Fast-Talking Dames

Fast-Talking Dames
Author :
Publisher : Yale University Press
Total Pages : 381
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780300133882
ISBN-13 : 030013388X
Rating : 4/5 (82 Downloads)

Book Synopsis Fast-Talking Dames by : Maria DiBattista

Download or read book Fast-Talking Dames written by Maria DiBattista and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2008-10-01 with total page 381 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "There is nothing like a dame", proclaims the song from South Pacific. Certainly there is nothing like the fast-talking dame of screen comedies in the 1930s and '40s. In this engaging book, film scholar and movie buff Maria DiBattista celebrates the fast-talking dame as an American original. Coming of age during the Depression, the dame -- a woman of lively wit and brash speech -- epitomized a new style of self-reliant, articulate womanhood. Dames were quick on the uptake and hardly ever downbeat. They seemed to know what to say and when to say it. In their fast and breezy talk seemed to lie the secret of happiness, but also the key to reality. DiBattista offers vivid portraits of the grandest dames of the era, including Katharine Hepburn, Irene Dunne, Rosalind Russell, Barbara Stanwyck, and others, and discusses the great films that showcased their compelling way with words -- and with men. With their snappy repartee and vivid colloquialisms, these fast-talkers were verbal muses at a time when Americans were reinventing both language and the political institutions of democratic culture. As they taught their laconic male counterparts (most notably those appealing but tongue-tied American icons, Gary Cooper, Henry Fonda, and James Stewart) the power and pleasures of speech, they also reimagined the relationship between the sexes. In such films as Bringing Up Baby, The Awful Truth, and The Lady Eve, the fast-talking dame captivated moviegoers of her time. For audiences today, DiBattista observes, the sassy heroine still has much to say.


Fast-Talking Dames Related Books

Fast-Talking Dames
Language: en
Pages: 381
Authors: Maria DiBattista
Categories: Performing Arts
Type: BOOK - Published: 2008-10-01 - Publisher: Yale University Press

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

"There is nothing like a dame", proclaims the song from South Pacific. Certainly there is nothing like the fast-talking dame of screen comedies in the 1930s and
Novel Characters
Language: en
Pages: 171
Authors: Maria DiBattista
Categories: Literary Criticism
Type: BOOK - Published: 2011-06-24 - Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Novel Characters offers a fascinating and in-depth history of the novelistic character from the “birth of the novel” in Don Quixote, through the great canon
Talkies, Road Movies and Chick Flicks
Language: en
Pages: 216
Authors: Heidi Wilkins
Categories: Performing Arts
Type: BOOK - Published: 2016-02-19 - Publisher: Edinburgh University Press

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The representation of gender in film remains an intensely debated topic, particularly in academic considerations of US mainstream cinema where it is often perce
Latest Readings
Language: en
Pages: 192
Authors: Clive James
Categories: Literary Criticism
Type: BOOK - Published: 2015-01-01 - Publisher: Yale University Press

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The author reflects on his latest readings, and re-readings, undertaken after being diagnosed with terminal leukemia, combining thoughts on old favorites and ne
The Meaning of Recognition
Language: en
Pages: 388
Authors: Clive James
Categories: Literary Collections
Type: BOOK - Published: 2012-12-13 - Publisher: Pan Macmillan

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

With essays taking the reader from London to Bali, theatre to library and from election campaigns to television, The Meaning of Recognition collects the best of