Product Description: Cy Endfield (1914–1995) was a filmmaker who was also fascinated by the worlds of close-up magic, science, and invention. After directing several distinctive low-budget films in Hollywood, he was blacklisted in 1951 and fled to Britain rather than “name names” before HUAC, the U...read more

This study looks at the social and political nature of American film by concentrating on a generation of writers who directed films in Hollywood in the 1940s. The author discusses how they negotiated their roles in relation to the studio system, itself undergoing change, and to what extent their experience in the political and theatre movements of 1930s New York was to be reflected in their later films. The book deals with wider issues relating to the relationship between American film and American politics and society, by examining the middle period work of Frank Capra, film noir and politics, and the impact on American film of the Congressional investigations of the late 1940s and early 1950s. He focuses in particular on Orson Welles, Elia Kazan, Jules Dassin, Abraham Polonsky, Nicholas Ray, Robert Rossen and Joseph Losey, and discusses their later American work. The book relates the work of these writers and directors to the broader industrial, bureaucratic, social and political developments of the period 1935-1970, with special emphasis on the post-war decade.

Product Description: In 1999, Elia Kazan (1909-2003) received an honorary Oscar for lifetime achievement; it was a controversial award, for in 1952 he had given testimony to the HUAC Committee, for which he was ostracized by many. That Oscar also acknowledged Kazan's remarkable contribution to American and world cinema, making such films as "On the Waterfront" and "A Streetcar Named Desire"...read more