The American Film Institute Catalog of Motion Pictures Produced in the United States: Within Our Gates: Ethnicity in American Feature Films, 1911-1960 [Hardcover]

American Film Institute (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0520209648 | ISBN-13: 978-0520209640 | Publication Date: October 1, 1997 | Edition: 1

The American Film Institute Catalog has won great praise for its comprehensiveness, reliability, and utility. These volumes are an essential purchase for every library, and individual researchers will also find them indispensable.
The newest AFI Catalog volume contains over 2500 feature-length films with an emphasis on racial and national ethnic experience in the United States. Included are films from the 1940s and 1950s such as Giant, The Defiant Ones, Gentleman's Agreement, Bright Victory, and Broken Arrow. In addition to traditional "Hollywood" films, independent productions by African-American filmmakers and various ethnic and religious organizations are also given extensive treatments.
This is the first of the AFI Catalog series to include films from more than one decade. Along with the film entries are several indexes, including personal names, ethnic group, subjects, and genre. As with other AFI Catalog volumes, full production credits, cast, plot summaries, notes, subject headings, song titles, and bibliographic citations are provided.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Any volume in the American Film Institute "Calalog" series is cause for applause and acquisition, and this one?the first to analyze a specific subject rather than all films in a given time span?is no exception. To select entries, editors combed previous volumes, Harrison's Reports, The Exhibitor, film archive databases and catalogs, and ethnic newspapers. Included are mainstream films from all genres as well as small-scale, non-Hollywood productions, e.g., Se?or Americano (1929), Kol Nidre (1939), and Paradise in Harlem (1940). Entries include title, ethnic group targeted, studio, release date, whether the film was in black and white or color, length, production credits, and cast. Detailed synopses are preceded by the subject, e.g., "Gangster, Biography" for Al Capone (1958) and "African Americans, World War II, Drama" for Home of the Brave (1949). Subsidiary subject entries follow. Where warranted, a Note indicates where the film was made and whether it was a remake, identifies the source of a poem used in the opening credits, or otherwise provides meaningful background. There are periodical review citations and five indexes: Chronological, Personal Name, Subject, Ethnic Category, and Foreign Language. Serious film collections in public and academic libraries will want this work, and general collections interested in multicultural materials may find it useful.?Kim R. Holston, American Inst. for Chartered Property Casualty Underwriters, Malvern, Pa.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 1344 pages
• Publisher: University of California Press; 1 edition (October 1, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0520209648
• ISBN-13: 978-0520209640
• Product Dimensions: 11.8 x 9.4 x 4.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,493,355 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)