Recaptures the lost history of the physical and moral perils that faced audiences at American movie theatres during the first fifty years of the cinema.

During the first fifty years of the American cinema, the act of going to the movies was a risky process, fraught with a number of possible physical and moral dangers. Film fires were rampant, claiming many lives, as were movie theatre robberies, which became particularly common during the Great Depression. Labor disputes provoked a large number of movie theatre bombings, while low-level criminals like murderers, molesters, and prostitutes plied their trades in the darkened auditoriums. That was all in addition to the spread of disease, both real (as in the case of influenza) and imagined (""mo.

The Palgrave Encyclopedia of American Horror Film Shorts chronicles for the first time over 1,500 horror and horror-related short subjects theatrically released between 1915, at the dawn of the feature film era when shorts became a differentiated category of cinema, and 1976, when the last of the horror-related shorts were distributed to movie theaters. Individual entries feature plot synopses, cast and crew information, and – where possible – production histories and original critical reviews. A small number of the short subjects catalogued herein are famous; such as those featuring the likes of Buster Keaton, Laurel and Hardy, The Three Stooges, Bugs Bunny, and Daffy Duck; but the bulk are forgotten. The diverse content of these shorts includes ghosts, devils, witches, vampires, skeletons, mad scientists, monsters, hypnotists, gorillas, dinosaurs, and so much more, including relevant nonfiction newsreels. Their rediscovery notably rewrites many chapters of the history of horror cinema, from increasing our understanding of the sheer number horror films that were produced and viewed by audiences to shedding light on particular subgenres and specific narrative and historical trends.

A unique perspective on half a century of American cinema—from the audience's point of view. Tom Stempel goes beyond the comments of professional reviewers, concentrating on the opinions of ordinary people. He traces shifting trends in genre and taste, examining and questioning the power films have in American society. Stempel blends audience response with his own observations and analyzes box office results that identify the movies people actually went to see, not just those praised by the critics. Avoiding statistical summary, he presents the results of a survey on movies and moviegoing in the respondents' own words—words that surprise, amuse, and irritate. The moviegoers respond: "Big bad plane, big bad motorcycle, and big bad Kelly McGillis."—On Top Gun "All I can recall were the slave girls and the Golden Calf sequence and how it got me excited. My parents must have been very pleased with my enthusiasm for the Bible."—On why a seven-year-old boy stayed up to watch The Ten Commandments "I learned the fine art of seduction by watching Faye Dunaway smolder."—A woman's reaction to seeing Bonnie and Clyde "At age fifteen Jesus said he would be back, he just didn't say what he would look like."—On E.T. "Quasimodo is every seventh grader."—On why The Hunchback of Notre Dame should play well with middle-schoolers "A moronic, very 'Hollywoody' script, and a bunch of dancing teddy bears."—On Return of the Jedi "I couldn't help but think how Mad magazine would lampoon this." —On The Exorcist

Why might interdependence, the idea that we are made up of our relations, be horrifying? Philosophy, Film, and the Dark Side of Interdependence argues that philosophy can outline the contours of dark specter of interdependence and that film can shine a light on its shadowy details, together revealing a horror of relations. The contributors interrogate the question of interdependence through analyses of contemporary film, giving voice to new perspectives on its meaning. Conceived before and written during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic and through a period of deep social unrest, this volume reveals a reality both perennial and timely.

This book provides an interdisciplinary overview of the causes and impacts of COVID-19 on populations, economies, politics, institutions and environments from all world regions. The book maps the causes, effects and impacts of the virus and describes the impact of the virus on among others health care, teaching and learning, travel, tourism, daily life, local and regional economies, media impacts, elections, and indigenous populations and much more. Contributions to this book come from the humanities, social and policy science disciplines as well as from emerging transdisciplinary fields including climate change, sustainability, health care and epidemiology, security, art, visualization, economic and social well-being, law and borderland studies. As such, this book will be a rich source of information to all those geographers, social scientists and urban and regional planners working in this field.

This authoritative collection of introductory and specialized readings explores the rich and innovative history of this period in American cinema. Spanning an essential range of subjects from the early 1900s Nickelodeon to the decline of the studio system in the 1960s, it combines a broad historical context with careful readings of individual films. Charts the rise of film in early twentieth-century America from its origins to 1960, exploring mainstream trends and developments, along with topics often relegated to the margins of standard film histories Covers diverse issues ranging from silent film and its iconic figures such as Charlie Chaplin, to the coming of sound and the rise of film genres, studio moguls, and, later, the Production Code and Cold War Blacklist Designed with both students and scholars in mind: each section opens with an historical overview and includes chapters that provide close, careful readings of individual films clustered around specific topics Accessibly structured by historical period, offering valuable cultural, social, and political contexts Contains careful, close analysis of key filmmakers and films from the era including D.W. Griffith, Charles Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Erich von Stroheim, Cecil B. DeMille, Don Juan, The Jazz Singer, I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang, Scarface, Red Dust, Glorifying the American Girl, Meet Me in St. Louis, Citizen Kane, Bambi, Frank Capra's Why We Fightseries, The Strange Love of Martha Ivers, Rebel Without a Cause, Force of Evil, and selected American avant-garde and underground films, among many others. Additional online resources such as sample syllabi, which include suggested readings and filmographies for both general specialized courses, will be available online. May be used alongside American Film History: Selected Readings, 1960 to the Present, to provide an authoritative study of American cinema through the new millennium