“Regarding Frank Capra opens important new lines of inquiry concerning the historical study of movie audiences, significantly expanding how we might think about specific contexts for moviegoing and what counts as empirical evidence of reception.”-Gregory A. Waller, author of Main Street Amusements: Movies and Commercial Entertainment in a Southern City, 1896–1930
“In a delightfully readable book full of personality and wit, Eric Smoodin rethinks audience and reception theory. He demonstrates that film culture extends from the settings of the movie theater and film industry to other less obvious but equally important sites.”-Lisa Cartwright, coauthor of Practices of Looking: An Introduction to Visual Culture
“This wonderful book demonstrates precisely the importance of cultural reception for film studies. Breaking down the traditional boundaries between production, text, and audience, Eric Smoodin’s study challenges us to think about the complexity and locatedness of the meaning of the cinema. This book combines rich historical analysis with an accessible style of delivery and an excellent feel for the changing field of American cinema studies. This is film scholarship at its best: rigorous, lively, original.”-Jackie Stacey, author of Star Gazing: Hollywood Cinema and Female Spectatorship
“Eric Smoodin’s excellent study of the many ways the films of director Frank Capra were perceived by audiences is important not only because it extends the contemporary project to understand film reception but also because it is sensitive to the ways the mass audience was partially shaped by historical contexts and discourses.”
- John Bodnar (American Historical Review) “Smoodin’s research effort was extensive. . . . [He] deserves high praise for seeing the unique opportunity this archival material provided. That is, in Capra’s case it is possible to trace the reception of his films in very concrete terms from early until late, in such a way as to offer a counter-account of the trajectory and meaning of his career. . . . Enthralling. . . .”
- Leland Poague (Screening the Past) “Smoodin’s text stretches impressively across the full gamut of Capra’s output, from the classic films to the educational shorts of the 1960s. All in all it is an engrossing work and one that should contribute immensely to these prominent questions of audience reception and the academic film studies agenda. It is also a book worthy of the director’s contribution to American cinema and should be invaluable reading for film scholars of all persuasions.”
- Ian Scott (Journal of American Studies) "Capra and his films have been studied extensively but Smoodin takes a fresh rewarding approach. . . . Fascinating. . . . Smoodin provides a well-documented, clearly written study that not only enhances understanding of this significant director but also adds to the burgeoning field of reception studies. Highly recommended."
- J.I. Deutsch (Choice)
