<TitleType>01</TitleType> <TitleText textcase="02">J. Edgar Hoover Goes to the Movies</TitleText> <Subtitle textcase="02">The FBI and the Origins of Hollywood's Cold War</Subtitle>

Cornell University Press transfers@onixsuite.com 20130618 eng

COM.ONIXSUITE.9780801450082 03 01 Cornell University Press 01 GCOI 80140100577420 02 080145008X 03 9780801450082 15 9780801450082 59 BB <TitleType>01</TitleType> <TitleText textcase="02">J. Edgar Hoover Goes to the Movies</TitleText> <Subtitle textcase="02">The FBI and the Origins of Hollywood's Cold War</Subtitle> 1 A01 Sbardellati, John John Sbardellati John Sbardellati is Assistant Professor of History at the University of Waterloo. 1 01 eng 264 00 264 03 10 03 10 PER004030 APFA 10 HIS036060 10 POL014000 24 Internet Cinema, Television, and Media Studies 24 Internet History / U.S. and Canada 01 01 01 Between 1942 and 1958, J. Edgar Hoover's Federal Bureau of Investigation conducted a sweeping and sustained investigation of the motion picture industry to expose Hollywood's alleged subversion of "the American Way" through its depiction of social problems, class differences, and alternative political ideologies. FBI informants (their names still redacted today) reported to Hoover's G-men on screenplays and screenings of such films as Frank Capra's It’s a Wonderful Life (1946), noting that "this picture deliberately maligned the upper class attempting to show that people who had money were mean and despicable characters." The FBI’s anxiety over this film was not unique; it extended to a wide range of popular and critical successes, including The Grapes of Wrath (1940), The Best Years of Our Lives (1946), Crossfire (1947) and On the Waterfront (1954). In J. Edgar Hoover Goes to the Movies, John Sbardellati provides a new consideration of Hollywood’s history and the post–World War II Red Scare. In addition to governmental intrusion into the creative process, he details the efforts of left-wing filmmakers to use the medium to bring social problems to light and the campaigns of their colleagues on the political right, through such organizations as the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals, to prevent dissemination of "un-American" ideas and beliefs. Sbardellati argues that the attack on Hollywood drew its motivation from a sincerely held fear that film content endangered national security by fostering a culture that would be at best apathetic to the Cold War struggle, or, at its worst, conducive to communism at home. Those who took part in Hollywood’s Cold War struggle, whether on the left or right, shared one common trait: a belief that the movies could serve as engines for social change. This strongly held assumption explains why the stakes were so high and, ultimately, why Hollywood became one of the most important ideological battlegrounds of the Cold War. 02 In J. Edgar Hoover Goes to the Movies, John Sbardellati examines Hollywood's key role as a cultural, political, and ideological battleground of the early Cold War, providing a new consideration of Hollywood's history and the post–World War II Red Scare. 04 Introduction: Hollywood's Red Scare 1. A Movie Problem 2. The FBI's Search for Communist Propaganda during the Second World War 3. Producing Hollywood’s Cold War 4. The Coalescence of a Countersubversive Network 5. The 1947 HUAC Trials 6. Rollback Conclusion: Three Perspectives on the Death of the Social Problem Film 08 "Sbardellati draws upon FBI documents to detail how J. Edgar Hoover, beginning in 1942, directed his agents to undertake a massive, secret review of the Hollywood film industry. . . . Sbardellati's thorough research on Hoover’s early investigations of Hollywood makes this a great choice for readers interested in 20th-century American cultural history."—Library Journal 08 "With this comprehensively researched book, Sbardellati adds momentum to a scholarly movement that reframes McCarthyism as an outgrowth and extension of the politics and practices of the FBI under J. Edgar Hoover. He specifically focuses on the ways in which Hoover's decades-long surveillance—beginning in 1920, prior to his rise to the directorship of the FBI—of the US film industry set the stage for the high-profile investigations of Hollywood by the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1947 and eventually for Joseph McCarthy's anticommunist crusading."—Choice (October 2012) 08 "No one knows the FBI's movie files like John Sbardellati. His book shines light on the enigmatic J. Edgar Hoover and on the FBI's role in the Red Scare. It is a must-read for students and scholars of the cultural Cold War."—Tony Shaw, author of Hollywood's Cold War 08 "In J. Edgar Hoover Goes to the Movies, John Sbardellati adds a whole new dimension to the story of anti-Communism in Hollywood. His original research in FBI documents and archives clearly demonstrates the intense involvement of the FBI with the House Un-American Activities Committee and their long-term effort to remove any taint of left-wing politics from the nation's screens. Sbardellati shows with convincing detail that the FBI, conservative politicians, and Hollywood anti-Communists were motivated by an intense drive to reshape American culture."—Lary May, University of Minnesota, author of The Big Tomorrow: Hollywood and the Politics of the American Way 08 "John Sbardellati expertly blends cultural and political history in this trenchant and lively analysis of the countersubversive attack on Hollywood. The book tells the chilling story of how the politics of un-Americanism dramatically altered film content and left a lasting legacy of fear."—Kathryn Olmsted, author of Real Enemies: Conspiracy Theories and American Democracy, World War I to 9/11 08 "In exploring FBI surveillance of and operations against the Hollywood film colony prior to the 1950s, John Sbardellati has illuminated a previously obscure yet clearly important chapter in the history of both the U.S. 'countersubversive tradition' and American cinema. Sbardellati combines the history of the FBI with that of the Hollywood left so as to create the roundest possible account of the subject. His original and wide-ranging archival research informs a valuable and fascinating reconstruction of the attitudes and activities of the Los Angeles division of the FBI."—Hugh Wilford, California State University Long Beach, author of The Mighty Wurlitzer: How the CIA Played America 08 "J. Edgar Hoover Goes to the Movies is essential reading for anyone interested in the politics of the American movie industry and the impact on it of J. Edgar Hoover, the bureau, and FBI agents at a crucial time."—Daniel Leab, editor of American Communist History 08 "This penetrating book highlights the FBI's decades-long obsession with the movie industry. John Sbardellati well shows us how Hoover’s conservative and patriarchal worldview stifled the making of a wide spectrum of social-problem films after World War II and undermined the very democratic principles he claimed to be defending from Communism."—Katherine A. S. Sibley, author of Red Spies in America: Stolen Secrets and the Dawn of the Cold War 04 03 72 01 http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/resources/titles/80140100577420/images/80140100577420L.jpg 07 03 72 01 http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/resources/titles/80140100577420/images/80140100577420S.jpg http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/?GCOI=80140100577420 Cornell University Press 01 02 2021862 Cornell University Press Ithaca US 04 20120501 01 WORLD 01 9.25 in 02 6.13 in 08 19 oz 07 2021862 CUP Services http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu 03 CA MX US BV AL AD AM AU AT AZ BY BA BG HR CY CZ DK EE FO FI GE DE GI GR HM HU IS IE MK IT PS KZ LV LI LT LU UM MT MC ME NL NZ NO PG PL PT RO RU SM AX SK SI ES SJ SE CH TR UA GB VA 02 Y 20 18 01 02 s 27.95 USD 06 5013546051314 NBN International http://www.nbninternational.com 02 BV AL AD AM AT AZ BY BE BA BG HR CY CZ DK EE FO FI FR GE DE GI GR HM HU IS IE MK IT PS KZ LV LI LT UM MT MD MC ME NL NO PL PT RO RU SM AX SK SI ES SJ SE CH TR UA GB VA AU CA JP MX US NZ PG 02 Y 20 20120501 18 01 02 s 02 17.50 GBP