Ибраев Е.Е. Костанайский государственный университет. Казахстан

CRISIS AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF BRITISH CINEMA

The British Watermark 1950-1959 years. It was symptomatic of the changing entertainment habits of the general public that Rank sold their Lime Grove Studios in West London to the BBC in 1949. Television was just beginning to have an effect on the film industry. During the 1950' and early 60's Films had to learn to be more exportable and welcome to foreign audiences. Many achieved both of these criteria among them works by David Lean and Carol Reed.

Then in 1947, Ealing's comedy Hue and Cry, was a surprise hit. An entertaining story of a criminal gang foiled by an enthusiastic army of schoolboys, the film met a public desire for relief after years of fighting and continuing hardships.
The studio released many comedies before and during the war but 'Ealing Comedy proper began in 1949, with the consecutive release of Passport to Pimlic, Whisky Galore! and Kind Hearts and Coronet. The Lavender Hill Mob was also very successful, in which a mild-mannered bank clerk masterminds a robbery of the Bank of England's gold reserves.

There were important newcomers in the acting field that had international appeal, Jack Hawkins, Kenneth More, Richard Todd, Richard Burton and Peter Finch. British actresses of this calibre remained scarce. Films like The Lady Killers; Genevieve; The Cruel Sea and The Colditz Story helped to keep the UK's reputation high. Funding was also kept up by well made popular, but erring on schoolboy bathroom humour series. Which included the Doctor and the Carry On series. An unusual success in this decade The Blue Lamp which was a documentary on life in Britain at the time. Interestingly it actually was more of a tribute to the police written by won of their own.

Also the fifties saw the beginning of Hammer Horror studios which went to be by far the most successful studio in the History of the British Isles. It launched the careers of Christopher lee and Peter Cushing and the directorial success of Terence Fisher.

The Stagnation of the 70’s. With the film industry in both Britain and the United States entering into recession, American studios cut back on domestic production, and in many cases withdrew from financing British films altogether. Major films were still being made at this time, including Anne of the Thousand Days (1969), Battle of Britain (1969), and David Lean's Ryan's Daughter (1970), but as the decade wore on financing became increasingly hard to come by.

Also in the 70’s, spurred on by his success with Women In Love, Ken Russell challenged the censors wildly with ‘The Music Lovers’ and ‘The Devils’ only just managing to get a certificate. Likewise Roegs ‘Performance’ with James Fox was a shock to the system for many who saw it. But boundaries were gone by now and a couple of years later ‘The Exorcist’ was to hit the screens only to be banned after to many people fainted or were sick in the cinema!

The British horror boom of the 1960s also finally came to an end by the mid-1970s, with the leading producers Hammer and Amicus leaving the genre altogether in the face of competition from America. Films like ‘The Texas Chainsaw Massacre’ (1974) made Hammer's vampire films seem increasingly tame and outdated, despite attempts to spice up the formula with added nudity and gore.

Stanley Kubrick made Clockwork Orange, just about getting a certificate, Dr Strangelove and 2001: A Space Odyssey. In mainstream terms pure British cinema was diminishing and was to get worse before it got even worse.

The 80’s decline and re-emergence. The 1980s began with the worst recession the British film industry had ever seen. In 1980 only 31 UK films were made, down 50% on the previous year, and the lowest output since 1914. This decade also started the downward trend in self financing British movies – the Americans began to take over and really never looked back. When movies were made in Britain they were either American financed or had American directors / producers. This was in part because the market potential in Britain is too small to produce a profit return on anything more than the most modestly budgeted production.

However, the 1980s soon saw a renewed optimism, led by companies such as Goldcrest (and producer David Puttnam), Channel 4, Handmade Films and Merchant Ivory Productions. Under producer Puttnam a generation of British directors emerged making popular films with international distribution, including: Bill Forsyth (Local Hero, 1983), Hugh Hudson (Chariots of Fire, 1981), Roland Joffe (The Killing Fields, 1984), Alan Parker and Ridley Scott. Handmade Films, part owned by George Harrison, had produced a series of modest budget comedies and gritty dramas such as The Long Good Friday (1980) that had proven popular internationally.

Also in this era Sir Richard Attenborough was directing Gandhi (1982) and Lewis Gilbert - Educating Rita (1983). The later half of the decade saw general decline. That said there were still successful British actors and actresses around but the big budget blockbusters were now being populated by mainly Americans.

Following the final winding up of the Rank Organisation, a series of company consolidations in UK cinema distribution meant that it became ever harder for British productions. Another blow was the elimination of the Eady tax concession by the Conservative Government in 1984. The concession had made it possible for a foreign film company to write off a large amount of its production costs by filming in the UK — this was what attracted a succession of blockbuster productions to UK studios in the 1970s. With Eady gone many studios closed or focused on television work.

Sources:

1. Woolf L., «Growing». 1967, - р. 135.

2. Byng G., «Reap the Whirlwind». 1968, - р. 55.

3. Foster D., «Landscape with Arabs». Brighton, 1969, - р. 166.