Includes bibliographical references (p. [373]-410) and indexes.
Contents
On the cusp of classical Hollywood cinema -- Breadlines and box office lines : Hollywood in the nadir of the Great Depression -- Preachment yarns : the politics of mere entertainment -- Dictators and Democrats : the rage for order -- Vice rewarded : the wages of cinematic sin -- Criminal codes : gangsters unbound, felons in custody -- Comic timing : cracking wise and wising up -- News on screen : the vividness of mechanical immortality -- Remote kinships : the geography of the expeditionary film -- Primitive mating rituals : the color wheel of the racial adventure film -- Nightmare pictures : the quality of gruesomeness -- Classical Hollywood cinema : the world according to Joseph J. Breen.