The Movies of the 1940's


Ethan Mordden, Medium Cool: The Movies of the 1960's, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1960.

'the six or seven years following the end of World War II must be, technologically and aesthetically, the least creative in the history of the movies' (p.10)

Brian Neve, Film and Politics in America: A Social Tradition, Routledge, London, 1992.

'the social problem film all but disappeared, becoming absorbed into propaganda films which affitmed American democracy.' (p.74)

'opinion as to the worth of Hollywood war films has varied.  In 1943, when some critics were praising the new batch of war films, James Agee saw only sentiment and lack of realism and Hollywood mistrusting its audience.  Koppes and Black in their survey, echo this perspective.  Other commentators, then and now, were asnd are more sympathetic to what they as the portrayal of social life as a more collective and cooperative activity.' (p.78)

'it has been argued that Hollywood's post-war economic problems delayed the continuation of the wartimer cycle of liberal message movies.' (p.91)

'To Polonsky the post war period in Hollywood was a time of 'interesting ideas'.  Although the Hollywood Production sustem has generally been seen as neutralising any overt political content in film, as well as imposing a uniform and politically conservative aesthetic onthe industry's output, it is arguable that the disruption to the usual pattern of the industry after the war in some way increased the opportunities for different kinds of control over the work of Hollywood's creative community.  But the anthropologist hortense Powdermaker, writing at the end of the 1940s, presented a generally pessimistic view of Hollywood's development, seeing it as representing the totalitarian aspects of both business culture and mass communications.' (p.94)

LINKS
 


 
Censorship in the 
1920's
 The Film Industry in the 1920's
  The Don'ts and Be Carefuls
 The Movies of the 1920's
 The 1920's
 Censorship in the 1930's
 The Film Industry in the 1930's
 The Motion Picture Production Code
 The Movies of the 1930's
 The 1930's
 Censorship in the 1940's
 The Film Industry in the 1940's
 The Motion Picture Production Code
 The Movies of the 1940's
 The 1940's
 Censorship in the 1950's 
 The Film Industry in the 1950's
 The Motion Picture Production Code
  The Movies of the 1950's
 The 1950's
Censorship in the 
1960's
 The Film Industry in the 1960's
 Official Code Objectives of the MPAA
 The Movies of the 1960's
 The 1960's

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