ABSTRACT
This book has suggested the ways in which non-filmic sources are central to the study of film. Several contexts for this proposition have been foregrounded: official/governmental; political; commercial; popular and social. Cinema intersects with these areas in many significant ways which can be made more visible by adopting the analytical and interpretive strategies that I have argued must be at the heart of our investigations into the impact of a film, a genre, a star/personality or as a way of understanding the cinema-going experience in particular historical periods. My case-studies have in general concentrated on the period between the late 1930s and the early 1950s, but the same methodology can be applied to more recent films and periods.
