Explosive! Amazing! Terrifying! You won’t believe your eyes! Such movie taglines were common in the 1950s, as Hollywood churned out a variety of low-budget pictures that were sold on the basis of their sensational content and topicality. While a few of these movies have since become canonized by film fans and critics, a number of the era’s biggest fads have now faded into obscurity. The Cool and the Crazy examines seven of these film cycles, including short-lived trends like boxing movies, war pictures, and social problem films detailing the sordid and violent life of teenagers, as well as uniquely 1950s takes on established genres like the gangster picture. Peter Stanfield reveals how Hollywood sought to capitalize upon current events, moral panics, and popular fads, making movies that were “ripped from the headlines” on everything from the Korean War to rock and roll. As he offers careful readings of several key films, he also considers the broader historical and commercial contexts in which these films were produced, marketed, and exhibited. In the process, Stanfield uncovers surprising synergies between Hollywood and other arenas of popular culture, like the ways that the fashion trend for blue jeans influenced the 1950s Western. Delivering sharp critical insights in jazzy, accessible prose, The Cool and the Crazy offers an appreciation of cinema as a “pop” medium, unabashedly derivative, faddish, and ephemeral. By studying these long-burst bubbles of 1950s “pop,” Stanfield reveals something new about what films do and the pleasures they provide.

ピーター・スタンフィールドによる本書は、1950年代ハリウッドの底流に渦巻いた刹那的なＢ級映画群の真髄を解き明かす、極めて挑発的な一冊です。社会を揺るがした道徳的パニックや流行の熱狂を、ジャジーな文体で鮮やかに活写しています。消費され消えゆくはずの「流行」という泡から時代の真実を掬い上げる、著者の鋭利な批評眼には驚かされるばかりです。 ジーンズの流行が西部劇に変容をもたらした経緯など、大衆文化と映画が共鳴する様を論じる筆致は圧巻です。歴史の影に埋もれた作品の中にこそ、生々しい悦楽と文化の本質が潜んでいることを本書は物語っています。映画が持つ「不純で、しかし愛すべき力」を再発見させてくれる、知的な興奮に満ちた名著です。