Fred Zinnemann directed some of the most
acclaimed and controversial films of the twentieth
century, yet he has been a shadowy presence in
Hollywood history. In Fred Zinnemann and the Cinema
of Resistance, J. E. Smyth reveals the intellectual
passion behind some of the most powerful films
ever made about the rise and resistance to fascism
and the legacy of the Second World War, from The
Seventh Cross and The Search to High Noon, From
Here to Eternity, and Julia. Smyth's book is the first
to draw upon Zinnemann's extensive papers at the
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and
brings Fred Zinnemann's vision, voice, and film
practice to life.
In his engagement with the defining historical
struggles of the twentieth century, Zinnemann
fought his own battles with the Hollywood studio
system, the critics, and a public bent on forgetting.
Zinnemann's films explore the role of women
and communists in the antifascist resistance, the
West's support of Franco after the Spanish Civil
War, and the darker side of America's national heritage.
Smyth reconstructs a complex and conflicted
portrait of Zinnemann's cinema of resistance,
examining his sketches, script annotations, editing
and production notes, and personal letters. Illustrated
with seventy black-and-white images from
Smyth's collection, Fred Zinnemann and the Cinema
of Resistance discusses the director's professional
and personal relationships with Spencer Tracy,
Montgomery Clift, Audrey Hepburn, Vanessa
Redgrave, and Gary Cooper; the critical reaction
to his revisionist Western, High Noon; his battles
over the censorship of From Here to Eternity, The
Nun's Story, and Behold a Pale Horse; his unrealized
history of the communist Revolution in China,
Man's Fate; and the controversial study of political
assassination, The Day of the Jackal. In this intense,
richly textured narrative, Smyth enters the mind of
one of Hollywood's master directors, redefining
our knowledge of his artistic vision and practice.

J. E. SMYTH is associate professor of history and
comparative American studies at the University
of Warwick (United Kingdom). She is the author
of Reconstructing American Historical Cinema from
"Cimarron" to "Citizen Kane" and Edna Ferber's
Hollywood: American Fictions of Gender, Race, and
History and is the editor of Hollywood and the American
Historical Film.