Considers over sixty Hollywood films set in Austria examining the film industry the influence
of domestic factors on images of a foreign country and the persistence of clichés. Maria von
Trapp watching the final scene of The Sound of Music for the first time as her family escaped
into Switzerland exclaimed Don't they know geography in Hollywood? Salzburg does not border
on Switzerland! Hadshe thought about the beginning of the film which transports viewers to
Salzburg Austria in the last Golden Days of the Thirties when the country was in fact
suffering from extreme political and social unrest she might haveasked Don't they know
history either? In The Sound of Music as well as in Hollywood's many other Austria films the
projections on the screen resemble reflections in a funhouse mirror. Elements of a real place
with areal history inhabited by real people can be found in the fractured distortions which
have both drawn from and contributed to the general public's perceptions of the country and its
citizens. Austria Made in Hollywood focuses on films set in an identifiable Austria examining
them through the lenses of the historical contexts on both sides of the Atlantic and the prism
of the ever-changing domestic film industry. The study chronicles theprotean screen images of
Austria and Austrians that set them apart both from European projections of Austria and from
Hollywood incarnations of other European nations and nationals. It explores explicit and
implicit cultural commentaries on domestic and foreign issues inserted in the Austrian stories
while considering the many sometimes conflicting forces that shaped the films.
