Versions of Hollywood Crime Cinema

<p><em>Versions of Hollywood Crime Cinema</em> offers a series of critical readings spanning several genres. From among the mob movies Carl Freedman focuses on Francis Ford Coppola's Godfather trilogy - arguably the foremost work of crime cinema -crafting a convincing argument that the plot's action is principally driven by the shift from Sicily to America which marks the shift to a capitalist society. Turning his attention to other genres Freedman also looks at film noir and Westerns in addition to films for which crime is significant but not central from horror movies like Stanley Kubrick's <em>The Shining</em> to science fiction and social realist films like The <em>Grapes of Wrath</em>. In recent years television has welcomed innovative works like <em>Boardwalk Empire The Wire</em> and <em>The Sopranos</em> and Freedman discusses how television's increasingly congenial creative environment has allowed it to turn out productions whose ability to engage with these larger social questions rivals that of films from the height of cinema's Golden Age.</p>