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Seduced by the Silver Screen: Film Addicts, Critics and Cinema Regulation in Britain in the 1930s and 1940s

2005; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 47; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/00076790500056085

1743-7938

Peter Miskell,

Media, Gender, and Advertising

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes R. Winnington, 'The Missing Element in the Cinema', Harper's Bazaar (May 1948), reprinted in R. Winnington, Film Criticism and Caricatures, 1943–1953 (London, 1975), p.179. Also quoted in P. Oakes (ed.), The Film Addicts Archive (London, 1977), p.ix. Political and Economic Planning (PEP), The British Film Industry (London, 1952), p.17. UNESCO calculated that annual cinema attendances in Great Britain stood at 28 per head of population in 1950. The next highest figure was achieved by the United States with 23, and no other country got above 19; H.E. Browning and A.A. Sorrell, 'Cinemas and Cinema-Going in Great Britain', Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, Vol.117 Part II (1954), p.136. R. McIlwraith, R.S. Jacobvitz, R. Kubey and A. Alexander, 'Television Addiction: Theories and Data Behind the Ubiquitous Metaphor', American Behavioural Scientist, Vol.35 No.2 (1991), pp.104–21; R.W. Kubey, 'Television Dependence, Diagnosis, and Prevention: With Commentary on Video Games, Pornography, and Media Education', in T.M. MacBeth (ed.), Tuning in to Young Viewers: Social Science Perspectives on Television (London, 1996), pp.221–60; R. Kubey and M. Csikszentmihalyi, 'Television Addiction is no Mere Metaphor', Scientific American, Vol.286 No.2 (2002), pp.62–8; R.D. McIlwraith, '" I'm Addicted to Television": The Personality, Imagination, and TV Watching Patterns of Self-Identified TV Addicts', Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media, Vol.42 No.3 (1998), pp.371–86. The argument that regulation has historically served business interests, rather than the wider social good, was put forcefully in the 1960s by Gabriel Kolko; see G. Kolko, The Triumph of Conservatism: A Reinterpretation of American History, 1900–1916 (New York, 1963); idem, Railroads and Regulation, 1877–1916 (Princeton, NJ, 1965). An excellent survey of the literature on both the economics and history of regulation can be found in J. High, 'Introduction: A Tale of Two Disciplines', in J. High (ed.), Regulation: Economic Theory and History (Ann Arbor, MI, 1991), pp.1–17. T.K. McCraw, 'Regulation in America: A Review Article', Business History Review, Vol.XLIX No.2 (1975), pp.179–80. By 1909 the fire risk associated with cinemas had, in Annette Kuhn's words 'become almost mythical' despite the fact that there had been no major cinema fires in Britain. It is possible that public opinion may have been influenced by events overseas, most notably the disastrous fire at the Paris Bazaar de Charitée in 1897; A. Kuhn, Cinema, Censorship and Sexuality, 1909–1925 (London, 1988), p.16. See N.M. Hunnings, Film Censors and the Law (London, 1967), pp.79–80. Councillors in Beckenham operated their own censorship board for six months in 1932, similar experiments were tried elsewhere, but all were short-lived; see J. Richards, The Age of the Dream Palace: Cinema and Society in Britain, 1930–1939 (London, 1984), p.91. More detailed accounts of the rise of film censorship in Britain can be found in Kuhn, Cinema, Censorship and Sexuality; D. Knowles, The Censor, the Drama and the Film, 1900–1934 (London, 1934); G. Phelps, Film Censorship (London, 1975); J. Robertson, The British Board of Film Censors: Film Censorship in Britain, 1896–1950 (London, 1985); idem, The Hidden Cinema: British Film Censorship in Action, 1913–1975 (London and New York, 1989). Kuhn, Cinema, Censorship and Sexuality. R. Low, The History of the British Film, 1906–1914 (London, 1949), p.61. Cinema Commission of Enquiry (instituted by the National Council of Public Morals), The Cinema: Its Present Position and Future Possibilities (London, 1917), pp.xxi, xxix, xxx. Commission on Educational and Cultural Films, The Film in National Life (London, 1932), p.10. Browning and Sorrell, 'Cinemas and Cinema-Going', p.134; P. Perilli, 'Statistical Survey of the British Film Industry', in J. Curran and V. Porter (eds), British Cinema History (London, 1983), p.372. PEP, The British Film Industry, p.181. The lower economic group was taken to be that where the chief wage earner in the household earned a less than £5 per week (75 per cent of the population); the chief wage earners in the middle income group made between £5 and £10 per week (20 per cent of the population); the higher economic bracket contained those earning over £10 per week (5 per cent); see, L. Moss and K. Box, 'The Cinema Audience', an appendix to J.P. Mayer, British Cinemas and their Audiences: Sociological Studies (London, 1948), p.255. K. Box, The Cinema and the Public: An Inquiry into Cinema Going Habits and Expenditure made in 1946 (London, 1946), p.3. Moss and Box, 'The Cinema Audience', p.258. S. Harper and V. Porter, 'Cinema Audience Tastes in 1950s Britain', Journal of British Popular Cinema, Vol.2 (1999), pp.66–82. Box, The Cinema and the Public, p.8. PEP, The British Film Industry, p.182. Browning and Sorrell, 'Cinemas and Cinema-Going', p.143. Members included H.G. Wells, George Bernard Shaw, Julian Huxley, J.B.S. Haldane and John Maynard Keynes; see J. Samson, 'The Film Society, 1925–1939', in C. Barr (ed.), All Our Yesterdays: 90 Years of British Cinema (London, 1986), pp.306–13. C. Barr, 'Introduction: Amnesia and Schizophrenia', in Barr (ed.), All Our Yesterdays, p.5. G. Orwell, 'The Lion and the Unicorn: Socialism and the English Genius. Part I: England Your England', in The Penguin Essays of George Orwell (Harmondsworth, 1994 edn.), pp.154–6. P. Rotha, The Film Till Now: A Survey of World Cinema (London, 1949 edn.), p.313. Also quoted in A. Higson, Waving the Flag: Constructing a National Cinema in Britain (Oxford, 1995), p.36. Winnington, 'The Missing Element in the Cinema', p.179. G.W. Pabst, 'Censor the Censor!', Sight and Sound, Vol.7 No.28 (1938–39), p.149. I. Barry, Let's Go to the Pictures (London, 1926), p.31. See also G. Keir, 'Psychology and the Film', The Penguin Film Review, No.9 (1949), p.68. R. Manvell, A Seat at the Cinema (London, 1951), p.60. R. Manvell, A Survey of the Cinema and its Public (London, 1944), pp.7–8. C. Cook (ed.), The Dilys Powell Film Reader (Manchester, 1991), pp.ix–x. G. Greene, 'Is it Criticism?', Sight and Sound, Vol.5 No.19 (1936), p.64. J. Merchant, The Cinema in Education (London, 1925), pp.8, 11–12. A. Briggs, The History of Broadcasting: Vol.1 (Oxford, 1961), p.8. Also quoted in M. Dickinson and S. Street, Cinema and State: The Film Industry and the British Government, 1927–1984 (London, 1985), p.3. The Film in National Life, p.1. Ibid., pp.140, 145. Dickinson and Street, Cinema and State, pp.47–52. Grierson was the leading figure in the documentary film movement, Montagu had been one of the founding members of the Film Society. Dickinson and Street, Cinema and State, p.74. Letter to the Western Mail, 4 Jan. 1939, p.9. See, for example, articles by B. Smith and M. Balcon in Sight and Sound, Vol.9 No.36 (1940–41), pp.60–63; Palache Report, Tendencies to Monopoly in the Cinematograph Film Industry (London, 1944); PEP, The British Film Industry, pp.154–6. Public Record Office (hereafter PRO), BT 55/3, No.44, p.6. PRO, BT 60/21/2, 'Propaganda by Films: Policy and Summary'. See J. Sedgewick, Popular Filmgoing in 1930s Britain: A Choice of Pleasures (Exeter, 2000); J. Richards (ed.), The Unknown 1930s: An Alternative History of the British Cinema, 1929–1939 (London and New York, 1998). S. Street, 'British Film and the National Interest, 1927–1939', in R. Murphy (ed.), The British Cinema Book (London, 1997), pp.17–27. See I. Jarvie, Hollywood's Overseas Campaign: The North Atlantic Movie Trade, 1920–1950 (Cambridge, 1992), pp.213–46; R. Murphy, Realism and Tinsel: Cinema and Society in Britain, 1939–1948 (London, 1989), pp.222–5; G. Macnab, J. Arthur Rank and the British Film Industry (London, 1993), pp.162–87; Dickinson and Street, Cinema and State, pp.179–95. PRO, T 233/94 document 16, P.L. Smith to Sir Eric Bamford, 16 Dec. 1946. See also Macnab, J. Arthur Rank, p.190. PRO, T 233/94, Smith to Bamford. PRO, CUST 49/1946, 'Entertainments Duty: Application for Exemption by Kino Films (1935) Ltd', p.20. T.M. Healy, quoted in A.P. Herbert, No Fine on Fun: The Comical History of the Entertainment Duty (London, 1957), p.17. PRO, T 172/1406, Entertainment Tax Abolition League to Churchill, 13 March 1925. PRO, CUST 153/3; T 172/1408. On a cinema seat costing 1s (5p), excluding tax, in 1924, a duty of 1.5d (0.6p) was charged. In 1931 the tax on an equivalent ticket was 2.5d (1p). By the early years of World War Two the duty had increased to 6d (2.5p), and from 1942 it stood at 8.5d (3.5p); PRO, T 172/1408; T 233/94. R. Ford, Children in the Cinema (London, 1939). See R. Low, The History of the British Film, 1929–1930: Film Making in 1930s Britain (London, 1985), pp.59–60; Western Mail, 3 Aug. 1929, p.11 and 22 Jan. 1930, p.6; Robertson, The Hidden Cinema, pp.40–103. For example, D.C Jones (ed.), The Social Survey of Merseyside: Vol.III (Liverpool, 1934), p.284; H.L. Smith (ed.), The New Survey of London Life and Labour Vol.IX: Life and Leisure (London, 1935), p.47; Carnegie United Kingdom Trust, Disinherited Youth (Edinburgh, 1943), p.105; C. Burt, The Young Delinquent (London, 1931), p.150; F.H. Spencer, School Children in the Cinema (London, 1932); W.D. Wall, 'The Adolescent and the Cinema – I', Educational Review, Vol.1 No.1 (1948); W.D. Wall and W.A. Simson, 'The Effects of Cinema Attendance on the Behaviour of Adolescents as seen by their Contemporaries', British Journal of Educational Psychology, Vol.19 (1949), pp.53–61. R.G. Burnett and E.D. Martell, The Devil's Camera: Menace of a Film-Ridden World (London, 1932). Only the 'soured and aged', according to one commentator, 'declare that the spread of the picture-going habit is responsible for the decay of home life'; P.M. Shand, Modern Theatres and Cinemas (London, 1930), p.9. For example, G. Bakker, 'Stars and Stories: How Films Became Branded Products', Enterprise and Society, Vol.2 No.3 (2001), pp.461–502; G. Bakker, 'Building Knowledge about the Consumer: The Emergence of Market Research in the Motion Picture Industry', Business History, Vol.45 No.1 (2003), pp.101–27. Jarvie, Hollywood's Overseas Campaign; Sedgwick, Popular Filmgoing in 1930s Britain.