The Golden Age of Cinema: Hollywood, 1929-1945 (Paperback)

by Richard Jewell (Author)
Key Phrases: compensating moral values, traveling mattes, Warner Bros, United Artists, World War (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review
"Rick Jewell has been teaching a course on classical Hollywood moviemaking at USC for some years but has never found a textbook that suited his needs. As a result he has written one, and it’s excellent. Jewell has taken on the daunting task of surveying the social history of the period, the business side of Hollywood , changes and advancement in technology, censorship, narrative and style, genres, and the star system. Whew! I can’t imagine a better introduction to this subject matter. The book is scrupulously well organized and uses specific examples whenever possible instead of dealing in generalities." Leonard Maltin's Movie Crazy (www.leonardmaltin.com)

“Some believe that American film peaked between the Stock Market Crash and the end of World War II. Richard B. Jewell’s The Golden Age of Cinema sharply delineates how the film industry worked during the period, casting light on the movies as business, technology, social document, and popular art.”
Charles J. Maland, University of Tennessee

Product Description
This comprehensive book illuminates the most fertile and exciting period in American film, a time when the studio system was at its peak and movies played a critical role in elevating the spirits of the public. Richard B. Jewell offers a highly readable yet deeply informed account of the economics, technology, censorship, style, genres, stars and history of Hollywood during its "classical" era.

• A major introductory textbook covering what is arguably the most fertile and exciting period in film, 1929-1945
  
• Analyzes many of the seminal films from the period, from The Wizard of Oz to Grand Hotel to Gone with the Wind, considering the impact they had then and still have today
  
• Tackles the shaping forces of the period: the business practices of the industry, technological developments, censorship restraints, narrative strategies, evolution of genres, and the stars and the star system
  
• Explores the major social, political, economic, and cultural events that helped to shape contemporary commercial cinema, as well as other leisure activities that influenced Hollywood production, including radio, vaudeville, theatre and fiction
  
• Written in a jargon-free, lively style, and features a number of illustrations throughout the text

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Product Details

• Paperback: 344 pages
• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell (November 27, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1405163739
• ISBN-13: 978-1405163736
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #126,380 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Comprehensive, impressive introduction, October 13, 2007

By	steven pond - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Professor Jewell's book on the "Golden Age" of Hollywood movie-making is a great introduction to the way the Hollywood studios worked in the first 20 years of sound, from 1926 to 1945 (with some nods to the post-war period).

What makes the book invaluable is the breadth of his approach. He covers not only what was going on in Hollywood but also in the broader areas of the entertainment arts (radio, stage, books, even sports) competing with movies for consumers' attention and money. He covers not only the spectrum of entertainment arts but also what was going on culturally and even politically in the period. For example, he shows how the rise of censorship in Hollywood movies in 1932-4 related to the economic downturn of the Depression, which had hurt box office returns, seducing the studios into releasing more films featuring sex and violence.

In spite of being a manageable 300 pages, the book gets into specifics to prove its points, citing box office grosses and profits for the movies mentioned. In discussing movies by genres and styles, Professor Jewell offers loads of titles of representative and excellent movies to watch and review.

Anybody who never got the chance to attend one of Professor Jewell's classes at the USC School of Cinema, where he's one of the top two most popular lecturers, can now make up for it by reading this book and renting some of the movies he mentions. It's a great way to start to understand what made this period of Hollywood filmmaking so extraordinary.