an America dominated by Anglo-Saxon Protestant ideals and devastated by the Great Depression. By the late 1940s, however, their focus shifted to the problems of a culture maladjusting to a new peacetime sociopolitical order governed by corporate capitalism. The gangster no longer challenged the establishment; the issue was not "making it," but simply "making do."

Combining film analysis with archival material from the Production Code Administration (Hollywood's self-censoring authority), Munby shows how the industry circumvented censure, and how its altered gangsters (influenced by European filmmakers) fueled the infamous inquisitions of Hollywood in the postwar '40s and '50s by the House Committee on Un-American Activities. Ultimately, this provocative study suggests that we rethink our ideas about crime and violence in depictions of Americans fighting against the status quo.

More in Film, TV & Radio

Avatar Fire and Ash : The Visual Dictionary - DK

RRP $49.99

$38.75

22%
OFF
Robert Ludlum's™ The Bourne Revenge : Jason Bourne - Brian Freeman
The Art of Bob's Burgers (TM) - Loren Bouchard

RRP $120.00

$72.75

39%
OFF
Wicked Deluxe Stationery Set : Wicked - Insight Editions

RRP $75.00

$55.75

26%
OFF
Rocky Horror : A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Cult Classic - Mick Rock
White Male Stand-Up - Alan Davies

RRP $34.99

$28.75

18%
OFF
Spirited Away Film Comic : All-in-One Edition - Hayao Miyazaki

RRP $50.00

$38.75

22%
OFF
12 Days of Arcane : A Pin Collector's Countdown - Insight Editions

RRP $79.99

$58.99

26%
OFF
The Fashion of Clueless - Mona May

RRP $69.99

$52.75

25%
OFF
Talking As Fast As I Can - Lauren Graham

RRP $26.99

$22.99

15%
OFF
Diddly Squat : A Year on the Farm - Jeremy Clarkson

RRP $26.99

$22.75

16%
OFF
Gilmore Girls Cookbook : The Official Cookbook - Elena Craig

RRP $59.99

$44.75

25%
OFF
Accidentally Wes Anderson : The viral sensation - Wally Koval

RRP $69.99

$52.75

25%
OFF
The Art of Avatar : The Way of Water : Avatar - Tara Bennett

RRP $59.99

$45.75

24%
OFF
Vagabond - Tim Curry

Hardcover

RRP $55.00

$42.75

22%
OFF
Sonny Boy : A Memoir - Al Pacino

RRP $24.99

$21.75

13%
OFF