Army Of Phantoms

J. Hoberman is the author, co-author, or editor of a dozen books, including The Dream Life: Movies, Media, and the Mythology of the Sixties (The New Press) and Film After Film (Or, What Became of 21st Century Cinema?). He has written for Artforum, Bookforum, the London Review ofBooks, The Nation, the New York Review of Books, and the New York Times; has taught cinema history at Cooper Union since 1990; and was, for over thirty years, a film critic for the Village Voice. He lives in New York.

• AcknowledgmentsIntroduction: From God's Mouth to Your EarPrologue: Mission for Hollywood—Stalingrad to V-J DayI. Aliens Among Us: Hollywood, 1946–47MGM's Manhattan Project: The Beginning or the End?When HUAC Came to Hollywood …Showtime (“Hooray for Robert Taylor!”)Decision at the Waldorf: The Big Mop-upII. Fighting for the Ministry of Truth, Justice, and the American Way, 1948–50The Iron Curtain Parts and the Campaign BeginsFort Apache, Our HomeHollywood Alert: From Red Menace to Storm Warning“The Saucers Are Real!” (And Guilty of Treason)Sunset/Panic/In a Lonely PlaceCountdownIII. Redskin Menace from Outer Space: America at War, 1950–52Across Rio Grande … into Manchuria?This Is Korea?The Communist Was a Thing for the FBI!Three Cases: Joseph L., Carl F., and Elia KazanCampaign '52: Take Us to Our Leader, Big JimHigh Noon in the UniverseIV. The PaxAmericanArama: Eisenhower Power, 1953–55“No One on This Earth Can Help You”: Above and Beyond and Fantasies of InvasionThe Hammer, the Witch Trials, and Pickup on South StreetAfter Quo Vadis: Onward Christian Soldier, Watch Out for The Wild OneMarilyn Ascends, Joe Goes DownSh-Boom Them! (DeMillennium Approaching …)V. Searchin': America on the Road, 1955–56Coonskin Kids, or the Martians Have LandedOn the Brink of the Wild Frontier: Kiss Me Deadly, Rebel Without a CauseBetter Red Than Dead: Body-Snatched Prisoners of Comanche Mind Control“That'll Be the Day!” The Spirit of '56Epilogue: The Face of the CrowdSourcesIndex

“Utterly compulsive reading … There's something majestic about the reach of Hoberman's ambitions … An Army of Phantoms may prove to be the definitive text on its subject.”—Film Comment“An energetic and adventurous book … scholarly, even encyclopedic, yet written occasionally in a style akin to the Hush-Hush columns of L.A. Confidential.”—London Review of Books“A welcome acknowledgment of how complicated the story of one particular period really is.”—National Review“An epic: an alternately fevered and measured account of what might be called the primal scene of American cinema.”—Cineaste“An important, overflowing and often compelling study of movie history … Smartly conceived, and its richness defies capture in a book review.”—Ha'aretz