Front cover image for Small screens, big ideas : television in the 1950s

Small screens, big ideas : television in the 1950s

Small Screens, Big Ideas brings together specially commissioned writings from British and American contributors to explore themes of diversity in the formative period of the 1950s. With radical changes taking place in terrestrial television, this is a timely moment to revisit the decade when television's very novelty was its most striking feature. Discussing television's role in the construction of national and gender identities and its relation to other media such as theatre, film, and radio, this fresh exploration is based on detailed case-studies of this complex era
Print Book, English, 2001
I.B. Tauris, London, 2001
History
288 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm
9781860646836, 9781860646829, 1860646832, 1860646824
59486468
List of illustrations
vii
Preface and Acknowledgementsix
Introduction: Small screens, big ideas1(18)
Janet Thumim
I've Seen This One Before: The construction of `classic TV' on cable television
19(16)
Derek Kompare
Selling Soap: Post-war television soap opera and the American housewife
35(15)
Kristen Hatch
Study of a Mad Housewife: Psychiatric discourse, the suburban home and the case of Gracie Allen
50(16)
Allison McCracken
Lessons from Uncle Miltie: Ethnic masculinity and early television's vaudeo star
66(22)
Susan Murray
Nothin' Could be Finah: The Dinah Shore Chevy Show
88(17)
Lola Clare Bratten
Re-Made for Television: Hedy Lamarr's post-war star textuality
105(13)
Diane Negra
Maureen O'Hara's `Confidential' Life: Recycling stars through gossip and moral biography
118(13)
Mary Desjardins
Matinee Theater: Difference, compromise and the 1950s daytime audience
131(18)
Matthew Murray
The BBC and the Birth of The Wednesday Play, 1962-66: Institutional containment versus `agitational contemporaneity'
149(16)
Madeleine MacMurraugh-Kavanagh
Mystery and Imagination: Anatomy of a Gothic anthology series
165(16)
Helen Wheatley
Exploiting the Intimate Screen: The Quatermass Experiment, fantasy and the aesthetic potential of early television drama
181(14)
Catherine Johnson
This Week in 1956: The introduction of current affairs on ITV
195(12)
Victoria Wegg-Prosser
Women At Work: Popular drama on British television c1955-60
207(16)
Janet Thumim
Cracking Open the Set: Television repair and tinkering with gender 1949-l955
223(21)
Lisa Parks
Bibliography244(11)
Notes on Contributors255(2)
Index of Broadcast programmes257(2)
General index259