In reassessing his rich and rewarding 50-year career in film studies, this trailblazing author provides a striking snapshot of motion picture history from its beginnings to the present. Eighteen thought-provoking chapters filled with lively anecdotes, enlightened criticism, and unique celebrity profiles recall the major events, famous personalities, and wide-ranging industrial upheavals of the twentieth century's most important art. A particularly significant aspect of this analytical memoir is Professor Manchel's candid focus on the behind-the-scenes discussion of the political pressures affecting academic teaching and research. Educators, film teachers and students, and the general public will find this cultural chronicle informative, nostalgic, entertaining, provocative, and relevant, especially in those well-documented chapters that review the portrayal of marginalized people in the mass media. By the time the reader reaches the moving epilogue, the rebellious boy from the streets of New York who helped shape film studies as a new academic field in public and higher education proves that film is one of the world's best weapons against social injustice. No one who reads this book will ever wonder why the passionate author loves his profession!