Studies of “Classic Hollywood” typically treat Hollywood films released from 1930 to 1960 as a single interpretive mass. This book complicates this idea. Focusing on dominant tendencies in box office hits and Oscar-recognized classics, the book breaks down the so-called classic period into six distinct phases. The book's analysis follows Hollywood's amazingly diverse offerings from the emancipated females of the “Transition Era” and the traditional men and women of the conservative 1930s that replaced it to the fantastical Fifties movie musicals that arose after anti-classic genres like film n ... More

Studies of “Classic Hollywood” typically treat Hollywood films released from 1930 to 1960 as a single interpretive mass. This book complicates this idea. Focusing on dominant tendencies in box office hits and Oscar-recognized classics, the book breaks down the so-called classic period into six distinct phases. The book's analysis follows Hollywood's amazingly diverse offerings from the emancipated females of the “Transition Era” and the traditional men and women of the conservative 1930s that replaced it to the fantastical Fifties movie musicals that arose after anti-classic genres like film noir and women's films. The book's analysis is set apart by paying particular attention to the gendered desires and identities exemplified in the films. The book views Hollywood through strategies as varied as close textural analysis, feminism, psychoanalysis, film style and study of cinematic imagery, revealing the inconsistencies and antithetical traits lurking beneath Classic Hollywood's supposed transparency. The result is a synthesis of theoretical approaches to a legendary cinematic era.