The Many Cinemas of Michael Curtiz - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1477315543 ISBN 13: 9781477315545

Publisher: University of Texas Press, 2018

Synopsis

Hollywood―Casablanca , Yankee Doodle Dandy , The Sea Hawk , White Christmas, and Mildred Pierce, to name only a few. The most prolific and consistently successful Hollywood generalist with an all-embracing interest in different forms of narrative and spectacle, Curtiz made around a hundred films in an astonishing range of genres: action, biopics, melodramas/film noir, musicals, and westerns. But his important contributions to the history of American film have been overlooked because his broadly varied oeuvre does not present the unified vision of filmmaking that canonical criticism demands for the category of “auteur.”

Exploring his films and artistic practice from a variety of angles, including politics, gender, and genre, The Many Cinemas of Michael Curtiz sheds new light on this underappreciated cinematic genius. Leading film studies scholars offer fresh appraisals of many of Curtiz’s most popular films, while also paying attention to neglected releases of substantial historical interest, such as Noah’s Ark , Night and Day, Virginia City, Black Fury, Mystery of the Wax Museum, and Female. Because Curtiz worked for so long and in so many genres, this analysis of his work becomes more than an author study of a notable director. Instead, The Many Cinemas of Michael Curtiz effectively adds a major chapter to the history of Hollywood’s studio era, including its internationalism and the significant contributions of European émigrés.

About this title

Review:

"This book is the most comprehensive critical treatment to date of Curtiz’s work, with an eclectic range of approaches that not only make it useful to the discussion of Curtiz, but also provide a fine set of models for writing film criticism." Author: James Morrison, Claremont McKenna College, author of Passport to Hollywood: Hollywood Films, European Directors

About the Author:

R. Barton Palmer is Calhoun Lemon Professor of Literature at Clemson University in Clemson, South Carolina, and author or editor of many books, including Hollywood's Tennessee: The Williams Films and Postwar America and After Hitchcock: Influence, Imitation, and Intertextuality.

About this edition

• Publisher: University of Texas Press
• Publication date: 2018
• ISBN 10: 1477315543
• ISBN 13: 9781477315545
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 352
• Editor: Palmer R. Barton, Pomerance Murray