Americanizing the Movies and Movie-Mad Audiences, 1910-1914 (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780520247437)

This engaging, deeply researched study provides the richest and most nuanced picture we have to date of cinema--both movies and movie-going--in the early 1910s. At the same time, it makes clear the profound relationship between early cinema and the construction of a national identity in this important transitional period in the United States. Richard Abel looks closely at sensational melodramas, including westerns (cowboy, cowboy-girl, and Indian pictures), Civil War films (especially girl-spy films), detective films, and animal pictures--all popular genres of the day that have received little critical attention. He simultaneously analyzes film distribution and exhibition practices in order to reconstruct a context for understanding moviegoing at a time when American cities were coming to grips with new groups of immigrants and women working outside the home. Drawing from a wealth of research in archive prints, the trade press, fan magazines, newspaper advertising, reviews, and syndicated columns--the latter of which highlight the importance of the emerging star system--Abel sheds new light on the history of the film industry, on working-class and immigrant culture at the turn of the century, and on the process of imaging a national community.

Author: Richard Abel
ISBN-10: 0520247434
ISBN-13: 9780520247437
Publisher: University of California Press
Language: English
Published: 08/28/2006
Pages: 391
Format: Paperback
Weight: 1.17lbs
Size: 8.98h x 6.08w x 0.91d