Cover -- Contents -- Acknowledgements -- List of Tables -- List of Figures -- 1. Introduction: Movies, Genre and Zeitgeist -- Film noir and the Zeitgeist -- Intellectualism and middlebrow culture -- Re-thinking zeitgeist -- What about the rest of the forties? -- Defining the popular -- What's genre got to do with it? -- 2. Re-invigorating the nation: popular films and American national identity -- Cinderellas of the services -- The myth of classlessness -- Land opportunity -- Modernizing the American hero -- American-ness and immigrant identities: the cultural 'melting pot' -- 3. The troubled postwar family: "moms" and absent fathers -- The absent father -- The pleasures of fatherhood -- Momism -- 4. Performing postwar masculinities -- Soldier to civilian: masculinity and performativity -- Staging masculinities: performativity and genre -- Stars and performance -- 5. Military service and male companionship -- The all-male group -- Military service and self "improvement" -- Buddies -- Male friendship, mature masculinity and patriarchal continuity -- 6. Popular films and "tough" movies -- Noir and Nation -- Social status and the veteran experience -- Class and democracy -- The noir hero -- Noir and the melting pot -- Noir and the family -- The absent father of film noir -- "Mom" and the female fatale -- Noir masculinities and performance -- Noir and male companionship -- The noir male group -- Noir buddies -- Noir and patriarchal continuity -- 7. Genre and History -- Problems with "the popular" -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index.