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From the author of Romantic Comedy (“brilliant, meticulous, a monumental work of scholarship” —Margo Jefferson, New York Times), a fresh, illuminating look at the films of the 1950s.
Harvey begins by mapping the progression from 1940s film noir to the living-room melodramas of the 1950s. He shows us the femme fatale of the 1940s (Barbara Stanwyck, Joan Bennett) becoming blander and blonder (Doris Day, Debbie Reynolds) and younger and more traditionally sexy (Marilyn Monroe, Grace Kelly) in the 1950s. And he shows us how women were finally replaced as objects of desire by the new boy-men—Clift, Brando, Dean, and other rebels without causes.
Harvey discusses the films of Hitchcock (Vertigo), Ophuls (The Reckless Moment), Siodmak (Christmas Holiday), and Welles (Touch of Evil, perhaps the single greatest influence on the “post-classical” movies). He writes about the quintessential 1950s directors: Nicholas Ray, who made movies in the old Hollywood tradition (In a Lonely Place, Johnny Guitar), and Douglas Sirk, who portrayed suburbia as an emotional deathtrap (Imitation of Life, Magnificent Obsession). And he discusses the “serious” directors, such as Stanley Kramer and Elia Kazan, whose films exhibited powerful new realism.
Comprehensive, insightful, written with intelligence, humor, and affection, Movie Love in the Fifties is a masterful work of American film, and cultural, history.
"A stimulating look at American films of the 1950s....Conversational yet highly lucid. . . . Harvey is clearly a sophisticated guide to the decade and its movies [and] offers refreshing, common-sense insights. . . . A collection that will have readers scurrying to the video store."--Kirkus Reviews
“Impressionistic, illuminating...An exquisite oddity...As personal in its vision as it is scholarly in its range, as compulsively readable as it is de-tailed...Harvey’s knowledge of films of the era dovetails beautifully with his ability to pinpoint ‘epiphanies’—the recurring ‘fleeting scene of detail that carries such a sudden pressure of meaning and beauty...it could implode the movie screen.’”—Publishers Weekly
"An immensely engaging and significant work." - Paula Fox
"Harvey is without doubt the smartest, most eloquent person writing about American movies today; in this meticulously researched, wonderfully written book, he takes us through the great films, directors, and performers of the 1940s and 1950s. . .Along the way, Harvey brilliantly illuminates whole genres, schools of acting, and particular scenes. A bravura and sustaining performance."- Ann Douglas, Parr Professor of Comparative Literature at Columbia University and author of The Feminization of American Culture and Terrible Honesty: Mongrel Manhattan in the 1920's.
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