British Masculinity in Transatlantic Cinema : Ronald Colman and Basil Rathbone

British Masculinity in Transatlantic Cinema explores the Hollywood careers and stardom of British male actors who had fought in the first World War.

In an apparently incongruous development in the years after the armistice, some of the men who fought in Scottish regiments during World War I found some degree of career success in Hollywood’s film industry, two of which included Ronald Colman and Basil Rathbone. Through exploring transatlantic film history, this book uncovers the ways in which these men were presented in media and on screen, arguing that they carry with them, even in films made at the height of censorship, an appealing and attractive queerness. Owen-King expands on Eve Kosofsky Sedgewick’s theory of homosocial/homosexual continuum and offer readings of film texts that use her theories to survey gender and sexual identities within Hollywood’s Golden Era.