A Woman's View: How Hollywood Spoke to Women, 1930-1960

films of the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s--including Now Voyager, Gilda, and Rebecca--receive a lively, incisive look that examines the stars, the story lines, and the contradictory messages of these popular movies.

When film experts talk about the "woman's picture," a Hollywood genre that flourished in the '30s, '40s, and '50s, they often squabble over whether these films were liberating or constraining. Jeanine Basinger argues that they were both at the same time. She maintains that they freed their female protagonists to break social bonds while also punishing any women who seemed too free and feisty. This lively and exceedingly thorough book covers every major aspect of this fascinating film genre, including the roles female stars were expected to play, the fabulous clothes they wore, the social behaviors they were condemned to adopt, the ways they responded to and were treated by men, and the ideals of femininity Hollywood producers tried to impress upon their audiences. --Raphael Shargel