The Fifties: Transforming the Screen, 1950-1959 (History of the American Cinema) |
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The Fifties: Transforming the Screen, 1950-1959 (History of the American Cinema)
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by Peter Lev
Sales Rank: 59329
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$14.05
At Amazon
on 6-23-2008.
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Features
Cover Type: Paperback with 396 pages
Published by: University of California PressEdition: 1st Edition November 6, 2006
Written in: English
ISBN 10 Number: 0520249666
ISBN 13 Number: 978-0520249660
Book Dimensions:
9.9 x 7 x 0.9 inches
Weighs: 1.8 pounds
Product Description
Completing the landmark, award-winning, ten-volume series on the first century of American film, The Fifties covers a particularly tumultuous period. Peter Lev explores the divorce of movie studios from their theater chains; the panic of the blacklist era; the explosive emergence of science fiction as the dominant genre (The Thing, The Day the Earth Stood Still, Forbidden Planet, War of the Worlds); the rise of television and Hollywood's response to the new medium, as seen in widescreen spectacles (The Robe, The Ten Commandments, Ben-Hur) and mature Westerns (High Noon, Shane, The Searchers). The richly detailed text elucidates a number of emerging trends as Hollywood, with its familiar stars and genres, reached out as an industry to the newly acknowledged "teenage" generation with rock and roll films, and movies as diverse as Rebel Without a Cause and Gidget.
About The Author
Peter Lev is Professor of Electronic Media and Film at Towson University and author of American Films of the 70s: Conflicting Visions.
Reader Reviews
This is a good book, but it could have been a better book. The main text, by Peter Lev, is very good. He clearly appreciates the movies of the Fifties, yet he is not uncritical of their shortcomings. Lev writes about the ups and downs of the major and minor studios and makes this business history informative and interesting. He also describes the major genres of the Fifties (except for sci-fi) and he does a superb job of discussing key films in those genres. The problem lies with the "expert" chapters on special topics, such as the blacklist, censorship, the response to TV, and sci-fi films. These chapters are not written by Lev but by experts. The result is that Lev's narrative is interrupted by huge chunks of convoluted academic prose that make the reader wish that Lev had been trusted to write the whole book himself. Lev's part of the book soars. The expert chapters bring it crashing down to earth. The Fifties came in the middle of the Twentieth Century, and "The Fifties" is about the middle of this history of American film series in terms of quality. It isn't one of the best books, but it isn't one of the worst either. The annoying thing is that it could have been better.
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The Fifties: Transforming the Screen, 1950-1959 (History of the American Cinema)
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Price: $14.05
Updated on 6-23-2008.
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