Joseph Andrew "Drew" Casper is a Professor of Critical Studies

Film theory

Film theory is an academic discipline that aims to explore the essence of the cinema and provides conceptual frameworks for understanding film's relationship to reality, the other arts, individual viewers, and society at large...

 in the School of Cinematic Arts

USC School of Cinematic Arts

The USC School of Cinematic Arts, until 2006 named the School of Cinema-Television , is a film school within the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, California. It is the oldest and largest such school in the United States, established in 1929 as a joint venture with the Academy of...

 at the University of Southern California

University of Southern California

The University of Southern California is a private, not-for-profit, nonsectarian, research university located in Los Angeles, California, United States. USC was founded in 1880, making it California's oldest private research university...

 and considered to be an authority on American film from World War II to the present. While a Ph.D. student at USC, Dr. Casper's mentor, Irwin Blacker, died suddenly and the Cinema department offered Dr. Casper a position. Despite rousing rumors of foul play between the two, Casper has risen to become the third highest paid persona at USC. In the fall of 1997, the estate of Alfred Hitchcock

Alfred Hitchcock

Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock, KBE was a British film director and producer. He pioneered many techniques in the suspense and psychological thriller genres. After a successful career in British cinema in both silent films and early talkies, Hitchcock moved to Hollywood...

 and USC made Dr. Casper the first Alma and Alfred Hitchcock Professor for the Study of American Film. Casper provides a steady stream of DVD commentaries and expertise on films. He is the author of books about Vincente Minnelli

Vincente Minnelli

Vincente Minnelli was an American stage director and film director, famous for directing such classic movie musicals as Meet Me in St. Louis, The Band Wagon, and An American in Paris. In addition to having directed some of the most famous and well-remembered musicals of his time, Minnelli made...

, Stanley Donen

Stanley Donen

Stanley Donen ; is an American film director and choreographer whose most celebrated works are Singin' in the Rain and On the Town, both of which he co-directed with Gene Kelly. His other noteworthy films include Royal Wedding, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, Funny Face, Indiscreet, Damn...

, and a book on Postwar Hollywood 1946-1962.

DVDs provided commentary for

• Act of Violence
• Advise and Consent
  Advise and Consent
  Advise and Consent is a 1959 political novel by Allen Drury that explores the United States Senate confirmation of controversial Secretary of State nominee Robert Leffingwell who is a former member of the Communist Party...
  
  
• The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse
  The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse
  The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse is a 1938 American crime film starring Edward G. Robinson, Claire Trevor and Humphrey Bogart. It was directed by Anatole Litvak for Warner Bros. and written by John Wexley and John Huston, based on the first play written by short-story writer Barré Lyndon, which ran for...
  
  , with film historian Richard B. Jewell
• The Asphalt Jungle
  The Asphalt Jungle
  The Asphalt Jungle is a 1950 film noir directed by John Huston. The caper film is based on the novel of the same name by W. R. Burnett and stars an ensemble cast including Sterling Hayden, Jean Hagen, Sam Jaffe, Louis Calhern, James Whitmore, and, in a minor but key role, Marilyn Monroe, an unknown...
  
  , with actor James Whitmore
  James Whitmore
  James Allen Whitmore, Jr. was an American film and stage actor.-Early life:Born in White Plains, New York, to Florence Belle and James Allen Whitmore, Sr., a park commission official, Whitmore attended Amherst Central High School in Snyder, New York, before graduating from The Choate School in...
  
  
• Cabin in the Sky
  Cabin in the Sky
  Cabin in the Sky is a 1943 American musical film with music by Vernon Duke, lyrics by John La Touche, and a musical book by Lynn Root. The musical premiered on Broadway at the Martin Beck Theatre on October 25, 1940. It closed on March 8, 1941 after a total of 156 performances...
  
  , with Evangela Anderson and Eva Anderson (wife and daughter of actor Eddie "Rochester" Anderson
  Eddie Anderson (comedian)
  Edmund Lincoln Anderson , also known as Eddie "Rochester" Anderson, was an American comedian and actor. His most famous role was that of Rochester van Jones, valet of Jack Benny, on his radio and television shows.-Early life:Anderson was born in Oakland, California...
  
  ), dancer Fayard Nicholas
  Fayard Nicholas
  Fayard Antonio Nicholas...
  
  , and black cultural scholar Todd Boyd
  Todd Boyd
  Dr. Todd Boyd, American academic, is the Katherine and Frank Price Endowed Chair for the Study of Race and Popular Culture and Professor of Critical Studies in the USC School of Cinematic Arts. Boyd is an author, media commentator, producer and consultant...
  
  , plus interview excerpts of actress Lena Horne
  Lena Horne
  Lena Mary Calhoun Horne was an American singer, actress, civil rights activist and dancer.Horne joined the chorus of the Cotton Club at the age of sixteen and became a nightclub performer before moving to Hollywood, where she had small parts in numerous movies, and more substantial parts in the...
  
  
• The Dolly Sisters
  The Dolly Sisters
  The Dolly Sisters is a 1945 American biographical film about the Dolly Sisters, identical twins who became famous as entertainers on Broadway and in Europe in the early years of the twentieth century. It starred Betty Grable as Jenny and June Haver as Rosie.-Cast:*Betty Grable as Yansci "Jenny"...
  
  
• The Gang's All Here
• Lady Killer
  Lady Killer (1933 film)
  Lady Killer is a 1933 film starring James Cagney, Mae Clarke, and Margaret Lindsay, based on the story "The Finger Man" by Rosalind Keating Shaffer.-Cast:*James Cagney as Dan Quigley*Mae Clarke as Myra Gale*Margaret Lindsay as Lois Underwood...
  
  
• Lifeboat
  Lifeboat (film)
  Lifeboat is an American war film directed by Alfred Hitchcock from a story written by John Steinbeck. The film stars Tallulah Bankhead, William Bendix, Walter Slezak, Mary Anderson, John Hodiak, Henry Hull, Heather Angel, Hume Cronyn and Canada Lee, and is set entirely on a lifeboat.The film is...
  
  
• Lust for Life
  Lust for Life (film)
  Lust for Life is a MGM biographical film about the life of the Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh, based on the 1934 novel by Irving Stone and adapted by Norman Corwin.It was directed by Vincente Minnelli and produced by John Houseman...
  
  
• My Blue Heaven
  My Blue Heaven (1950 film)
  My Blue Heaven is a 1950 musical film directed by Henry Koster and starring Betty Grable and Dan Dailey.-Plot:Kitty Moran, a radio star finds out she is pregnant however she miscarries...
  
  
• Notorious
  Notorious
  Notorious is a 1946 American thriller film directed and produced by Alfred Hitchcock, starring Cary Grant, Ingrid Bergman and Claude Rains as three people whose lives become intimately entangled during an espionage operation...
  
  
• Possessed
  Possessed (1947 film)
  Possessed is a 1947 Warner Bros. film starring Joan Crawford, Van Heflin, and Raymond Massey in a tale about an unstable woman's obsession with her ex-lover. The screenplay by Ranald MacDougall and Silvia Richards was based upon a story by Rita Weiman. The film was directed by Curtis Bernhardt and...
  
  
• The Prodigal
• This Is the Army
  This Is the Army
  This Is the Army is a 1943 American wartime motion picture produced by Hal B. Wallis and Jack L. Warner, and directed by Michael Curtiz, and a wartime musical designed to boost morale in the U.S. during World War II, directed by Sgt. Ezra Stone...
  
  , with actress Joan Leslie
  Joan Leslie
  Joan Leslie is a retired American film and television actress.-Early life:Leslie was born Joan Agnes Theresa Sadie Brodel in Detroit, Michigan, and raised Roman Catholic. She began performing as a singer at the age of nine as part of a vaudeville act with her two sisters; Betty and Mae Brodel...
  
  
• To Catch a Thief
  To Catch a Thief
  To Catch a Thief is a 1952 thriller novel by David Dodge. John Robie is a retired American jewel thief, formerly known as Le Chat , who now spends his time tending to the rose garden in his villa on the Côte d'Azur. Following a series of recent jewel robberies on the Riviera that resemble his...
  
  
• 12 Angry Men
• White Heat
  White Heat
  White Heat may refer to:In film:* White Heat , a British film directed by Thomas Bentley* White Heat , an American film* White Heat, a 1949 film starring James CagneyIn music:...
  
  
• The Young Philadelphians
  The Young Philadelphians
  The Young Philadelphians is a 1959 drama film starring Paul Newman, Barbara Rush and Alexis Smith, and directed by Vincent Sherman. Robert Vaughn was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. The film is based on the novel The Philadelphian by Richard P...
  
  , with director Vincent Sherman
  Vincent Sherman
  Vincent Sherman was an American director, and actor, who worked in Hollywood. His movies include Mr. Skeffington , Nora Prentiss , and The Young Philadelphians ....