Acknowledgements -- List of Film Images -- Introduction -- I: Themes and Genres -- Westerns and Americans -- Howard Hughes's The Outlaw -- A Meta-Western: Fred Zinnemann's High Noon -- The Western, or the American Film Par Excellence -- The Evolution of the Western -- Brilliant Variations on Some Well-Known Notes: Nicholas Ray's Johnny Guitar -- The Exemplary Beauty of Westerns: Anthony Mann's The Man from Laramie and Budd Boetticher's Seven Men from Now -- War and Peace -- Howard Hawks's Air Force -- On Frank Capra's Why We Fight: History, Documentation, and the Newsreel -- On Ambiguity: John Huston's The Red Badge of Courage -- War Films: Richard Fleischer's Between Heaven and Hell and Anthony Mann's Men in War -- Stanley Kramer's The Pride and the Passion -- High Infidelity: David Lean's The Bridge on the River Kwai -- Stars and Goddesses -- Entomology of the Pin-Up Girl -- Henry Hathaway's Niagara -- Doll in the Flesh, Cotton on Fire: Elia Kazan's Baby Doll -- The Death of Humphrey Bogart -- The Question of James Dean -- Off the Beaten Path: John Cromwell's The Goddess -- Fugitives and Criminals -- Howard Hawks's Scarface and the Gangster Film -- Joseph Losey's M: Remade in the U.S.A. -- Women in Cages: John Cromwell's Caged -- Film through a Telephoto Lens: Ray Ashley, Morris Engel, & Ruth Orkin's The Little Fugitive -- Sociological Routines: Philip Dunne's Ten North Frederick -- Jean Renoir's The Woman on the Beach, The Southerner, and The Diary of a Chambermaid -- II: Artists and Directors -- Charles Chaplin [1889-1977] -- Charlie Chaplin -- The Myth of Monsieur Verdoux -- Limelight, or the Death of Molière -- The Grandeur of Limelight -- Alfred Hitchcock [1899-1980] -- On Shadow of a Doubt, Lifeboat, and Rear Window -- Pan Shot of Hitchcock -- Must We Believe in Hitchcock? -- Hitchcock vs. Hitchcock -- Erich von Stroheim [1885-1957] -- Erich von Stroheim: Form, Uniform, and Cruelty -- Preston Sturges [1898-1959] -- On Sullivan's Travels -- On The Miracle of Morgan's Creek -- On Hail the Conquering Hero -- On Mad Wednesday -- Orson Welles [1915-85] -- The Technique of Citizen Kane -- On Welles's Othello -- Interview with Orson Welles -- Orson Welles Cannibalized -- William Wyler [1902-81] -- William Wyler, or the Jansenist of Directing -- Film Credits (in order of discussion) -- A Bazin Bibliography -- Index.