The Bad and the Beautiful: Hollywood in the Fifties

by Sam Kashner (Author), Jennifer MacNair (Contributor)

• Used

  Illustrated
  2003

  $4.34

  With fresh emphasis on little-known stories [and] an impressive number of eyewitnesses (Chicago Tribune), Sam Kashner and Jennifer MacNair present a revealing,...ever fascinating glimpse into the shadowy reality and hidden mores of Hollywood in what was popularly considered a decade of innocence (Suzanne Finstad). [S]urprisingly vivid accounts (People) of such public icons as Lana Turner, Rock Hudson, Kim Novak, and Mae West explore the private scandals exploited by tabloids such as Confidential. Highlighting Hollywood's curious religious revival with The Robe, the film industry's exploitation of the potboiler Peyton Place, and the life of anarchic director Nick Ray of the enduring classic Rebel without a Cause, the authors [give] a compelling sense (Kirkus Reviews) of the unique obsessions of the era and the city's attempts to reinvent the magic and mystery of its past glories. Guided by the authors' historical savvy and intimate storytelling, we discover a city at a crossroads, attempting to reinvent the magic and mystery of its past glories. Tragic, irreverent, and always entertaining, The Bad and the Beautiful reveals the underground history of this turbulent decade in American film.

• Used

  Paperback
  2003

  $3.45

  An account of Hollywood in the 1950s - arguably America's most flamboyant, prosperous, yet paranoid decade. Its typical publication was Confidential magazine, the most scandalous scandal magazine in the history of the world whose lens on Hollywood was the window to America's collective fears and fantasies: race, communism, sex, homosexuality, criminality and mistrust of most basic institutions. Hollywood in the 1950s was a bizarre juxtaposition of high and low culture, a place where the sublime paid tribute to the ridiculous. Yet for all their seeming banality, mainstream Hollywood films also dealt with challenging issues such as race ( The Defiant Ones , Imitation of Life , Baby Doll ), sex ( Some Like It Hot , Rebel Without a Cause ), anti-Semitism ( Crossfire ), drug abuse ( The Man With the Golden Arm ), mental illness ( Cobweb , Lust for Life ), and the possibility of nuclear annihilation ( On the Beach , Kiss Me Deadly ). This book explores the decade that helped shape the Hollywood of today.