Ибраев Е.Е. Костанайский государственный университет. Казахстан

THE HISTORY OF BRITISH CINEMA IN THE 20-40 YEARS

OF XX CENTURY

But there was several embers of hope the careers of Ronald Coleman, Victor McLaglen, Leslie Howard and Charles Laughton were starting and although Howard was to be a casualty of WWII these actors along with Balcon and Wilcox were determined that British pictures should survive. Even the son of the Prime Ministers Anthony Asquith joined in to keep the industry alive. But in 1927 Parliament brought in an important piece of legislation the Cinematographers Trade Bill, designed to ensure there was a guaranteed home market for British made films. This meant that 5% of the total number of movies shown in theatres had to be from Britain this figure rose to 20% by 1936. Alfred Hitchcock's Blackmail (1929) is regarded as the first British sound production.

All was not lost and in the 30’s the British Cinema Industry would start to rise from its knees. The advent of sound offered more challenges to the British Film Industry's financial stability., Some of the films that Britain was to make were pretty bad some of the exceptions were Juno and the Paycock (1930); Hindle Wakes, Tell England; (1931), Rome Express, (1932) and the brilliantly successful Korda production The Private Life of Henry VIII with Charles Laughton. ‘Wings of the Morning’ (1937) is widely accepted as Britain's first colour feature film.

Korda had failed in Hollywood, and when the boom started in the UK, he decided to try his luck there. He founded London Films and built, reputedly, the finest studios in the world at Denham. Here he made Katherine the Great; Don Juan, with Douglas Fairbanks Jr. The Scarlet Pimpernel, Raymond Massey and Leslie Howard; Things to Come Massey and Ralph Richardson; the Man Who Could Work Miracles; Rembrandt with Laughton John Maxwell's British International Studios trained many of this period's notable directors, writers and cameramen. Among them were Sidney Gilliat, J. Lee Thompson, Ronald Neame, Jack Cardiff and Charles Frend. He also had some high calibre artists appearing with him, including Richard Tauber, Douglas Fairbanks Jn, Will Hays, John Mills and Carol Reed was one of Maxwell’s directors.

In 1933 J. Arthur Rank, who had started by making religious films, founded British National. In 1935 he went into partnership with Woolf to take over Pinewood Studios. Boom turned to slump in 1937. The year before, the British film industry had over produced, making 220 pictures. Studio space had increased seven fold in ten years. This mean that the overproduction gave rise to poor quality films and this in turn opened up the door to the American industry, and American companies moved into the UK to make quality British films that would qualify them for the home market quota.

All the major film producers started to take over studios. MGM-British, Warner, Radio, 20th Century Fox, they all moved in to virtually swallow up the failing industry. This was a period of classic movies. Some of these included The Citadel with Robert Donat and Rosalind Russell, Goodbye Mr Chips also with Donat; Pygmalion with Leslie Howard and Wendy Hiller; Victoria The Great, Nell Gwynn and Glorious Days all with Anna Neagle; The Man Who Knew Too Much; The 39 Steps; The Secret Agent; Sabotage; The Lady Vanishes; and Jamaica Inn.

The British Board of Film Censors had been founded in 1912 primarily to keep the foreign imports ‘acceptable in terms of content and to be able to control their numbers on the pretext of unsuitability. Home grown productions had an easier time passing the censors. It was now that the certificates U, for universal and A, for Adult were introduced.

During the 1930's two other valuable assets came along; the British Film Institute and the National Film Archives. They maintained, and still do, a film library not just of British films, but International ones too. They restore damaged prints and transfer nitrate stock onto safety film, as well as funding projects. Without them, many classics would be lost today.

The Second World War caused a minor miracle to happen to movie making in the Britain. A new spirit of enthusiasm coupled with strenuous work led to the abandonment of the stupidity and extravagance of the previous decade. After a faltering start, British films began to make increasing use of documentary techniques and former documentary film-makers to make more realistic films, like In Which We Serve (1942), Went the Day Well? (1942). With many of the employees being engaged in war work, available manpower was reduced to one third and half of the studio space was requisitioned, only sixty films were produced annually. New realism in wartime pictures and a demand for documentaries gave a whole new look to British films.
Initially, many cinemas closed down for fear of air raids, but the public needed a way of escaping the reality of war, and turned to the more genteel, sanitized versions available in the cinema. The majority was war related, The Stars Look Down; 49th Parallel; Convoy and This Happy Breed.

Some of the finest British work came out of the period including Brief Encounter; The Wicked Lady; The Man in Grey; Olivier’s Henry V. New directors, artists and writers came to the fore, David Lean as a director, Frank Launder and Sidney Gilliat as writers and Richard Attenborough, Michael Redgrave, David Niven and Stewart Granger were elevated to stardom.

In post war Britain, during the period 1945-1955, the Rank Organization, with Michael Balcon at the helm, was the dominant force in film production and distribution. It acquired a number of British studios, and bank-rolled some of the great British film-makers which were emerging in this period. Their rivals, Korda's London Films continued to expand, taking over the British Lion Film Corporation in 1946 and Shepperton Studios the following year.

1949 was a bad year financially partly due to a series of good, but big budget movies. The Red Shoes; Hamlet; Fallen Idol; Great Expectations and Oliver Twist. Smaller budget productions also left there mark with Passport to Pimlico; and the very successful Kind Hearts and Coronets that established Alec Guinness as a star.

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.