Channel Four and the rediscovery of old movies on television

Although from its inception Channel 4 has been actively involved in the production of new cinema films ultimately intended for showing on television, it has also been responsible for the rediscovery of literally thousands of older movies. The channel’s remit, of providing an alternative to the material offered by the other broadcasters, extended to screening feature films older than the BBC and ITV would usually accept. Leslie Halliwell, compiler of cinema reference books and film buyer for the ITV network, was also responsible for purchasing and programming classic Hollywood and British films for Channel 4, in the process freeing many titles from the vaults for the first time in decades and striking new 35mm prints of films hitherto unavailable. In the 1980s and 1990s, particularly, Channel 4 offered film enthusiasts extensive retrospective seasons and occasional special events, such as the presentation by Kevin Brownlow and David Gill of silent films with newly commissioned scores that were initially performed live at the London Film Festival and elsewhere before appearing on television. This paper assesses the channel’s contribution to British film culture and film scholarship through this curatorial function

Gregory S. Parnell Interview (MORS)

Interviewer: Sheldon, Robert S. Interview location(s): Mahan Hall, West Point, New Yor

Carry On, Cowboy: roast beef Westerns

Most critical discussions of non-American Westerns have centred on films by Italian and German filmmakers, such as Sergio Leone and Harald Reinl. There has, however, been little attention paid to the Westerns produced by British companies and British-based filmmakers. They are surprisingly numerous, with a particular concentration in the silent period (though most of the films are now lost) and in the heyday of the European-shot Western in the 1960s and 1970s. This article will focus on the latter, and will attempt to explore the commercial and industrial factors which led British and British-based producers such as Michael Winner, Euan Lloyd, Irving Allen and Charles H. Schneer to undertake a genre which is not typically associated with UK production houses. The particular characteristics of the British-made Western will be identified with the analysis of a small selection of the more than thirty examples from the period, and an attempt will be made to account for their relative neglect by critics and historians. The films themselves are, like the Italian and German varieties, most often co-productions with one or more other countries and are rarely recognisably “British”, hence do not lend themselves to the discussion of national identity which characterises much critical discourse on British and European cinema. One other reason for their neglect, it will be argued, is their generally poor quality and failure to produce a distinct group style or identity or an “auteur” director specialising in the form. In this respect the article will broach questions of artistic value and critical judgment that are themselves often neglected in recent explorations of generic and national cinemas, and will discuss to what extent they should be admitted into historical and industrial accounts of film production and reception

Blockbusters

10,000 word annotated bibliograph

Going to the Gaumont

In recent years, a number of studies have been published of the box-office performance of individual cinemas in the UK, based on surviving records. These studies have concerned cinemas in London, Macclesfield, Portsmouth and Southampton during periods ranging from the 1930s to the 1970s. The primary sources available for these venues, while extremely rare and valuable in what they reveal of programming and attendance patterns, have been limited in scope and have primarily been used as the basis for speculative analyses of popular taste in the respective localities. This paper adds to this series of studies, but draws on material which is considerably more detailed in its documentation of both box-office data and actual audience response than any which has been published to date. It concerns the Gaumont, Sheffield, between 1947 and 1958, during which time the theatre was the largest first-run cinema in the city and surrounding area. Operated and programmed by the Rank Organisation through its subsidiary, Circuits Management Association Ltd. (CMA), the Gaumont was a major regional venue whose records document a significant period of change in the history of British cinema-going, from its postwar peak of attendance to the onset of decline with the advent of commercial television and other rival forms of leisure and entertainment. The paper discusses the patterns of attendance at the cinema as revealed by the statistical data available from these records, along with qualitative information from the managers' detailed reports on audience response and feedback

African adventures : Film Finances Ltd and actor-producers on safari

The recent opening up to scholars of the archives of Film Finances, a British-based company that has been providing completion guarantees for films since 1950, has provided a rare opportunity to inspect confidential documents pertaining to the financing and production of a large number of films made between 1950 and 1979. This article is based on material located in the companys files relating to two films made on location in Africa by actors turned producers: Zulu (1964), starring and produced by Stanley Baker, in collaboration with the director/co-writer/co-producer Cy Endfield; and The Naked Prey (1965), starring, directed and produced by Cornel Wilde. In both cases, supervisors appointed by Film Finances clashed with the film-makers over what were seen as their unreasonable attempts to indulge their artistic impulses as the expense of fiscal responsibility and logistical practicality. The article looks at the ways in which Film Finances and its representatives attempted to exert a measure of control over the productions (not always successfully) in order to limit financial risk and ensure delivery of the films within budget and schedule. It also explores the degree to which the film-makers creative decision-making was influenced, constrained or enabled by the financial and practical constraints within which they were obliged to work

Pass the ammunition : a short etymology of “Blockbuster"

As a slang term, the word ‘blockbuster’ has enjoyed unusual longevity. First applied on a regular basis to motion pictures in the early 1950s, it has remained in use to this day to become a near-ubiquitous synonym for Hollywood films, especially those that are exceptionally expensive, exceptionally successful or both. Indeed, so commonplace is its contemporary usage that, as the word’s literal roots have been forgotten and its colloquial origins obscured, it has lost any more specific meaning, becoming virtually a byword for mainstream films of all kinds, in much the same way that ‘Hollywood’ itself is often taken to stand for the popular cinema generally rather than for the major American corporations and their product. This chapter explores the etymological history of ‘blockbuster’, from its extra-cinematic coinage in the 1940s to its adoption by the entertainment industry and the trade press and its subsequent widespread acceptance in popular culture at large. It suggests some of the reasons for the term’s particular currency in that period and identifies the first films to be so described, along with exploring the ambivalent attitude of the postwar film industry to the phenomenon of the ‘big picture’