She has written widely on the history of American cinema, and she has particular interests in the history of creative processes ‘behind the scenes’ in the Hollywood Studio Era. She is the author of Hollywood Heroines: Women in Film Noir and the Female Gothic Film (2007) and Hollywood Soundscapes: Film Sound Style, Craft and Production in the Classical Era (2017) and the co-editor of The Femme Fatale: Histories, Images, Context and The Companion to Film Noir.