Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers endure in the American imagination. The charm and grace of their dancing in the ten films they made together, including Top Hat and Swing Time, elicit nostalgia today. Most books about the Astaire-Rogers films focus exclusively on the music and dance scenes, but this book shows that the films are much more than the sum of those scenes, which after all only account for approximately one-third of their films' running times. Gallafent argues that, contrary to received opinion, the musical numbers are not discrete, generic moments dropped in to enliven...

Quentin Tarantino is one of the best-known living American filmmakers in the world, and the story of his career has been the subject of a number of books and articles. But what do his films mean? In this new study, Edward Gallafent does not look at Tarantino s story but at the films themselves. He asks to what extent Tarantino can be seen as a specifically American filmmaker, with the kinds of preoccupations and interests that have formed part of Hollywood s traditions, and also how he explores the expressive possibilities of current cinema.

The book concentrates on the main...

This book provides an in-depth study of Bette Davis, Joan Fontaine, Kim Novak and Meryl Streep, and the treatment of adultery in their films. The periods discussed cover Davis's work in 1937 to 1943, Fontaine's work between 1939 and 1950, Novak in 1954 to 1964, and finally Streep's work between 1979 and 1985.