Hollywood behind the Iron Curtain

Between the WWII movie Air Force – screened in 1945 – and the sci-fi horror Invaders from Mars released on 28th December 1989 the Hungarian cinemagoers could watch almost 800 American films. The majority of these movies – the ones arriving after 1948 – were judged and accepted by censorship authorities exercising selection by ideology but also quality. The volume discusses the history of the film admission policy in state socialist Hungary and through this prism gives an insight into the shifts and debates of cultural policy and foreign policy and the tensions of openness and closedness throughout the communist regime. It also offers the analysis of ideological discourse on culture through the public reception of American movies and the contradictions of cultural, ideological and commercial goals and constraints