Matinee Melodrama

Playing with Formula in the Sound Serial

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by Scott Higgins

Type: Studies
Subject: History of Cinema
Keywords: serials, 1930s
Publishing date: 2016
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
Language: English

Relative size

Physical desc.

Paperback • 224 pages
6 ¼ x 9 ½ inches (16 x 24 cm)

ISBN

978-0-8135-6328-2

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Book Presentation:
Long before Batman, Flash Gordon, or the Lone Ranger were the stars of their own TV shows, they had dedicated audiences watching their adventures each week. The difference was that this action took place on the big screen, in short adventure serials whose exciting cliffhangers compelled the young audience to return to the theater every seven days.

Matinee Melodrama is the first book about the adventure serial as a distinct artform, one that uniquely encouraged audience participation and imaginative play. Media scholar Scott Higgins proposes that the serial’s incoherent plotting and reliance on formula, far from being faults, should be understood as some of its most appealing attributes, helping to spawn an active fan culture. Further, he suggests these serials laid the groundwork not only for modern-day cinematic blockbusters like Star Wars and Raiders of the Lost Ark, but also for all kinds of interactive media that combine spectacle, storytelling, and play.

As it identifies key elements of the serial form—from stock characters to cliffhangers—Matinee Melodrama delves deeply into questions about the nature of suspense, the aesthetics of action, and the potentials of formulaic narrative. Yet it also provides readers with a loving look at everything from Zorro’s Fighting Legion to Daredevils of the Red Circle, conveying exactly why these films continue to thrill and enthrall their fans.

About the Author:
SCOTT HIGGINS is a professor and chair of the College of Film and the Moving Image at Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut. He is the author of Harnessing the Technicolor Rainbow: Color Design in the 1930s and Arnheim for Film and Media Studies.

Press Reviews:
"Matinee Melodrama demonstrates the value of mining even the most prosaic of cinematic forms, and how it Is laregely obscured tracks still guide and propel mass entertainment."
— Film Quarterly

"Higgins won me over with his clarity of writing, his high principles of research and observation, and his humor. He understands the through-line from serials to Star Wars, Raiders, and other action-adventure films that followed."
— Leonard Maltin

"Matinee Melodrama manages a mean feat: making a mostly forgotten, formulaic format seem new and exciting, shining an informative, fascinating light from film history onto today’s television, comics, and videogames."
— Jason Mittell

"Scott Higgins offers an incisive and compelling analysis of the Hollywood sound serial as a distinct film genre--the form, story world, and style of which has much to tell us about enduring elements of popular American cinema."
— Charles Wolfe

"Matinee Melodrama will transform the study of Hollywood serials. Illustrated by frame stills, and drawing on industrial research, formalist analysis, and game theory, it will soon become a classic."
— Steve Neale

"As someone who screens Zorro's Fighting Legion for his students every year, I derived particular enjoyment from Higgins' canny analysis of the ingredients that make up every chapter, and how the storytellers cleverly stretch and compress time. I hope this valuable book inspires other film teachers to explore the wonders of the sound serial."
— leonardmaltin.com

See the publisher website: Rutgers University Press

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