The Public Enemy, a 1931 Warner Brothers gangster classic, is easily remembered as the movie in which James Cagney used Mae Clarke's nose as a grapefruit grinder. As Cagney recalls, it was just about the first time that "a woman had been treated like a broad on the screen, instead of like a delicate flower."
The ambivalence toward women is just one of the many stylistic contradictions that make The Public Enemy worth studying, not only for its intrinsic merits but also as a creative expression bending under the constraints of censorship.

The 1942 smash musical hit "Yankee Doodle Dandy" has long remained a favorite among audiences and film buffs. Ostensibly the story of "Mr. Broadway"--George M. Cohan-- the movie evolved in its making into one of Warners' trademark "biopics" and a showcase for the singing and dancing talents of James Cagney.

This book includes the complete screenplay.

Juarez was Warner Brothers' cinematic attempt to answer the major international question of the 1930s: would democracy or dictatorship prevail? Eager to further the foreign policy objectives of its friend Franklin Delano Roosevelt and equally willing to add to its prestigious and profitable biography series, the stuido set a record high budget and assembled special film stock, extensive scholarly research, a loose time schedule, a renowned director, and a stellar cast that included Paul Muni, Brian Aherne, and Bette Davis. The film was meant to be an ideologically clear-cut...

Since its release in 1932, "I Am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang" had earned a reputation as one of the few Hollywood products that can be associated directly with social change. Film historians attribute the reform of the southern chain gang system to the public outrage generated by this movie, which depicts a true story.
In addition to being an important social document, the film remains a gripping experience for filmgoers today because of its unusual dramatic conception, its hauntingly inconclusive ending, and Paul Muni's performance as the good boy forced to go wrong.

This book...

" Dark Victory," released in 1939, was a daring movie for its time. it depicted its heroine, Bette Davis, dying of a brain tumor. The film blended romance and realism so successfully that it is still a model for movies about death and dying today.
Bette Davis drew upon every mood she had ever expressed--insouciance, impatience, anger, passion, acquiescence. She worked hard at the role, reveling in a story that, according to her account, she had actively campaigned for. She also benefited greatly by the professional talents of director Edmund Goulding and screenwriter Casey Robinson and...

Released in 1943, Air Force was immediately hailed as the definitive "patriotic heart-throb in celluloid" that America, engulfed in war and passionately bent on victory, was primed to embrace. Lawrence Suid charts the evolution of this cinematic success in his introduction to the screenplay, tracing the tangled network of artistic, military, and nationalist interests that molded this film and made it, even after the martial fervor had settled, a standard against which all future films about war would be measured.
Throughout the filming, there was tension between the aims of the...

Among the countless gangster films produced by Hollywood, few are as haunting, complex, or ingeniously crafted as "White Heat" (1948). Students of film history and screen writing will appreciate this treatment--an engaging study of teh various artistic elements that turned what might have been just another gangster film into an innovative classic of the genre and a model of cooperative filmmaking at its best.
Crucial to "White Heat's" success, McGilligan stresses, was the rare manner in which every aspect of production coalesced: studio, script, cast, crew, and director.

Now Voyager (1942) is appreciated today for a skillfully modulated performance by Bette Davis and a rare theme in American mass culture the study of a woman's struggle for independence. This book includes the complete screenplay.