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Zusatztext Received wisdom on the 1950s wave of English language science-fiction films views them primarily as articulating distinctively American fears of communist infiltration and nuclear science, albeit in allegorical form. In this volume Matthew Jones offers a more nuanced reading, reconsidering the films in their context of reception in Britain where, he argues, rather different public anxieties play into their likely understanding by audiences. In a UK in the throes of losing its empire the threat of communism was seen rather differently, attitudes to nuclear energy and science were arguably more complex, and race was becoming a significant factor in public perceptions. Re-examining the films in this cultural context gives rise to a fascinating study which obliges us both to rethink the traditional critical approach to 50s sf cinema and, more generally, to recognise that it is always necessary to pay full attention to the cultural landscapes within which films are received and understood. Informationen zum Autor Matthew Jones is Senior Lecturer in Film Studies at the University of Exeter, UK. He is the author of Science Fiction Cinema and 1950s Britain (Bloomsbury Academic, 2018). Vorwort While 1950s science fiction cinema is often understood as a reflection of US anxieties about Soviet infiltration and nuclear extermination, Science Fiction Cinema and 1950s Britain explores the place of these films within their British reception contexts, where fears of colonial immigration, American power in Europe and economic collapse allowed radically different meanings to emerge. Zusammenfassung This book is open access and available on www.bloomsburycollections.com. It is funded by Knowledge Unlatched. For the last sixty years discussion of 1950s science fiction cinema has been dominated by claims that the genre reflected US paranoia about Soviet brainwashing and the nuclear bomb. However, classic films, such as Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) and It Came from Outer Space (1953), and less familiar productions, such as It! The Terror from Beyond Space (1958), were regularly exported to countries across the world. The histories of their encounters with foreign audiences have not yet been told. Science Fiction Cinema and 1950s Britain begins this task by recounting the story of 1950s British cinema-goers and the aliens and monsters they watched on the silver screen. Drawing on extensive archival research, Matthew Jones makes an exciting and important intervention by locating American science fiction films alongside their domestic counterparts in their British contexts of release and reception. He offers a radical reassessment of the genre, demonstrating for the first time that in Britain, which was a significant market for and producer of science fiction, these films gave voice to different fears than they did in America. While Americans experienced an economic boom, low immigration and the conferring of statehood on Alaska and Hawaii, Britons worried about economic uncertainty, mass immigration and the dissolution of the Empire. Science Fiction Cinema and 1950s Britain uses these and other differences between the British and American experiences of the 1950s to tell a new history of the decade’s science fiction cinema, exploring for the first time the ways in which the genre came to mean something unique to Britons. Inhaltsverzeichnis AcknowledgementsIntroduction: Teacups and Flying SaucersSection A: Communist infiltration and indoctrination1. Soviet brainwashing, British defectors and the corruptive elsewhere2. ‘He can be a Communist here if he wants to’: Living with the monsterSection B: Nuclear technology3. The beast in the atom: Britain’s nuclear nightmares4. Atomic Albion: Britain’s nuclear dreamsSection C: Race and immigration5. It came from the colonies!: Mass immigration and the invasi...
