America’s Film Legacy, 2009–2010: A Viewer’s Guide to the 50 Landmark Movies Added to the National Film Registry in 2009–2010 by Daniel Eagan, and: Fatalism in American Film Noir: Some Cinematic Philosophy by Robert B. Pippin, and: American Showman: Samuel “Roxy” Rothafel and the Birth of the Entertainment Industry by Ross Melnick (review)

Eagan and Pippin have written monographs whose brevity belies their significance. Eagan offers a critical survey of the fifty films added to the Registry, placing each in context, whether it is a documentary like Grey Gardens, an experimental film like The Lead Shoes, a studio product like Pillow Talk, or an adaptation like A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. He is especially good on All the President’s Men (1976), noting that it was a gamble, since the Watergate hearings had been televised and Nixon had already resigned. Moreover, the stars, Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman, had lost some of their luster. Hoffman’s last memorable performance was in Little Big Man (1970), and The Great Gatsby (1972) with Redford in the title role was coolly received. The director, Alan J. Pakula was a relative newcomer, having only directed four films, although two of them, Klute and The Parallax View, were well reviewed. Still, he was not bankable.

Pakula did not have an easy time. Choices had to be made, and key figures had to be omitted, such as Katherine Graham, whom Geraldine Page was scheduled to play, until the editor of the Washington Post refused to have her portrayed at all. Yet despite the obstacles, the film turned out to be a triumph for everyone involved.

Historians would find much of value in America’s Film Legacy. Apart from All the President’s Men, there are essays on such films as the documentary Let There Be Light, Story of G.I. Joe, Malcolm X, and The Revenge of Pancho Villa (1936), into which bits from the presumably lost Life of Pancho Villa (1914) and the serial Liberty (1916) have been incorporated, resulting in a balanced view of Villa as both hero and villain. Although readers often ignore introductions, Eagan’s is relevant. It is a persuasive argument for film preservation, emphasizing the fragile nature of celluloid, which can catch fire, decompose, or rot from mold and mildew. Some films are irrevocably lost, but the Registry is committed to acknowledging the best of the survivors.

Fatalism in American Film Noir does not purport to be a critical study of the genre, but rather close readings of three films (although the author refers to many more): Out of the Past (1947), The Lady from Shanghai (1948), and Scarlet Street (1945), placed within the context of agency vs. fate, self-knowledge vs. ignorance, firm convictions vs. lingering doubts, and the intentional vs. the accidental. In The Lady from Shanghai, Michael O’Hara (Orson Welles) rescues Elsa Bannister (Rita Hayworth) from what looks like an intended gang rape (or was it staged?) and gets suckered into becoming first mate on her husband’s yacht, unaware that he has been recruited to be the fall guy in a murder plot that veers out of control. Elsa and Grisby, her husband’s law associate, plan to murder her husband, except that Elsa kills Grisby, and she and her husband kill each other in a glass-shattering shootout. Narrative logic is suspended, not disbelief. But the film, apart from being visually fascinating, is the most existential of noirs. As Elsa lies dying, she says: “You can fight, but what good is it? You can’t win,” to which Michael replies, “We can’t lose either. Only if we quit.” Samuel Beckett would have agreed. The Unnamable ends on a note of resignation without...