Nixon at the Movies: A Book about Belief
Mark Feeney
Abstract
Was it an omen that Richard Nixon and the film industry arrived in Southern California in the same year, 1913? As this book relates, Nixon and the movies have shared a long and complex history. Some of that history—the president's multiple screenings of Patton before and during the invasion of Cambodia, or Oliver Stone's Nixon—is well known. Yet much more is not. How many are aware, for example, that Nixon was an enthusiastic filmgoer who watched more than five hundred movies during his presidency? This book takes an often revelatory approach to looking at Nixon's career—and Hollywood's. From ... More
Was it an omen that Richard Nixon and the film industry arrived in Southern California in the same year, 1913? As this book relates, Nixon and the movies have shared a long and complex history. Some of that history—the president's multiple screenings of Patton before and during the invasion of Cambodia, or Oliver Stone's Nixon—is well known. Yet much more is not. How many are aware, for example, that Nixon was an enthusiastic filmgoer who watched more than five hundred movies during his presidency? This book takes an often revelatory approach to looking at Nixon's career—and Hollywood's. From the obvious (All the President's Men) to the less so (Elvis Presley movies and Nixon's relationship to 1960s youth culture) to several onscreen “alternate” Nixons (Fred MacMurray in Double Indemnity, Tony Curtis in The Sweet Smell of Success, Gene Hackman in The Conversation), the book sees aspects of Nixon's character, and the nation's, refracted and reimagined in film. Conversely, it argues that Nixon can help us see the movies in a new light, making a strong case for Nixon as the movies' tutelary deity during the early 1970s, playing a role in Hollywood's Silver Age comparable to FDR's during its Golden Age. The book draws on biography, politics, cultural history, and film criticism.
Keywords:
Richard Nixon,
film industry,
Southern California,
movies,
Patton,
Cambodia,
Oliver Stone,
Hollywood,
Elvis Presley,
Double Indemnity
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2004 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780226239682 |
| Published to Chicago Scholarship Online: March 2013 |
DOI:10.7208/chicago/9780226239705.001.0001 |
