Mob Culture

Lee Grieveson is Director of the Graduate Programme in Film Studies at University College London and co-editor of The Silent Cinema. Esther Sonnet is Principal Lecturer at the University of Portsmouth. Peter Stanfield is Senior Lecturer at the University of Kent at Canterbury and author of Hollywood, Westerns, and the 1930s

'This book does a fine job at what it sets out to do - to redefine the American gangster genre.'William Luhr, Saint Peter's College'Mob Cultures uncovers new aspects of the gangster genre, from its dress codes to its relation to government investigation, from gangsters on nickelodeon screens to HBO series, from Tong wars in Chinatown to the African American gangster in race films. Think you know the gangster genre? Read this book and discover dimensions you never dreamed of.'Tom Gunning, University of Chicago

• I. Producing Crime: Gangs and the Gangster Film Gangsters and Governance in the Silent Era Lee Grieveson, King's College, University of London Why Boys Go Wrong: Gangsters, Hoodlums, and the Natural History of Delinquent Careers Richard Maltby, School of Humanities at Flinders University, South Australia Gang Busters: The Kefauver Crime Committee and the Syndicate Films of the 1950s Ronald W. Wilson, independent scholar residing in Lawrence, Kansas II. Gangster Transgressions: Gender and Sexuality Ladies Love Brutes: Reclaiming Female Pleasures in the Lost History of Hollywood Gangster Cycles, 1929-1931 Esther Sonnet, University of Portsmouth A Gunsel Is Being Beaten: Gangster Masculinity and the Homoerotics of the Crime Film, 1941-1942 Gaylyn Studlar, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor Mother Barker: Film Star and Public Enemy No. 1 Mary Elizabeth Strunk, Syracuse University "Good Evening Gentlemen, Can I Check Your Hats Please?": Masculinity, Dress, and the Retro Gangster Cycles of the 1990s Esther Sonnet, University of Portsmouth, and Peter Stanfield, University of Kent at Canterbury Waddaya Lookin' At?: Re-reading the Gangster Film Through The Sopranos Martha P. Nochimson, Mercy College Film Studies Program III. "Other" Gangsters: Race, Politics, and the Gangster Film Black Hands and White Hearts: Southern Italian Immigrants, Crime, and Race in Early American Cinema Giorgio Bertellini, University of Michigan "American Like Chop Suey": Invocations of Gangsters in Chinatown, 1920-1935 Peter Stanfield, University of Kent at Canterbury The Underworld Films of Oscar Micheaux and Ralph Cooper: Toward a Genealogy of the Black Screen Gangster Jonathan Munby, Institute for Cultural Research, Lancaster University, UK Walking the Streets: Black Gangsters and the "Abandoned City" in the 1970s Blaxploitation Cycle Peter Stanfield, University of Kent at Canterbury