Melvyn Stokes is Professor of Film History, and Director of the AHRC-funded 'Cultural Memory and British Cinema-going of the 1960s' research project at University College London, UK. He has been a Visiting Fellow at Princeton, a Fulbright Exchange Professor at Mount Holyoke College and a Visiting Professor at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris He has written and edited twelve books, including D.W. Griffith's 'The Birth of a Nation': A History of 'the Most Controversial Motion Picture of All Time' (2007). He is currently President of SERCIA, the European film organisation.

Melvyn Stokes's study of the 1946 classic Gilda describes the film's production and reception history, as well as addressing Rita Hayworth's complex star persona and ethnicity identity; Gilda's status as a 'noir' film; and what the film had to say about relations between men and women in a world transformed by war.

Introduction.- 1 Background.- 2 The Making of Gilda.- 3 Rita Hayworth as Gilda.- 4 Gilda the Film.- 5 Interpreting Gilda.- 6 Gilda and its Contexts.- Notes.- Credits.- Bibliography.