Review: American Blockbuster: Movies, Technology, and Wonder, by Charles R. Acland

Abstract

Book Review| June 01 2021 Review: American Blockbuster: Movies, Technology, and Wonder, by Charles R. Acland American Blockbuster: Movies, Technology, and Wonder by Charles R. Acland Carrie Rickey Carrie Rickey Carrie Rickey, film critic emerita of the Philadelphia Inquirer, is writing a biography of Agnes Varda. Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar BOOK DATA Charles R. Acland, American Blockbuster: Movies, Technology, and Wonder. Durham, NC, and London: Duke University Press, 2020. $109.95 cloth, $29.95 paper, $16.57 e-book. 400 pages. Film Quarterly (2021) 74 (4): 90–93. https://doi.org/10.1525/fq.2021.74.4.90 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Twitter LinkedIn Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Carrie Rickey; Review: American Blockbuster: Movies, Technology, and Wonder, by Charles R. Acland. Film Quarterly 1 June 2021; 74 (4): 90–93. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/fq.2021.74.4.90 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search nav search search input Search input auto suggest search filter All ContentFilm Quarterly Search BOOK DATA Charles R. Acland, American Blockbuster: Movies, Technology, and Wonder. Durham, NC, and London: Duke University Press, 2020. $109.95 cloth, $29.95 paper, $16.57 e-book. 400 pages. As Dwight Eisenhower was about to leave the White House in 1961, he warned ominously of the “military-industrial complex,” a mutually beneficial alliance (today, some say conspiracy) between the Pentagon and defense contractors that greatly enriched the latter. In American Blockbuster, Charles R. Acland shows that well before Eisenhower’s farewell speech the movie industry had already witnessed the rise of an entertainment-technological complex sparked by the release of Samson and Delilah (Cecil B. DeMille, 1949), a movie that critic Bosley Crowther wrote “brought together the Old Testament and Technicolor” (125). It was described by film historian Thomas Schatz as “the first studio-produced calculated blockbuster box office effort in years” (125). Yet back then, “blockbuster” referred not to a movie spectacular but... You do not currently have access to this content.