In the 1950s and 1960s, the film world moved from black and white to color, and politics moved from black and white to shades of gray. Kelley tells this story with sociological sweep, but also with a good eye for characters. John Wayne, Sam Fuller, and Stanley Kubrick all come back to life to tell us about their times. It's a fine book about real art, real people, and real politics.
John J. Pitney Jr., Roy P. Crocker Professor of American Politics, Claremont McKenna College It is rare indeed to find a film text that is prepared to analyze American foreign policy, presidential politics, cultural theory, and social history with such a wide-ranging and lucid grasp of the material. Erudite, accessible, and often witty, Reelpolitik II will appeal to students, scholars in the field, and anyone who has any kind of interest in political and historical movies.
Ian Scott, University of Manchester, England, author of American Politics in Hollywood Film Beverly Kelley's Reelpolitik II is a masterpiece of both clever concept and detailed execution—a real tour de force that gives us a fresh vocabulary for understanding where we've come from, and perhaps where we are headed.
William Knoke, author of Bold New World: The Essential Road Map to the Twenty-first Century Not only the times, but the ideological currents come alive through Kelley's attention to telling detail. She has mastered the cinematic technique of depth of focus, foregrounding ideology and character against a background fill of layered historical detail, telling the story not only of the politics, but the movies as well. For students of politics, cinema, and history, this will prove a provocative melange of disciplines, braiding various dimensions of understanding into a single, fascinating interpretation of America in the 1950s and 1960s.
Herbert E. Gooch III, California Lutheran University Ms. Kelly provides film scholars and their students with an articulate engaging writing style coupled with an expertly crafted, thoroughly researched analysis, examining films chosen for their presumed political ideologies.
Film & History: An Interdisciplinary Journal
Political ideologies in the 1950s and 1960s film are the topic of Beverly Merrill Kelley's Reelpolitik II, a discussion of political figures in film and how they fostered mythology and changes. From discussions of facism and antifacism sentiments in movies of the times to Cold War, isolationism, and interventionism in specific selected films, Reelpolitik II is simply outstanding.
Midwest Book Review