Public Enemies, Public Heroes: Screening the Gangster from Little Caesar to Touch of Evil
Beginning in the early 1930s, argues Lancaster University lecturer Munby, gangster films reflected the urban masses' discontent with the Horatio Algeresque conservatism of Depression-era America. By the end of this genre's heyday, in the early 1950s, the films mirrored the changing sociopolitical order adjusting to corporatism. Munby's wide-ranging overview is most useful in examining the genre's response to the Production Code, the Legion of Decency, and the House Un-American Activities Committee as these groups threatened to muzzle dissent on the silver screen. Recommended for all film collections as a companion to Eugene Rosow's Born To Lose: The Gangster Film in America (1978. o.p.).AAnthony J. Adam, Prairie View A&M; Univ. Lib., Houston, TXCopyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.