Selling Hollywood to the World
US and European Struggles for Mastery of the Global Film Industry, 1920–1950

This book investigates European efforts to overcome the American film industry's international pre-eminence.

John Trumpbour (Author)

9780521042666, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 21 September 2007

400 pages, 8 b/w illus. 2 tables
22.9 x 15.4 x 2.4 cm, 0.604 kg

'Trumpbour is to be congratulated for never treating complex issues as simple matters of black or white...[his] research is impressive … and the book has tremendous value for the background it provides on current debates about globalization and Hollywood's continuing domination of the international film scene.' Business History Review

The global expansion of Hollywood and American popular culture in the first decades of the twentieth century met with strong opposition throughout the world. Determined to defeat such resistance, the Hollywood moguls created a powerful trade organization that worked closely with the US State Department in an effort to expand the American film industry's dominance worldwide. This book offers insight into and analysis of European efforts to overcome the American film industry's pre-eminence. It focuses particularly on Britain, Hollywood's largest overseas market of the interwar years; France, a nation with an alternative vision of cinema; and Belgium, which was entrusted by the Vatican with coordination of the international movement against depravity in films. In contributing to the understanding of American popular culture at home and abroad, this study demonstrates Hollywood's role in orchestrating the American Century.

List of illustrations
Preface
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Part I. The United States: 1. The domestic roots of Hollywood's foreign policy: censorship and corporatism in the formation of the MPPDA, 1921–41
2. Hollywood and the State department: overseas expansion and America's subversion
3. The MPAA and the State department: order and autonomy in the postwar world
Part II. Great Britain: 4. Grierson, the documentary spirit and the projection of Britain
5. The Korda road to riches, recovery and ruin
6. The age of rank
7. The US-UK film conflict: the fading dream of mastering Hollywood
Part III. Two Continental Case Studies: Belgium and France: 8. Belgium and the making of an international Catholic film movement
9. France and resistance to Hollywood: empire, artisans and the state
10. France and the politics of state intervention
Conclusion
Notes
Selected bibliography
Filmography
Index.

Subject Areas: 20th century history: c 1900 to c 2000 [HBLW], History of the Americas [HBJK], Film theory & criticism [APFA]