The Last Bohemian offers the first extended, critical evaluation of all of Brian Desmond Hurst’s films, reappraising the reputation of a director who was born in 1895 in Belfast and died in Belgravia, London, in 1986. Pettitt skillfully weaves together film analyses, biography, and cultural history with the aim of bringing greater attention to Hurst’s qualities as a director and exploring his significance within Irish film and British cinema history between the 1930s and the 1960s. The director of Dangerous Moonlight (1941), Theirs Is the Glory (1946), and his best-known Scrooge (1951) made most of his films for British studios but developed an exile’s attachment to Ireland. How in the early twenty-first century has Hurst’s career been reclaimed and recognized, and by whom? Why in 2012 was Hurst’s name given to one of the new Titanic Studios in Belfast? What were his qualities as a filmmaker? To whose national cinema history, if any, does Hurst belong? Richly illustrated with film stills and other visual material from public archives, The Last Bohemian addresses these questions and in doing so makes a significant contribution to British and Irish cinema studies.

'Theirs is the Glory' - the story of the Battle of Arnhem - was the biggest-grossing UK war film for a decade. Made by veterans of the battle in the late summer of 1945, it tells their story day by day: the pre-operation briefing, the drop, the race to the bridge, the daring, death and banter that only soldiers could have scripted - but the veterans had outstanding assistance. Men like Terence Young of XXX Corps - and later the early 'James Bond' director - helped craft the words we hear. Directing the veterans was a First World War veteran - who had survived a bayonet charge at Gallipoli - and prolific film director: Brian Desmond Hurst. Born and bred in Belfast, Hurst went on to learn the craft of film making in Hollywood with his mentor, John Ford. Conflict is shown, heard and interpreted in many of his 30 films made from the 1920s to the 1960s. This book is the 'director's cut' - looking in-depth at his work on conflict - and takes, as its centerpiece, 'Theirs is the Glory'. Decade-by-decade conflict is chronicled from the 1920s and Hurst's 'Ourselves Alone' (and the War of Independence in Ireland, where his film was banned in Northern Ireland) to the 1960s and 'Simba' and the Mau Mau Uprising in Kenya. This is a book you will refer to again and again, and shows why 'Theirs is the Glory' is the definitive film on Arnhem; it will remain the veterans' lasting tribute to their comrades that did not return. This book also shows why Hurst was an enigma, but a master of the genre, and at his very best when focusing on the subject of conflict on the vast canvas of film.

Many studies focus on film in Africa. Few, however, study cinema as a leisure activity: one that has influenced several generations and opened up spaces to dream, discuss or contest. Movie theatres offered a break from the daily routine, as places of escape and of education. Cinema was also potentially subversive, offering an alternative to colonial discourse. Tropical Dream Palaces seeks to trace this history in a West African context: of broadening horizons on the one hand, and of censorship and control on the other. It fills a historiographic void, following cinema's arrival in the region in the early twentieth century up until the Independence era, and also looking further afield to Central Africa and its different models. Goerg addresses questions of film distribution in colonial times; of screening venues, their implantation, spread and different categories; while also focusing on audiences, their gender or age; the acquisition of a film culture; and the impact of screening foreign images. Her book draws on extremely varied sources to paint a broad picture of this cinematographic landscape: archives, the accounts of African and European spectators or administrators, novels, autobiographies, the local press, interviews and iconography.

A reprint of the 1933 classic novel, the basis for two film versions, with a new introduciton.

... Jay shows that this tradition [of white-authored protest fiction about racism in America] remains vital because every generation must relearn the lessons of antiracism and formulate effective cultural narratives for transmitting intellectual and affective [sic] tools useful in fighting injustice.

A long overdue rediscovery of one of America's most prolific, important, and essential 20th century women writers.