Biesen adds a new perspective that enhances scholarship on the subject and makes this book a must. Choice 2006 Ms Biesen describes too how film noir drew on societal anxieties as Americans faced fear, loss and shortages during the war and viewed ever-more-harrowing newsreel footage. 'As life on the homefront became increasingly hard-boiled,' she writes, 'so too did American film.' ... Read more
Nina Ayoub Chronicle of Higher Education 2006 Biesen's book is readable, informative and jargon free... Biesen uses her research into studio archives, the films' attendant publicity and the contemporary press to bring alive the wartime period of film noir and its transformation into a post-war genre for dealing with troubled veterans returning home, the coming of the Cold War, nuclear angst and the effects of McCarthyism on Hollywood and the nation at large. Times Literary Supplement 2006 Readers will come away from Blackout with a fuller understanding of the industrial and historical contexts of wartime film noir.
Charles Maland Cineaste 2006 This text offers a compelling history of wartime Hollywood and a provocative challenge to current noir scholarship. Southern California Quarterly 2006 An important contribution to the history of film noir.
Jan-Christopher Horak Screening the Past 2006 A film noir aficionado, Biesen provides the most detailed and thoroughly researched interpretation of this era's American film noir.
Clayton Koppes American Historical Review 2007 The author is to be congratulated on producing an exemplary study in empirical film history.
Brian Neve Historical Journal of Film, Radio, and Television 2008 Show Less