During the 1950s America was intoxicated with the Cold War, the hunt for communists on the home front, and a growing menace of Soviet nuclear threat and space exploration superiority. In Hollywood, the blacklisting of writers and artists inspired by the 1947 investigations by the House Un- American Activities Committee and the subsequent Waldorf Declaration [...]
Towering high above Los Angeles, perched on Mount Lee, nine white letters compose one of the true archetypal icons of our time: the Hollywood Sign. In the course of its existence it has become more than a landmark – more than a mere indication of place or direction – it has become the solid manifestation [...]
“The battle was like the grinding of an immense and terrible machine to him. Its complexities and powers, its grim processes, fascinated him. He must go close and see it produce corpses.†- Stephen Crane, The Red Badge of Courage
Wars have always exerted, and probably will always exert, an immense fascination on the voyeuristic human [...]
It is a sad truth that the visual media have a history of neglecting to prize that which lies at the bottom of any of their creations, however well received and whether deservedly so or not: the written word. This has likely never been more so the case than with one of Hollywood’s all-time-classics, the [...]