Adrienne L. McLean

Showing 1-12 of 12 items.

Headline Hollywood

A Century of Film Scandal

Rutgers University Press

Hollywood has long been associated with scandal--with covering it up, with managing its effects, and, in some cases, with creating and directing it. In putting together Headline Hollywood, Adrienne McLean and David Cook approach the relationship between Hollywood and scandal from a fresh perspective. The contributors consider some of the famous transgressions that shocked Hollywood and its audiences during the last century, and explore the changing meaning of scandal over time by zeroing in on issues of power: Who decides what crimes and misdemeanors should be circulated for public consumption and titillation? What makes a Hollywood scandal scandalous? What are the uses of scandal? 

  • Copyright year: 2001
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Dying Swans and Madmen

Ballet, the Body, and Narrative Cinema

Rutgers University Press

From mid-twentieth-century films such as Grand Hotel, Waterloo Bridge, and The Red Shoes to recent box-office hits including Billy Elliot, Save the Last Dance, and The Company, ballet has found its way, time and again, onto the silver screen and into the hearts of many otherwise unlikely audiences. In Dying Swans and Madmen, Adrienne L. McLean explores the curious pairing of classical and contemporary, art and entertainment, high culture and popular culture to reveal the ambivalent place that this art form occupies in American life.

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Glamour in a Golden Age

Movie Stars of the 1930s

Rutgers University Press

Shirley Temple, Clark Gable, Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, Bette Davis, Joan Crawford and Norma Shearer, Marlene Dietrich and Greta Garbo, William Powell and Myrna Loy, Jean Harlow, and Gary Cooper-Glamour in a Golden Age presents original essays from eminent film scholars that analyze movie stars of the 1930s against the background of contemporary American cultural history.

  • Copyright year: 2010
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Being Rita Hayworth

Labor, Identity, and Hollywood Stardom

Rutgers University Press

Who was Rita Hayworth? Born Margarita Carmen Cansino, she spent her life subjected to others' definitions of her, no matter how hard she worked to claim her own identity. Although there have been many "revelations" about her life and career, Adrienne McLean's book is the first to show that such disclosures were part of a constructed image from the outset. McLean explores Hayworth's participation in the creation of her star persona, particularly through her work as a dancer-a subject ignored by most film scholars.

  • Copyright year: 2004
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Cinematic Canines

Dogs and Their Work in the Fiction Film

Rutgers University Press

Dogs have been part of motion pictures since the movies began. They have been featured onscreen in various capacities, from any number of “man’s best friends” (Rin Tin Tin, Asta, Toto, Lassie, Benji, Uggie, and many, many more) to the psychotic Cujo. The contributors to Cinematic Canines take a close look at Hollywood films and beyond in order to show that the popularity of dogs on the screen cannot be separated from their increasing presence in our lives over the past century.

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All for Beauty

Makeup and Hairdressing in Hollywood's Studio Era

Rutgers University Press

This book provides an industrial history that examines how and why makeup and hairdressing evolved as crafts in the studio era. Readers will never again watch Hollywood films without thinking about the roles of makeup and hairdressing in creating not just fictional characters but stars as emblems of an idealized and undeniably mesmerizing visual perfection.

 

  • Copyright year: 2022
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Star Decades Complete 11 Volume Set

Rutgers University Press

The Star Decades: American Culture/American Cinema series is now available as an eleven volume set: Movie Stars from the 1910s to the 2010s. Each volume presents original essays that analyze the movie star against the background of American cultural history. As icon, as mediated personality, and as object of audience fascination and desire, the Hollywood star remains the model for celebrity in modern culture, representing a combination of achievement, talent, ability, luck, authenticity, superficiality, and even ordinariness.

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American Cinema of the 1950s

Themes and Variations

Edited by Murray Pomerance; Introduction by Murray Pomerance
Rutgers University Press

Bringing together original essays by ten respected scholars in the field, American Cinema of the 1950s explores the impact of the cultural environment of this decade on film, and the impact of film on the American cultural milieu. Contributors examine the signature films of the decade, including From Here to Eternity,Sunset Blvd., Singin' in the Rain, Shane, Rear Window, and Rebel Without a Cause, as well as lesser-known but equally compelling films, such as Dial 1119, Mystery Street, Suddenly, Summer Stock, The Last Hunt, and many others.

  • Copyright year: 2005
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Hollywood Unions

Rutgers University Press

Who makes films and television shows? How do those people make a living in Hollywood? Hollywood Unions tells the stories of the unions and guilds that have organized and negotiate on behalf of motion picture and television labor: the DGA, IATSE, SAG-AFTRA, and WGA.

  • Copyright year: 2025
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Larger Than Life

Movie Stars of the 1950s

Edited by R. Barton Palmer; Introduction by R. Barton Palmer
Rutgers University Press

Larger Than Life offers a comprehensive view of the star system in 1950s Hollywood and also in-depth discussions of the decade's major stars, including Montgomery Clift, Judy Holliday, Jerry Lewis, James Mason, Marilyn Monroe, Kim Novak, Bing Crosby, Gene Kelly, Jayne Mansfield, and Audrey Hepburn.

  • Copyright year: 2010
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Costume, Makeup, and Hair

Rutgers University Press

From the Behind the Silver Screen series, Costume, Makeup, and Hair charts the development of these three crafts in the American film industry from the 1890s to the present. Each chapter examines a different era, revealing how these artistic fields have fostered creative collaboration and improvisation, often fashioning striking looks and ingenious effects out of limited materials, while continually adapting to new technologies, fashions, and economic conditions.  

  • Copyright year: 2016
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Hollywood Unions

Rutgers University Press

Who makes films and television shows? How do those people make a living in Hollywood? Hollywood Unions tells the stories of the unions and guilds that have organized and negotiate on behalf of motion picture and television labor: the DGA, IATSE, SAG-AFTRA, and WGA.

  • Copyright year: 2025
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