In Secrecy's Shadow

The OSS and CIA in Hollywood Cinema 1941-1979

Simon Willmetts

• Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
• Year: 2016
• Edition: 0
• eBook ISBN:
  9780748693009
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Film & Video

During the Second World War hundreds of Hollywood filmmakers under the command of the legendary director John Ford enlisted in the OSS to produce training, reconnaissance and propaganda films. This wartime bond continued into the post-war period, when a number of studios produced films advocating the creation of a permanent peacetime successor to the OSS: what became the Central Intelligence Agency. By the 1960s however, Hollywood's increasingly irreverent attitude towards the CIA reflected a growing public anxiety about excessive US government secrecy. In Secrecy's Shadow provides the first comprehensive history of the birth and development of Hollywood's relationship with American intelligence. It takes an interdisciplinary approach, synthesizing literatures and methodologies from diplomatic history, film studies and cultural theory, and it presents new perspectives on a number of major filmmakers including Darryl F. Zanuck, Alfred Hitchcock and John Ford. Based on research conducted in over 20 archival repositories across the United States and UK, In Secrecy's Shadow explores the revolution in the relationship between Hollywood and the secret state, from unwavering trust and cooperation to extreme scepticism and paranoia, and demonstrates the debilitating effects of secrecy upon public trust in government and the stability of national memory.

Table of contents

• Title page
• Copyright
• CONTENTS
• ILLUSTRATIONS
• ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
• INTRODUCTION
• 1. THE FACTS OF WAR: CINEMATIC INTELLIGENCE AND THE OFFICE OF STRATEGIC SERVICES
• 2. ‘WHAT IS PAST IS PROLOGUE’: HOLLYWOOD’S HISTORY OF THE OSS AND THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE CIA
• 3. QUIET AMERICANS: THE CIA AND HOLLYWOOD IN THE EARLY COLD WAR
• 4. THE DEATH OF THE ‘BIG LIE’ AND THE EMERGENCE OF POSTMODERN INCREDULITY IN THE SPY CINEMA OF THE
• 5. SECRECY, CONSPIRACY, CINEMA AND THE CIA IN THE 1970s
• CONCLUSION
• SELECT FILMOGRAPHY
• BIBLIOGRAPHY
• FILM AND TELEVISION INDEX
• GENERAL INDEX