Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction to Stanwyck Studies

A         All I Desire: Pastiche and Performance
B         The Barbara Stanwyck Show: Everyday Melodrama
C         Crimes of Passion: A Destructive Character
D         Dion the Son, and Barbara the Bad Mother
E          Edith Head: Clothing Makes the Woman a Woman
F          Forty Guns and The Furies: Angry Women
G         Gambling Ladies: Playing Games
H         William Holden: Making Men
I           Illicit: How to be Ultramodern
J          Jungle Films/White Women
K         Kate Crawley: Cross-Dressing in the Archive
L          The Lady Eve: Performativity and Melancholia
M        Fred MacMurray: Kissing and Playing
N         No Man of Her Own: Double Women and the Star
O         Annie Oakley: A Girl and a Gun
P          Paranoia, Abjection, and Gaslighting
Q         The Queen
R         Riding, Falling, and Stunts
S          The Stella Dallas Debates
T          Theresa Harris: Black Double
U         Union Pacific: Unmaking History
V         Voice, Body, Identity
W        Working Women and Cultural Labor
X         Exotica and Bitter Tears
Y         You Belong to Me: Archives and Fans
Z          Zeppo Marx: Comedy and Agency
 
Notes

Bibliography

Index

About the Author

Catherine Russell is Distinguished University Research Professor of Cinema at Concordia University. Her books include Archiveology: Walter Benjamin and Archival Film Practices and Classical Japanese Cinema Revisited.

Reviews

"Russell has positioned her concise, structurally adventurous contribution to 'Stanwyck studies' to reflect the expanding range of cultural approaches to women in media published during the past decade. . . . The twenty-six bite-sized essays cover themes of work, gender, sexuality, ageing, misogyny, class and race." --Times Literary Supplement

"Catherine Russell's The Cinema of Barbara Stanwyck adds illuminating dimension to the actress's complex life story and equally vaunted career. Her meticulously researched and thoughtful analysis brings a fresh perspective to Stanwyck' s legacy, and captures the enduring power and charm of the classical Hollywood movie star." --Cineaste

"The Cinema of Barbara Stanwyck makes the choice to refuse to simplify Stanwyck’s career. It underscores Stanwyck’s importance, but it doesn’t pretend like she, the films, or the era that created them are something they’re not. As a result, Russell has put together an unflinching work of criticism that must be acknowledged as the definitive work on the subject. It’s essential reading for anyone interested in Stanwyck or the era of film she headlined." --NewCity

“Catherine Russell’s inventive study of Barbara Stanwyck’s long, fascinating career as a ‘working star’ offers a tantalizing model for other feminist histories of women’s work in the film industry. Achronological and essayistic, Russell’s approach weaves back and forth between Stanwyck’s onscreen roles, her star persona, and her working life to document what Russell calls ‘the structural misogyny of the industry.’”--Shelley Stamp, author of Lois Weber in Early Hollywood and Movie-Struck Girls

“A deeply creative and insightful critical study of Barbara Stanwyck’s agency and labor as a performer, The Cinema of Barbara Stanwyck is a stunning blend of feminist historiography, archival research, star-studies, biography, and film analysis--a rewarding and immensely pleasurable read.”--Julie Grossman, author of The Femme Fatale