Download or read book Inventing the Public Enemy written by David E. Ruth and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 1996-04-15 with total page 217 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ruth shows that the media gangster was less a reflection of reality than a projection created from Americans' values, concerns, and ideas about what would sell.
Download or read book Public Enemies Public Heroes written by Jonathan Munby and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2009-04-24 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Hoosier Public Enemy written by John Beineke and published by Indiana Historical Society. This book was released on 2014-08-25 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the bleak days of the Great Depression, news of economic hardship often took a backseat to articles on the exploits of an outlaw from Indiana—John Dillinger. For a period of fourteen months during 1933 and 1934 Dillinger became the most famous bandit in American history, and no criminal since has matched him for his celebrity and notoriety. Dillinger won public attention not only for his robberies, but his many escapes from the law. The escapes he made from jails or “tight spots,” when it seemed law officials had him cornered, became the stuff of legends. While the public would never admit that they wanted the “bad guy” to win, many could not help but root for the man who appeared to be an underdog. Although his crime wave took place in the last century, the name Dillinger has never left the public imagination
Download or read book Inventing the public enemy written by Percival Santos and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 466 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Public Enemy written by Harvey Thew and published by Univ of Wisconsin Press. This book was released on 1981 with total page 198 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Public Enemy, a 1931 Warner Brothers gangster classic, is easily remembered as the movie in which James Cagney used Mae Clarke's nose as a grapefruit grinder. As Cagney recalls, it was just about the first time that "a woman had been treated like a broad on the screen, instead of like a delicate flower." The ambivalence toward women is just one of the many stylistic contradictions that make The Public Enemy worth studying, not only for its intrinsic merits but also as a creative expression bending under the constraints of censorship.
Download or read book Public Enemies written by Bryan Burrough and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2009-04-29 with total page 624 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Public Enemies, bestselling author Bryan Burrough strips away the thick layer of myths put out by J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI to tell the full story—for the first time—of the most spectacular crime wave in American history, the two-year battle between the young Hoover and the assortment of criminals who became national icons: John Dillinger, Machine Gun Kelly, Bonnie and Clyde, Baby Face Nelson, Pretty Boy Floyd, and the Barkers. In an epic feat of storytelling and drawing on a remarkable amount of newly available material on all the major figures involved, Burrough reveals a web of interconnections within the vast American underworld and demonstrates how Hoover’s G-men overcame their early fumbles to secure the FBI’s rise to power.
Download or read book White on Arrival written by Thomas A. Guglielmo and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2004-09-30 with total page 293 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Taking the mass Italian immigration of the late 19th century as his starting point and drawing on dozens of oral histories and a diverse array of primary sources in English and Italian, Guglielmo focuses on how perceptions of Italians' race and color were shaped in one of America's great centers of immigration and labor, Chicago. His account skillfully weaves together the major events of Chicago immigrant history--the "Chicago Color Riot" of 1919, the rise of Italian organized crime, and the rise of industrial unionism--with national and international events--such as the rise of fascism and the Italian-Ethiopian War of 1935-36--to present the story of how Italians approached, learned, and lived race. By tracking their evolving position in the city's racial hierarchy, Guglielmo reveals the impact of racial classification--both formal and informal--on immigrants' abilities to acquire homes and jobs, start families, and gain opportunities in America. White on Arrival was the winner of the 2004 Frederick Jackson Turner Award of the Organization of American Historians
Download or read book Violence and American Cinema written by J. David Slocum and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-09-13 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: American cinema has always been violent, and never more so than now: exploding heads, buses that blow up if they stop, racial attacks, and general mayhem. From slapstick's comic violence to film noir, from silent cinema to Tarantino, violence has been an integral part of America on screen. This new volume in a successful series analyzes violence, examining its nature, its effects, and its cinematic and social meaning.
Download or read book For Business and Pleasure written by Mara Laura Keire and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2010-03-01 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mara L. Keire’s history of red-light districts in the United States offers readers a fascinating survey of the business of pleasure from the 1890s through the repeal of Prohibition in 1933. Anti-vice reformers in the late nineteenth century accepted that complete eradication of disreputable pleasure was impossible. Seeking a way to regulate rather than eliminate prostitution, alcohol, drugs, and gambling, urban reformers confined sites of disreputable pleasure to red-light districts in cities throughout the United States. They dismissed the extremes of prohibitory law and instead sought to limit the impact of vice on city life through realistic restrictive measures. Keire’s thoughtful work examines the popular culture that developed within red-light districts, as well as efforts to contain vice in such cities as New Orleans; Hartford, Connecticut; New York City; Macon, Georgia; San Francisco; and El Paso, Texas. Keire describes the people and practices in red-light districts, reformers' efforts to limit their impact on city life, and the successful closure of the districts during World War I. Her study extends into Prohibition and discusses the various effects that scattering vice and banning alcohol had on commercial nightlife.
Download or read book Death in Classical Hollywood Cinema written by B. Hagin and published by Springer. This book was released on 2010-04-09 with total page 211 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Boaz Hagin carries out a philosophical examination of the issue of death as it is represented and problematized in Hollywood cinema of the classical era (1920s-1950s) and in later mainstream films, looking at four major genres: the Western, the gangster film, melodrama and the war film.
Download or read book Mob Culture written by Lee Grieveson and published by Rutgers University Press. This book was released on 2005 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mob Culture offers a long-awaited, fresh look at the American gangster film, exposing its hidden histories from the Black Hand gangs of the early twentieth century to The Sopranos. Departing from traditional approaches that have typically focused on the "nature" of the gangster, the editors have collected essays that engage the larger question of how the meaning of criminality has changed over time. Grouped into three thematic sections, the essays examine gangster films through the lens of social, gender, and racial/ethnic issues.
Download or read book Deadly Valentines written by Jeffrey Gusfield and published by Chicago Review Press. This book was released on 2012-04-01 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: &“An engrossing look inside Al Capone's murderous ranks.&” &–Kirkus Almost before the gunsmoke from the St. Valentine's Day Massacre cleared, Chicago police had a suspect: &“Machine Gun&” Jack McGurn. They just couldn't find him. But two weeks later police found McGurn and his paramour, Louise May Rolfe, holed up at the Stevens Hotel. Both claimed they were in bed on the morning of the shootings, a titillating alibi that grabbed the public's attention and never let go. Chicago Valentines is one of the most outrageous stories of the Capone era, a twin biography of a couple who defined the extremes and excesses of the Prohibition era in America. McGurn was a prizefighter, professional-level golfer, and the ultimate urban predator and hit man who put the iron in Al Capone's muscle. Rolfe, a beautiful blond dancer and libertine, was the epitome of fashion, rebellion, and wild abandon in a decade that shocked and roared. Every newspaper in the country followed their ongoing story. They were the most spellbinding subject of the new jazz subculture, an unforgettable duo who grabbed headlines and defined the exciting gangland world of 1920s Chicago. The story of Jack McGurn and Louise Rolfe, two lovers caught in history's spotlight, is more fascinating than any fiction. They were the prototypes for eighty years of gangster literature and cinema, representing a time that never loses its allure. Jeffrey Gusfield, a native Chicagoan, researched the history of Jack McGurn, Louise Rolfe, and the Capone years for more than four decades.
Download or read book American Masculinities A Historical Encyclopedia written by Bret Carroll and published by SAGE Publications. This book was released on 2003-10-14 with total page 577 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This is a highly recommended purchase for undergraduate, medium-sized, and large public libraries wishing to provide a substantial introduction to the field of men′s studies." --Reference & User Services Quarterly "Pleasing layout and good cross-references make Carroll′s compendium a welcome addition to collections serving readers of all ages. Highly recommended." --CHOICE "An excellent index, well-chosen photographs and illustrations, and an extensive bibliography add further value. American Masculinities is well worth what would otherise be too hefty a price for many libraries because no other encyclopedia comes close to covering this growing field so well." --American Reference Books Annual American Masculinities: A Historical Encyclopedia is a first-of-its-kind reference, detailing developments in the growing field of men′s studies. This up-to-date analytical review serves as a marker of how the field has evolved over the last decade, especially since the 1993 publication of Anthony Rotundo′s American Manhood. This seminal book opened new vistas for exploration and research into American History, society, and culture. Weaving the fabric of American history, American Masculinities illustrates how American political leaders have often used the rhetoric of manliness to underscore the presumed moral righteousness and ostensibly protective purposes of their policies. Seeing U.S. history in terms of gender archetypes, readers will gain a richer and deeper understanding of America′s democratic political system, domestic and foreign policies, and capitalist economic system, as well as the "private" sphere of the home and domestic life. The contributors to American Masculinities share the assumption that men′s lives have been grounded fundamentally in gender, that is, in their awareness of themselves as males. Their approach goes beyond scholarship which traditionally looks at men (and women) in terms of what they do and how they have influenced a given field or era. Rather, this important work delves into the psychological core of manhood which is shaped not only by biology, but also by history, society, and culture. Encapsulating the current state of scholarly interpretation within the field of Men′s Studies, American Masculinities: A Historical Encyclopedia is designed to help students and scholars advance their studies, develop new questions for research, and stimulate new ways of exploring the history of American life. Key Features - Reader′s Guide facilitates browsing by topic and easy access to information - Extensive name, place, and concept index gives users an additional means of locating topics of interest - More than 250 entries, each with suggestions for further reading - Cross references direct users to related information - Comprehensive bibliography includes a list of sources organized by categories in the field Topics Covered - Arts, Literature, and Popular Culture - Body, Health, and Sexuality - Class, Ethnic, Racial, and Religious Identities - Concepts and Theories - Family and Fatherhood - General History - Icons and Symbols - Leisure and Work - Movements and Organizations - People - Political and Social Issues About the Editor Bret E. Carroll is Associate Professor of History at California State University, Stanislaus. He received his Ph.D. from Cornell University in 1991. He is author of The Routledge Historical Atlas of Religion in America (1997), Spiritualism in Antebellum America (1997), and several articles on nineteenth-century masculinity.
Download or read book From Wiseguys to Wise Men written by Fred Gardaphe and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-01-22 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The gangster, in the hands of the Italian American artist, becomes a telling figure in the tale of American race, gender, and ethnicity - a figure that reflects the autobiography of an immigrant group just as it reflects the fantasy of a native population. From Wiseguys to Wise Men studies the figure of the gangster and explores its social function in the construction and projection of masculinity in the United States. By looking at the cultural icon of the gangster through the lens of gender, this book presents new insights into material that has been part of American culture for close to 100 years.
Download or read book White Cottage White House written by Tony Tracy and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2022-07-01 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: White Cottage, White House examines how Classical Hollywood cinema developed and deployed Irish American masculinities to negotiate, consolidate, and reinforce hegemonic whiteness in midcentury America. Largely confined to discriminatory stereotypes during the silent era, Irish American male characters emerge as a favored identity with the introduction of sound, positioned in a variety of roles as mediators between the marginal and mainstream. The book argues that such characters function to express hegemonic whiteness as ethnicity, a socio-racial framing that kept immigrant origins and normative American values in productive tension. It traces key Irish American male types—the gangster, the priest, the cop, the sports hero, and the returning immigrant—who navigated these tensions in maintenance of an ethnic whiteness that was nonetheless "at home" in America, transforming from James Cagney's "public enemy" to John Wayne's "quiet man" in the process. Whether as figures of Depression-era social disruption, avatars of presidential patriarchy and national manhood, or allegories of postwar white flight and the nuclear family, Irish American masculinities occupied a distinctive and unrivaled visibility and role in popular American film.
Download or read book Gumshoe America written by Sean McCann and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2000-12-06 with total page 388 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: DIVSees hard-boiled crime fiction in relation to a changing literary marketplace and as an arena for conflicts about citizenship, class culture, and democracy during the New Deal./div
Download or read book Reconstructing American Historical Cinema written by J.E. Smyth and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2006-10-27 with total page 464 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Reconstructing American Historical Cinema: From Cimarron to Citizen Kane, J. E. Smyth dramatically departs from the traditional understanding of the relationship between film and history. By looking at production records, scripts, and contemporary reviews, Smyth argues that certain classical Hollywood filmmakers were actively engaged in a self-conscious and often critical filmic writing of national history. Her volume is a major reassessment of American historiography and cinematic historians from the advent of sound to the beginning of wartime film production in 1942. Focusing on key films such as Cimarron (1931), The Public Enemy (1931), Scarface (1932), Ramona (1936), A Star Is Born (1937), Jezebel (1938), Young Mr. Lincoln (1939), Gone with the Wind (1939), Stagecoach (1939), and Citizen Kane (1941), Smyth explores historical cinema's connections to popular and academic historigraphy, historical fiction, and journalism, providing a rich context for the industry's commitment to American history. Rather than emphasizing the divide between American historical cinema and historical writing, Smyth explores the continuities between Hollywood films and history written during the first four decades of the twentieth century, from Carl Becker's famous "Everyman His Own Historian" to Howard Hughes's Scarface to Margaret Mitchell and David O. Selznick's Gone with the Wind. Hollywood's popular and often controversial cycle of historical films from 1931 to 1942 confronted issues as diverse as frontier racism and women's experiences in the nineteenth-century South, the decline of American society following the First World War, the rise of Al Capone, and the tragic history of Hollywood's silent era. Looking at rarely discussed archival material, Smyth focuses on classical Hollywood filmmakers' adaptation and scripting of traditional historical discourse and their critical revision of nineteenth- and twentieth-century American history. Reconstructing American Historical Cinema uncovers Hollywood's diverse and conflicted attitudes toward American history. This text is a fundamental challenge the prevailing scholarship in film, history, and cultural studies.
