"Maggie Günsberg's book is an excellent and most welcome analysis of genre cinema in Italy, a form that has historically tended to be overlooked by Anglo-American criticism ... As the first book written in English to bring together an extended analysis of gender and genre in Italian cinema, it will be a vital tool for researchers and students alike, providing a new slant, rather than simply an introductory overview, to Italian cinema." - Clodagh Brook, Scope

Introduction Domestic Bliss: Desire and the Family in Melodrama Commodifying Passions: Gender and Consumerism in Commedia all'italiana Heroic Bodies: The Cult of Masculinity in the Peplum Looking at Medusa: Investigating Femininity in the Horror Film The Man With No Name: Masculinity as Style in the Spaghetti Western Filmography Bibliography Index

MAGGIE GÜNSBERG is Professor of Italian in the Department of Italian Studies at Manchester University, UK. Her research interests include women's writing, Italian cinema and Italian drama. She has published several books in these areas including Playing with Gender: The Comedies of Goldoni; The Epic Rhetoric of Tasso: Theory and Practice; Gender and the Italian Stage: From the Renaissance to the Present and Patriarchal Representations: Gender and Discourse in Pirandello's Theatre.