The baseball film in postwar America : a critical study, 1948-1962

This work focuses on the baseball movie genre in the years following World War II, beginning with the 1948 biopic The Babe Ruth Story and ending with the 1962 Mickey Mantle-Roger Maris vehicle Safe at Home!, when the consensus was that conflict should be limited in American society by emphasizing economic growth and a strong stand against Communism. Study of these thirteen films indicates, however, what this strategy was not entirely effective; American society was unable to prevent the rising storm of protest regarding race, gender and social and class issues which exploded in the 1960s.