A tour de force through the landscape of American comedy in the 1950s.

Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window is one of the icons of American filmmaking. A perfect example of Hollywood cinema at its best, it is an engaging piece of entertainment as well as a fascinating meditation on the nature of the film itself. A suspense thriller about a chair-bound observer who suspects his neighbor of murdering his wife, the narrative becomes the vehicle for Hitchcock's exploration of the basic ingredients of cinema, from voyeurism and dreamlike fantasy, to the process of narration itself. This volume provides a fresh analysis of Rear Window, which is examined from a variety of...

Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window is one of the icons of American filmmaking. A perfect example of Hollywood cinema at its best, it is an engaging piece of entertainment as well as a fascinating meditation on the nature of the film itself. A suspense thriller about a chair-bound observer who suspects his neighbor of murdering his wife, the narrative becomes the vehicle for Hitchcock's exploration of the basic ingredients of cinema, from voyeurism and dreamlike fantasy, to the process of narration itself. This volume provides a fresh analysis of Rear Window, which is examined from a variety of...

Movies and Mass Culture looks at the ways in which American identity shapes and is shaped by motion pictures. Movies serve not only as texts that document who we think we are or were, but they also reflect changes in our self-image, tracing the transformation from one kind of America to another. They assist audiences in negotiating major changes in identity, carrying them across difficult periods of cultural transition so that a more or less coherent national identity again emerges. Films thus help their viewers to span the gaps and fissures that cultural changes cause, allowing passage over...

Dudley Wright (1868-1950) was an Englishman who took a universalist approach to the various great Truths of Life, he travelled though many religions in his life and wrote about them all, but was probably most at home with Islam. As a professional journalist he made his living where he could. In England as Assistant Editor of The Freemason and Masonic Editor of The Times of London - and through his friendship with Joseph Fort Newton, in the USA, writing for the fabled magazine The Builder and later The Master Mason. He was one of that group of great Masonic writers that graced the American...