Readings and Discussion Schedule
Summer 2013
Tuesday June 25: Course Introduction
Thursday June 27: Movies in America
Hollywood as History (overview for
reference)
The
making of The Gold Rush
The Gold Rush storyline
Theda Bara
Movie: The Gold Rush
Discussion Questions
Tuesday July 2: Labour and the Red Scare
"Save Sacco and Vanzetti"
"The
Most Brainiest Man..."
"The
Case Against the Reds"
"Sailor
Wounds Spectator..."
"We
Do Not Understand the Foreigners..."
"It
is Entirely the Bolshevik Spirit..."
"A Look Behind the Masks..."
Discussion questions
Thursday July 4: Gangsters, Crime, and Punishment
Making Sense of Films (4
sections of the Introduction)
LaGuardia on Prohibition
"Complete Nudity is Never Permitted"
Pre-Code Hollywood
"Alcohol and Al Capone"
"The Era of the Gangster Film"
Crime Pays: Introduction
and Conclusion
Movie: The
Roaring Twenties (1939)
Discussion Questions
Tuesday July 9: Cultures and Traditions
"The National Pastime"
"Does Jazz put the Sin in..."
Allen, "The Revolution in Manners and Morals"
"Frustration
versus Fantasy"
"From
Cowboys to Clara Bow"
"Kissing
Rudy Valentino"
"A Flapper's
Appeal to Parents"
"Flapper
Jane"
"Making 'It' in Hollywood..."
Opening of "It"
Discussion questions
Thursday July 11: The Gangster as (anti)Hero
Movie: Scarface
Scarface: 1932 Movie
Trailer
Overview of
Scarface
Review of Scarface
Movie: The Public Enemy
Public Enemy: 1931
Movie Trailer
Overview of Public
Enemy
1931
Review of Public Enemy
Maltby, Review of Public Enemy
Crime and Gangster Films (part
1)
Discussion Questions
**First assignment due**
Tuesday July 16: Women New and Old
Marchand, "Advertising as a Social Tableaux"
"When
the Whistle Blows..."
"The
Double Task..."
"I Am Only a Piece of
Machinery..."
Dell, "Love and Companionship"
Sanger, "I Am Almost a Prisoner"
Kitch, "The Girl on the Magazine Cover"
"Sex and the Automobile"
Discussion questions
Thursday July 18: Onset of the Great Depression
Bernstein,
"Why the Great Depression was Great..."
Springer, "Men Off the Road"
Movie:
The Crash of 1929
FDR's
First Fireside Chat
Discussion Questions
Tuesday July 23: The New Deal
Movie: The G-Men
The G-Men Trailer
A New
Gangster
Action and Action
Now
Thursday July 25: Down and Out in America
"Losing
the Business..."
Letters to Eleanor
Roosevelt: requests for clothes (6 letters)
Report to Mr. Hopkins,
November 11, 1934
"Please
Help Us Mr. President..."
"Like
A Thick Wall..."
"Migratory Farm Labor..."
Anne Marie Low, Dust Bowl Diary
"The Depression has Changed Peoples' Outlooks"
Discussion Questions
Tuesday July 30: Getting By
Movie: My Man Godfrey (1936)
My Man Godfrey Trailer
Review of My Man Godfrey
"A Child's View of the Depression"
Discussion Questions
**Second assignment due**
Thursday August 1: The Turbulent 1930s
"Treated Like
Slaves..."
"The Right to
Strike..."
"United We Eat"
"Cold Terror in
California"
"The Terror in San
Jose"
Discussion Questions
Tuesday August 6: Hollywood as History
"Bandits, Mad Men, and Suicides..."
"Separation and Sorrow..."
"Again the Covered
Wagon"
Movie: The Grapes of Wrath
(1940)
The Grapes of Wrath Trailer
The Grapes of Wrath: synopsis
Discussion
Questions
Thursday August 8: Final Examination
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