The British Film Industry

'Hollywood England' is a book of an era as much as of the cinema. The focus of Walker's commentary is American power operating on British talent as, in the sixties, for the first time British cinema achieved a truly national character.It was an era of Billy Liar and Kes, of the Beatles, musicals, the whole swinging London cycle; of directors such as Richardson, Loach and Russell and stars such as Albert Finney, Michael Caine and Julie Christie. And yet there was the irony that by the end of the decade Hollywood sustained 95% of British film making. Alexander Walker traces the change from the sober reality of post-Suez Britain to the consumer boom, and gives sharp judgements and critical appraisals on the vast variety of American and British film people who made up this extraordinary new wave.

Presiding over the "golden era" of the British Film Industry from the mid to late 1940s, J. Arthur Rank financed movies such as Oliver Twist, The Red Shoes, Brief Encounter, Caesar and Cleopatra and Black Narcissus. Never before, and never since, has the industry risen to such heights. J. Arthur Rank charts every aspect of the robust film culture that Rank helped to create. Having started out with relatively little knowledge of the cinema, Rank's sponsorship was to bring about astounding progress within the industry, and by establishing an organization comparable in size to any of the major Hollywood studios, Rank briefly managed to reconcile and consolidate the competing demands of "art" and "business" - an achievement very much absent from today's diminished and fragmented film industry. Macnab goes on to explain the eventual collapse of the Rank experiment amidst the economic and political maelstrom of post-war Britain, highlighting the problems still facing the industry today. By meshing archival research with interviews with Rank's contemporaries and members of his family, this definitive study firmly restores Rank to his rightful place at the hub of British film history.

A fascinating read both for the general reader on film and also those with a serious interest in the subject of the film industry and film-making For the past 80 years the British film industry has struggled to compete with Hollywood. The early control of distribution by American companies in London and the lack of investment in domestic production gave Hollywood a commercial advantage that persists to this day. Successive British governments have introduced measures to protect the industry from overseas competition and stimulate British production, all with little long-term success. This book traces the history of the British film business from the days of the early pioneers, through its near collapse in the immediate post-war era to the current age of digitally enhanced blockbusters. The authors chart the successes and failures and show how Government intervention has often failed to assist the industry. They provide comment on recent developments and suggest how these could help British film making talent reach the wider audience that it frequently deserves. Bill Baillieu is a non-practising barrister with twenty years corporate finance and licensing experience in the development and funding of creative and growth businesses. His career began in the venture capital industry in the City of London, and he now specialises in the management, exploitation and valuation of intellectual property rights ranging from copyright portfolios to patented technology. John Goodchild is an experienced investment analyst and currently an associate with the London stockbrokers Walker Crips Weddle Beck plc. He has been fascinated by the British cinema since childhood when he first heard his aunt's recollections of life as a wardrobe assistant at Gainsborough Studios in the 1930s. He is also joint editor of Professional Investor where Bill Baillieu's articles on the industry were the starting point for The British Film Business

The first substantial overview of the British film industry with emphasis on its genres, stars, and socioeconomic context, British National Cinema by Sarah Street is an important title in Routledge's new National Cinemas series. British National Cinema synthesizes years of scholarship on British film while incorporating the author' fresh perspective and research. Street divides the study of British cinema into four sections: the relation between the film industry and government; specific film genres; movie stars; and experimental cinema. In addition, this beautifully illustrated volume includes over thirty stills from every sphere of British cinema. British National Cinema will be of great interest to film students and theorists as well as the general reader interested in the fascinating scope of British film.

British Film Industry

The British Film Industry in 25 Careers tells the history of the British film industry from an unusual perspective - that of various mavericks, visionaries and outsiders who, often against considerable odds, have become successful producers, distributors, writers, directors, editors, props masters, publicists, special effects technicians, talent scouts, stars and, sometimes, even moguls. Some, such as Richard Attenborough and David Puttnam, are well-known names. Others, such as the screenwriter and editor Alma Reville, also known as Mrs Alfred Hitchcock; Constance Smith, the 'lost star' of British cinema, or the producer Betty Box and her director sister Muriel, are far less well known. What they all have in common, though, is that they found their own pathways into the British film business, overcoming barriers of nationality, race, class and gender to do so. Counterpointing the essays on historical figures are interviews with contemporaries including the director Amma Asante, the writer and filmmaker Julian Fellowes, artist and director Isaac Julien, novelist and screenwriter Hanif Kureishi, and media entrepreneur Efe Cakarel, founder of the online film platform MUBI, who've come into today's industry, adjusting to an era in which production and releasing models are changing – and in which films are distributed digitally as well as theatrically.

Originally published in 1964, this book tells the history of the British cinematograph industry for the first time. It describes moments of splendid triumph and others of shattering failure. The mood switches from reckless optimism to demoralising pessimism, from years in which British films won the highest international awards to those when they were dismissed with scorn. It recalls a score of productions still ranked among the world's best, and the stars whose reputation was established in them. Attention is focused on the directors, those who kept to the fore during two and three decades and those with only one major success to their name. Behind them the men are identified who strove, often to their considerable financial loss, to gain a worthy place for British films in the world’s markets.