Deftly, Gerd Gemunden combines perceptive close readings of select films with sharp archival investigation to show how some key movies of classical Hollywood came-in often fraught manner-to engage with the evils of fascism. By understanding cinema as a complex negotiation over political meanings, from production to final results onscreen, this volume represents a major contribution to the literature on the Hollywood emigres and their cultural work.
Dana Polan, New York University Continental Strangers is a necessary and most compelling pendant to Thomas Doherty's Hollywood and Hitler, 1933-1939. Indeed, these two recent releases provide an impressive ensemble. Doherty depicts how American film studios reacted to Nazi terror in both direct and less overt ways. Gemunden fills out the picture in a series of intriguing case studies devoted to filmmakers who fled Hitler and settled in Southern California. Sensitive to the variety of ways in which German film artists experienced emigration and exile, Gemunden's book remains admirably attentive to the historical determinations and textual shapes of Hollywood's anti-Nazi features.
Eric Rentschler, Harvard University A lucid and comprehensive account of German filmmakers in American exile, this book also offers a poetics of displacement and alienation. It adds another chapter to the story about Hitler and Hollywood and contributes to a deeper historical understanding of political cinema at a moment of crisis.
Anton Kaes, University of California, Berkeley A welcome and well-researched survey. Cineaste Gemunden's work... makes a valuable contribution to film history... Journal of American History ...a richly contextualized and nuanced reading of exile cinema... American Historcial Review A most important book.
Clayton Dillard Slant Magazine