Tag: history

  • The 10 most memorable U.S. presidents in film

    The U.S. presidency has long been one of Hollywood’s favorite subjects for drama—and comedy, too, for that matter. Presidents both real and fictitious have inspired reverence and ridicule in cinema; and like politics itself, perceptions can be fluid. Take, for instance, 1933’s Gabriel Over the White House, in which Walter Huston plays a proudly fascist…

  • The 10 best films about black and white America

    First, my disclaimer. I’m a white guy and, therefore, have a limited perspective on what it means to be anything other than a white guy in America. The “race issue” in the United States is a tidy phrase for an untidy reality. The original sins of the nation are the enslavement of Black Americans and the…

  • The 20 best Pre-Code films

    Handwringing over Hollywood is as old as Hollywood itself. In 1930, the movie studios acquiesced to religious and civic organizations and promised to clean up their act. The Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA), under the stewardship of former U.S. Postmaster General Will H. Hays, established the Motion Picture Production Code to set…