This critically analytical filmography examines 45 movies featuring "grande dames" in horror settings. Following a history of women in horror before 1962's What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, which launched the "Grande Dame Guignol" subgenre of older women featured as morally ambiguous leading ladies, are all such films (mostly U.S.) that came after that landmark release. The filmographic data includes cast, crew, reviews, synopses, and production notes, as well as recurring motifs and each role's effect on the star's career.

Appearing amidst the decline of the Hollywood studio system in the 1960s, the Grande Dame Guignol cycle of horror films reimagine the history and aesthetics of classical Hollywood through the lens of decadence. Casting some of the most iconic stars of the studio system in roles that self-reflexively engage with their star personae to reimagine their glamor in terms of the grotesque, these works recall similar combinations of beauty, decay, and queer eroticism found throughout the canon of fin-de-siècle decadent literature. While critical accounts of decadence tend to foreground its relation to literary modernism, this thesis instead applies this term towards cinema. Defining cinematic decadence as an aesthetic sensibility distinct from - although closely related to - its manifestation in fin-de-siècle literature, this term provides a valuable theoretical context to reconsider representations of queerness, temporality, embodiment, history, and misogyny within classical Hollywood cinema. Further, this cinematic decadence suggests a novel way to conceptualize the problematic but distinctly queer presentation of stardom and femininity offered by the monstrous women of the Grande Dame Guignol cycle, through four films: What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (Robert Aldrich, 1962); Hush... Hush, Sweet Charlotte (Robert Aldrich, 1964); Strait-Jacket (William Castle, 1964); and What's the Matter With Helen? (Curtis Harrington, 1971). Like the texts of literary decadence at the turn of the 20th century, these works of cinematic decadence invite queer forms of subjectivity as they undermine the exclusionary, heteronormative discourses of modernity. Ultimately, this project seeks to define the sensibility of decadence as a distinct method of queering dominant culture, and to determine its largely unexplored relationship to the medium of cinema.

This collection offers close readings on Hammer’s cycle of horror films, analysing key films and placing particular emphasis on the narratives and themes present in the works discussed. Ranging from the studio’s first horror outing, The Mystery of the Mary Celeste (1935) to Hammer’s last contemporary film, Doctor Jekyll (2023), the collection celebrates cult-favourites such as The Quatermass Experiment, the films of Terence Fisher, to overlooked classics such as Captain Clegg or The Mummy franchise. This volume also delves into Hammer’s psychological thrillers, the studio’s venture into TV with Hammer’s House of Horrors, with theoretical frameworks varying from queer studies to postcolonial readings. This volume will appeal to scholars and students of film studies, international cinema, film history and horror studies.

This book is a comprehensive study of some ways of treating the subject that demonstrate new and unusual perspectives, and provides a different approach to the popularly-held views of mothers-in-law; and that further address these works as popular culture; and as texts in their own right from within the framework of literary theory; and as works that demonstrate the ability to reach and connect with, and satisfy, both the general reader, the student, and the scholar, from all levels and walks of life.

Redefining Kitsch and Camp in Literature and Culture is a collection of fourteen essays dealing with the performative character of kitsch and camp aesthetics in popular culture and avant-garde productions. Anticipated in both literature and culture, the book traces the evolution of two aesthetics from a number of theoretical perspectives, including gender studies, queer studies, popular culture studies, aesthetics, film studies and postcolonial studies. The volume provides a much-needed commentary on the mechanisms and functions of kitsch and camp in contemporary literary and cultural studies, reflecting on various transformations that are currently underway.

From The Lady Eve, to The Big Valley, Barbara Stanwyck played parts that showcased her multidimensional talents but also illustrated the limits imposed on women in film and television. Catherine Russell’s A to Z consideration of the iconic actress analyzes twenty-six facets of Stanwyck and the America of her times. Russell examines Stanwyck’s work onscreen against the backdrop of costuming and other aspects of filmmaking. But she also views the actress’s off-screen performance within the Hollywood networks that made her an industry favorite and longtime cornerstone of the entertainment community. Russell’s montage approach coalesces into an engrossing portrait of a singular artist whose intelligence and savvy placed her center-stage in the production of her films and in the debates around women, femininity, and motherhood that roiled mid-century America. Original and rich, The Cinema of Barbara Stanwyck is an essential and entertaining reexamination of an enduring Hollywood star.

Challenging the common assumption that the early 1960s were a drab time for American film, this book makes the bold case that 1962 was a peak year for the movies, giving audiences a prime mix of adult, artistic, and uncompromising work from Hollywood veterans, hot young directors, and international auteurs.