Spyscreen Espionage on Film and TV from the 1930s to the 1960s

This is a genre study of English-language spy fiction film and television between the 1930s and 1960s. Taking as his focus many well-known films and television series, such as James Bond, Gilda, The Man From U.N.C.L.E., and The Avengers, Toby Miller uses a wide range of critical approaches, including textual interpretation, audience studies, and cultural history, to offer new insights into this popular genre.

Spyscreen is a genre study of English-language spy fiction film and television between the 1930s and 1960s. Taking as his focus many well-known films and television series, Toby Miller uses a wide range of critical approaches - from textual interpretation, audience studies, and cultural history, through auteurism, imperial history, class, and governmentality, to genre, cultural imperialism, and gender. Beginning with an overview of the social and political background to the history, production, and analysis of spy fiction, topics discussed include the first canonical espionage movie, The 39 Steps, key film noir texts such as Gilda and The Third Man, the figure of popular spies, including James Bond, and the importance of women to the genre. The result is not just an insightful new study of key texts in this popular genre; it is an important intervention in the methodology and practice of Screen Studies.

1 - Spy Histories
2 - Thirty-Nine Steps to 'the borders of the possible', taken by Alfred Hitchcock, amateur observer
3 - Life in the Forties - The good neighbour programme, Gilda, The Third Man, and global commodities (with George Yúdice)
4 - Class and Governance: Danger Man/The Prisoner, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., The Spy who Came in from the Cold, and The Ipcress File
5 - Cultural Imperialism and James Bond
6 - The Avengers, Honey West, and Modesty Blaise - Women Making Trouble

Toby Miller is Professor of Cultural Studies and Cultural Policy in the Department of Cinema Studies at New York University. He is a well-known Film Theory and Cultural Studies critic, whose publications include A Companion to Film Theory (Basil Blackwell, 1999 - with Robert Stam), Film and Theory: An Anthology (Basil Blackwell, 2000 - with Robert Stam), and A Companion to Cultural Studies (Basil Blackwell, 2001). He is Editor of the journal Television and New Media.