Boom and Bust
American Cinema in the 1940s
$29.95, £17.95 paperback
978-0-520-22130-7
Available Now
582 pages, 7 x 10 inches, 164 b/w photographs, 18 tables
November 1999, Available worldwide
Categories: Cinema & Performance Arts; Film; United States History
November 1999, Available worldwide
Categories: Cinema & Performance Arts; Film; United States History
"Boom and Bust constitutes an essential background for anyone interested in this complicated decade. . . . By dealing with break and continuity together, Schatz is able to tell several histories of American film: the history of the cinema's recruitment by politics, but also the history of industrial practices that move at their own irreducible speed."—Dana Polan, Film Quarterly
"This book represents some of the finest scholarship in the field. . . . Schatz draws on a broad range of archival and trade press sources, and organizes his findings to highlight the dynamics of studio house styles, executive management and the production strategies of the major studios as the studio system coped with an array of 'momentous reversals.'"—Matthew Bernstein, author of Walter Wanger, Hollywood Independent
Boom and Bust traces the movie industry through the momentous decade of the 1940s. It discusses changes in the structure of the studio system—including the shift to independent production—and the dominant stars, genres, and production trends through the period.