Hollywood's History Films is an innovative and detailed analysis of the film industry's use of history in the 1950s, when 'classical' Hollywood's interest in the past was at its peak. Using original sources, David Eldridge analyses the making of period films as diverse in seriousness and quality as Calamity Jane, The Ten Commandments and The House of Wax, and dissects the 'culture of production' which shaped thinking about history. Eldridge explores the overlapping anxieties that encouraged an unprecedented turn to history, from the ever-present nuclear threat of the Cold...

Hollywood's History Films is an innovative and detailed analysis of the film industry's use of history in the 1950s, when 'classical' Hollywood's interest in the past was at its peak. Using original sources, David Eldridge analyses the making of period films as diverse in seriousness and quality as Calamity Jane, The Ten Commandments and The House of Wax, and dissects the 'culture of production' which shaped thinking about history. Eldridge explores the overlapping anxieties that encouraged an unprecedented turn to history, from the ever-present nuclear threat of the Cold...