Reviews

This is the final volume in a series presenting new scholarship on American movie conventions deemed worthy of study because they are markers or indicators of the belief system of the culture that produces the films. The more commonplace a convention, the more deeply embedded it likely is in society's unconscious assumptions. Compared with the first four series entries, however, this particular volume has little new to say‘even the editors commented on the paucity of manuscripts submitted compared with the volumes on stock characters or stock plot conventions. Howard Good's piece on the success myth in baseball biopics, William Brigham's on the unrealistic Hollywood portrayals of the homeless, and Martin F. Norden's article on the physically disabled in films are interesting, but most of the pieces lack freshness. Academic and subject collections should buy as demand indicates from use of the first four volumes.‘Marianne Cawley, Enoch Pratt Free Lib., Baltimore