{"title":"Josephine Stiles and Her House of Feature Films: Innovations of a Black Theater Proprietor","authors":"Chad Newsom","doi":"10.2979/fih.2023.a911556","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2979/fih.2023.a911556","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT: This essay explores the contributions of Josephine Stiles, a Black entrepre neur from Savannah, Georgia, to the history of film exhibition. She owned and operated the Pekin Theatre (1909–29), and I examine how Stiles responded to Jim Crow challenges and the movies' growing popularity by converting her theater into a palace at the same time as the moguls commonly associated with this phenomenon. The story of Stiles and the Pekin not only makes race central to the narrative of the movie palace's origins, but her accomplishments also highlight Black achievement as meaningful, not marginal, to that history.","PeriodicalId":426632,"journal":{"name":"Film History: An International Journal","volume":"19 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135505426","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Frozen Justice : Murnau in Alaska","authors":"Janet Bergstrom","doi":"10.2979/fih.2023.a911559","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2979/fih.2023.a911559","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT: Rather than Sunrise (1927), F. W. Murnau dearly wanted his first film for Fox to be Frozen Justice , based on Danish explorer Ejnar Mikkelsen's 1920 novel, and to shoot it in Alaska. Studio boss Winfield Sheehan, however, thought that Murnau's friend John Ford should make that film closer to home, an idea Ford did not take up. Extensive Fox studio documentation and Murnau's correspondence show a much more convoluted history of Murnau at Fox than has previously been detailed and reveal more of the director's personality. Contracts with his writers and studio papers show that Murnau never lost hope that he could make his Alaska film for Fox. Even after leaving Fox, his partnership with Robert Flaherty to make films in faraway places could have led to Alaska after completing Tabu (1931) in the South Seas had it not been for Murnau's untimely death from an auto accident.","PeriodicalId":426632,"journal":{"name":"Film History: An International Journal","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135505414","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Alternate Tracks: Photophone and the Film Industry's Conversion to Sound","authors":"Greg Wilsbacher","doi":"10.2979/fih.2023.a911557","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2979/fih.2023.a911557","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT: Histories of sound film often emphasize a cautious approach by unaligned studios, which analyzed two technically equal systems (RCA and Western Electric) and then chose ERPI for nontechnical reasons. This view bolsters a narrative of stability during the transition. However, GE/RCA's late entry into the market without a finalized design enabled major studios to explore alternate approaches to sound. While GE/RCA's experiments kept open alternate visions for film sound, they delayed the refinement of its system. The decision to sign with ERPI was really a choice to commit to sound in 1928 rather than waiting for GE/RCA to finalize its system.","PeriodicalId":426632,"journal":{"name":"Film History: An International Journal","volume":"29 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135505419","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Showtime for American Business: General Motors and American Look (1958)","authors":"K. Smith","doi":"10.2979/filmhistory.34.3.04","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2979/filmhistory.34.3.04","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT:The Chevrolet-General Motors–sponsored film American Look (1958) harnessed technologies of Hollywood spectacle to make their production bigger and bolder than many previous sponsored films. Beyond merely selling a car, the film engaged its viewers with an exhibition of General Motors' corporate persona, aligning its products with the prestige of good design on a grand scale in a Technicolor, widescreen, sponsored epic. Locating my analysis within the cultural and geopolitical context of the Cold War era, this paper argues that American Look expands current rubrics for understanding sponsored and industrial films.","PeriodicalId":426632,"journal":{"name":"Film History: An International Journal","volume":"5 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129983138","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"\"A New Form of Black Genre Communication\": Video, Urban Development, and the Ensemblic Production of a Black Soap Opera","authors":"Nicholas Forster","doi":"10.2979/filmhistory.34.3.05","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2979/filmhistory.34.3.05","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT:This article demonstrates how the soap opera Personal Problems reveals a crucial yet overlooked moment of Black media production in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Tracing the evolution of the show from radio drama to television program, I illuminate how video technology, generic innovation, and collaborative networks provided the foundation for new representations of Black life. While scholarly accounts typically focus on Hollywood and the LA Rebellion, I argue that the crew's location shooting animated a critique of New York City's media-focused urban redevelopment policies while challenging the broader inequities of creative industries. The trajectory of Personal Problems serves as a model for rethinking Black film history.","PeriodicalId":426632,"journal":{"name":"Film History: An International Journal","volume":"20 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115934084","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Beyond the \"Exhibition Straight-Jacket\": How British Amateur Film Clubs Created an Alternative Distribution and Exhibition Network, 1923–1933","authors":"K. M. Johnston, P. Frith","doi":"10.2979/filmhistory.34.3.03","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2979/filmhistory.34.3.03","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT:This article explores an overlooked third strand of the 1920s British film industry's distribution and exhibition practices: amateur filmmakers. Our analysis of the UK amateur networks that were created through the 1920s and into the early 1930s offers a challenge to accepted ideas that British cinema exhibition was limited to a small number of metropolitan mainstream or independent art cinemas. By tracing the amateur cinema's move from an interaction with mainstream exhibition venues to the introduction of a national amateur network, we offer a more nuanced understanding of amateur-film culture and its community-led model of distribution and exhibition.","PeriodicalId":426632,"journal":{"name":"Film History: An International Journal","volume":"20 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121916691","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Brandos Costumes (1975): Oppositional Filmmaking Meets the National Archive in Revolutionary Portugal","authors":"Sofia Sampaio","doi":"10.2979/filmhistory.34.2.03","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2979/filmhistory.34.2.03","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT:The article analyzes the use of archival footage in the Portuguese film Brandos Costumes (Mild Manners, 1975), directed by Alberto Seixas Santos (1936–2016). The film was shot in 1972–73, in the wake of the political opening that followed António de Oliveira Salazar's retirement, a period known as Marcelismo (1968–1974); however, it did not premier until September 1975, that is, several months after the military coup that put an end to the regime in April 1974. I identify the archival material and examine how it was incorporated into the film. Drawing on contemporaneous and more recent sources, I then discuss the film's dissonant reception and political equivocations.","PeriodicalId":426632,"journal":{"name":"Film History: An International Journal","volume":"34 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129319906","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"\"We Want to Be Neutral\": The Right-Wing Extremist Politics of 1930s Detroit Police Movie Censorship","authors":"Ben Strassfeld","doi":"10.2979/filmhistory.34.2.04","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2979/filmhistory.34.2.04","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT:This article examines the relationship between policing, film censorship, and right-wing extremist politics through a case study of the Detroit Police Department Censor Bureau's censorship of leftist cinema during the 1930s. This period saw the police Censor Bureau repeatedly target films suspected of harboring sympathy for communist ideology as well as films openly critical of Hitler and fascism. I place this history within the context of the rise of nativist and fascist movements in southeast Michigan as a whole, and within the Detroit Police Department in particular, during the years leading up to the Second World War.","PeriodicalId":426632,"journal":{"name":"Film History: An International Journal","volume":"332 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115976078","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Business for \"Individuals (Women Included)\": Women Film Professionals in Early Russian Cinema","authors":"A. Kovalová","doi":"10.2979/filmhistory.34.2.05","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2979/filmhistory.34.2.05","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT:The documents published here shed light on some of the female film profes sionals in prerevolutionary Russia and aspects of their work. These documents are varied in form (a portrait, an article, a photograph, etc.), and each of them represents a certain cinema profession: a distributor and a producer, a screenwriter and a journalist, an assis tant director and an editor. Different case studies presented in this piece fill in some gaps in early cinema history and open a perspective for further research on women film pioneers.","PeriodicalId":426632,"journal":{"name":"Film History: An International Journal","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126215565","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"\"A Legend in Her Own Time\": Lauren Bacall, Aging Stardom, and Cultural Memory in Applause","authors":"Sara Bakerman","doi":"10.2979/filmhistory.34.1.01","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2979/filmhistory.34.1.01","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT:In 1970, more than twenty-five years after her film debut, Lauren Bacall made a dramatic comeback as Margo Channing in Applause (1970–73), the Broadway musical remake of All About Eve (1950). Defying critical skepticism and popular ageism and confronting the public's enduring memory of her screen image, she achieved new heights in her lucrative and award-winning turn onstage. This essay examines the show's production history from the vantage point of Bacall's own archives, placing personal writing in conversation with press coverage to trace how the star leveraged theatrical success to reinvent herself as a \"living legend\" of Old Hollywood.","PeriodicalId":426632,"journal":{"name":"Film History: An International Journal","volume":"31 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134335632","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}