Dante's Inferno (1935), Amusement Parks, and the Thrill of Hell

In Dante's Inferno (Harry Lachman, 1935), Jim Carter (Spencer Tracy) makes the title amusement park attraction successful by shifting its publicity and exhibits from a hell to avoid to the site of alluring thrills. The attraction thus became attractive. American amusement parks of the twentieth century repeatedly popularized the spectacle of the inferno, most notably Dragon's Gorge (1904-44) at Luna Park, and Dante's Inferno (1971-2008) at Coney Island. These "dark rides," as they were known in the carnival industry, drew upon the cinema in order to create their thrilling, episodic journeys, enticing ticket-buyers to enjoy trips to Hades. As Dante wrote, "They yearn for what they fear for."

Gary D. Rhodes, Ph.D. currently serves as Associate Professor of Film and Mass Media at the University of Central Florida, Orlando. He is the author of Emerald Illusions: The Irish in Early American Cinema (IAP, 2012), The Perils of Moviegoing in America (Bloomsbury, 2012), and The Birth of the American Horror Film (Edinburgh UP, 2018), as well as the editor of such anthologies as The Films of Joseph H. Lewis (Wayne State University, 2012), and The Films of Budd Boetticher (Edinburgh UP, 2017). Rhodes is also the writer-director of such documentary films as Lugosi: Hollywood's Dracula (1997) and Banned in Oklahoma (2004). His most recent book is Consuming Images: Film Art and the American Television Commercial (Edinburgh UP, 2020), coauthored with Robert Singer.