Kristin here

Last year at the Le Giornate del Cinema Muto film festival in Pordenone, Italy, attendees had the first opportunity to purchase Lea Jacobs’ fresh-off-the-presses book, John Ford at Work: Production Histories from 1927 to 1939. It was also given away as one of the perks for higher-level donors.

The title says “Production Histories,” but Jacobs covers more than that phrase might seem to suggest. She has drawn on the strengths of the film-studies area of the Department of Communication Arts here at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. One of those is the academic study of the film industry, established by Prof. Tino Balio with his United Artists: The Studio Built by the Stars (University of Wisconsin Press, 1976), the first of his string of books on the industry. I think it’s safe to say that David and his colleagues favored an aesthetic approach to film analysis, as in David’s books The Films of Carl-Theodor Dreyer (University of California Press, 1981) and Narration in the Fiction Film (University of Wisconsin Press, 1985 and still in print), followed by many others. Another area that is studied here is technology, such as books on the introductions of Technicolor and of stereophonic sound.

These three approaches were combined in The Classical Hollywood Cinema: Film Style and Mode of Production, by David, Janet Staiger, and me (Routledge & Kegan Paul and Columbia, 1985, still in print). In it we examined how the mode of production in Hollywood and the development of new technologies affected the norms of style and narrative established across the history of Hollywood cinema.

Jacobs has carried forward this approach, though rather then surveying the entire industry, she focuses in on one filmmaker in a period when substantial changes were happening in both the studio system and the technology of filmmaking. Most of the chapters follow a pattern that makes the three topics clear. First a summary of the various studios Ford worked for in this period and how the different producers and crews affected his style. Next is an explanation of changing technology–not just the obvious introductions of sound and color, but a more nuanced account with the important development of sound re-recording and the rapid improvements of faster black-and-white film stocks. Finally, Jacobs analyzes the films to show the effects of these changes on their style.

In the Introduction she lays out this approach in relation to faster negative stocks:

This study will not only explore the way in which Ford’s lighting schemes developed across the 1930s, but also the impact of these innovations on other aspects of his style, particularly his use of the long take, and the way in which the predilection for deep space compositions, evident from his very first silent films, becomes one of the defining features of his style in the late 1930s films. (pp. 3-4)

I found that this book needs to be read slowly and carefully. As Ford moves around among studios, different cinematographers, producers, script writers, and actors work with him from film to film, all having their influences. Gradually some of these people work more consistently with Ford and become a loose but important team. Chief among these are Darryl F. Zanuck on the producing side and cinematographer Bert Glennon on the filmmaking side. Glennon was so crucial that the cover photo wraps around the book, with Ford on the front and Glennon on the back. Keeping track of all the people and studios requires close attention.

Jacobs accomplishes what most authors hope for: that the reader finishes by wanting to re-watch again films seen before, sometimes confident that her analyses will reveal them as much better than one had thought. I, for example, saw The Prisoner of Shark Island, one of the films she examines in detail, long ago and wasn’t impressed. So long that I don’t remember the exact circumstances, but I was probably still in grad school, and I probably saw it on a worn 16mm print at one of the ubiquitous film societies that flourished at the university in the 1970s and 1980s. Lea’s frame enlargements for this and other films of the era were gorgeous and revealed a vastly different film than I had seen.

Fortunately our departmental Cinematheque film series celebrated the book’s arrival with a brief Ford series, one of which was a gorgeous 35mm print of Shark Island. Between the set design by William Darling and lighting by Glennon, the visuals were dramatic and beautiful. I don’t know if it will make this year’s list of The Ten Best Films of … 1936; there’s some pretty stiff competition. Still, although I wouldn’t quite put the film among Ford’s masterpieces of the decade, for me it has climbed quite close to that status.

Few would deny that Ford’s masterpieces of this period were Stagecoach and Young Mr. Lincoln (below), both made, alongside Drums Along the Mohawk, in what Jacobs rightly terms his annus mirabilis, 1939. Jacobs provides detailed analyses of both, again stressing the importance of Glennon’s cinematography.

The thoroughness and complexity of Jacobs’ book reflects an enormous amount of research in archives, trade papers, and published interviews and studies. (Do not miss the bibliography!) The process took years, and David and I heard about it as it inched forward, awaiting the results impatiently. The wait was worth it, and now I look forward to the next volume, mostly covering the post-war years when Ford had his own production company. Undoubtedly the result will again be an urge to re-watch familiar films and see them in a different light.

John Ford at Work was published by John Libbey and is distributed through Indiana University Press. In this day of soaring prices for academic books, this one is available in paperback for $32.00, with an ebook costing a whole penny less. The physical copy may look relatively short at first, but picking it up reveals a surprisingly heavy tome resulting from the fine coated paper that makes the illustrations come out superbly. Double columns and small print squeeze a lot of information into a small book.

The Informer (1935)

Last Modified: Monday | March 23, 2026 @ 10:35    open printable version

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