Humanities Librarian
Recommended Databases
To find articles on specific subjects relating to American Cinema 1927-1960, try searching one of the following databases.
- Film & Television Literature Index with Full TextFilm & Television Literature Index with Full Text is a comprehensive bibliographic and full text database covering the entire spectrum of television and film studies. Subject coverage includes film & television theory, preservation & restoration, writing, production, cinematography, technical aspects, screenwriting and reviews. In addition, Film & Television Literature Index with Full Text includes Variety movie reviews from 1914 to present and over 36,300 images from the MPTV Image Archive.
- Communication & Mass Media Complete (EBSCO)Provides content in areas related to communication and mass media. CMMC incorporates the content of CommSearch (formerly produced by the National Communication Association) and Mass Media Articles Index (formerly produced by Penn State) along with numerous other journals in communication, mass media, and other closely-related fields of study to create a research and reference resource encompassing the breadth of the communication discipline. Find more information.
Recommended Journals
Finding Production Code Administration Correspondence on a Film
To obtain the Production Code Administration (PCA) correspondence about your movie, you will access the Hollywood, Censorship, and the Motion Picture Production Code, 1927-1968 Collection, available within the Archives Unbound database through Randall Library. This electronic database contains archival letters between the studios and the PCA scanned from the collection of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Margaret Herrick Library concerning morally objectionable material in 500 American films, though this collection is just a fraction of the Margaret Herrick Library’s PCA correspondence.
To access the collection, go to Hollywood, Censorship, and the Motion Picture Production Code, 1927-1968 Collection, and then you can search in the "Search within this Collection" box.
Finding Film Reviews
Many databases have filters or ways to limit your searching by date, document type, etc. If you need film reviews from a certain time period, look for the date settings in the database and limit it to "reviews".
InfoTrac Newsstand provides access to more than 2,300 major U.S. regional, national, and local newspapers thousands of newspapers from across the world. ProQuest Historical Newspapers database has full-text articles from a variety of U.S. newspapers including the New York Times from 1851-2011. Entertainment Industry Magazine Archive covers primary sources from the 1880 to 2000.
The Film Literature Index covers 1976-2001, and while it does not have full-text articles, this will help with finding citations for historic articles. Randall Library may carry them in print, or using Interlibrary Loan will be available for those resources not in the collection.
For a full list of newspaper databases available, check the Newspaper Resources page.
A website that has reviews and other useful resources is CineFiles.
Helpful Websites
- Senses of Cinema"An online journal devoted to the serious and eclectic discussion of cinema." It is indexed in MLA International Bibliography.
- Lantern Media History Digital LibrarySearch platform for the collections of the Media History Digital Library, an open access initiative which digitizes collections of classic media periodicals that belong in the public domain for full public access.