"Black City Cinema covers an impressive range of textual and historical ground to reveal "the city" as far more than a frequent setting or theme in Black films. Instead, Paula Massood demonstrates how the urban has functioned as a central organizing trope in the articulation of Black culture, progress, protest and subjectivity. Massood provides a much-needed innovative framework for understanding the complex development of African American film culture."-Jacqueline Stewart, Assistant Professor English, Cinema & Media Studies, African & African American Studies, University of Chicago and author of the forthcoming book, Migrating to the Movies: Cinema and Black Urban Modernity "Massood's interpretive discussions of the films are clearly written and convincing; she makes an important original point about the ending of Do the Right Thing, probably the most discussed African American film-and ending-of all time. She illuminates many other films, about which she writes with easy familiarity and complete authority."-J. Ronald Green, Professor, History of Art/Film Studies, Ohio State University and author of Straight Lick: The Cinema of Oscar Micheaux "[Massood] supplies a new and very rich way of looking at and analyzing the films that she discusses. Highly recommended for academic libraries and large public libraries with a strong film or African American collection."-Library Journal "Thanks to Massood's lively writing style, Black City Cinema is a good read. It is also an important contribution to the field of film studies."-Film Quarterly "...emerges as an important resource... [it] is an engaging read, pulling together its various strands of analysis in incisive prose."-Cineaste "Black City Cinema stands as an original, important contribution to black cinema's building theoretical and critical discourse."-Ethnic and Racial Studies "Examines how African Americans and the urban environment have been portrayed in films since the 1920s."-Black Issues Book Review