Few film historians would, I think, argue against the proposition that
on any terms the history of the British cinema has been a chequered
one. The advent of sound, symbolised by its introduction in Alfred Hitchcock's
Blackmail (1929) heralded a decade which saw hundreds of British films
being made on the back of the dreaded 'quota quickie' system. In his
invaluable book British Sound Films The Studio Years 1928 - 1959 David
Quinlan amusingly refers to one Manchester cinema in 1935 flashing a
notice before a British 'B' picture, apologising for having to show
it, as the quota compelled them to do so by law. He also pertinently
records that 'in 1936 more than 200 British feature films were made
and dumped on the home market, far more than it could hold, guaranteeing
a further step towards financial disaster'. Although the 1930s saw the
emergence of a number of highly popular British film artists - Jessie
Matthews, Gracie Fields, George Formby (remarkably so, given his limited
talent) and Will Hay - the decade as a whole was characterised by a
numbing mediocrity in terms of film as an art form.
Yet there were a few features of genuine, even outstanding, merit that
can be viewed even today with pleasure and admiration: among these may
be mentioned Hitchcock's The Thirty-Nine Steps (1935) (still the best
film version of Buchan's popular novel) and The Lady Vanishes (1938),
Korda's Things to Come (1936) and The Four Feathers (1939) (also acknowledged
to be the best version) and Shaw's Pygmalion (1938), jointly directed
by Anthony Asquith and Leslie Howard, with superb performances from
Howard and the young Wendy Hiller and what must be accounted one of
the most literate screenplays ever written. But by 1939 there were signs
that a new era might be dawning. Film-makers of talent and enterprise
had begun to emerge: in addition to Anthony Asquith there were David
Lean, Carol Reed, Michael
Powell, Michael Balcon, Frank Launder and Sidney Gilliat. But arguably
the greatest talent of all was destined to be lost to the indigenous
film industry: Hitchcock took himself off to America to return only
when, so to speak, the wind blew him hither.
The catalyst for what proved to be the rebirth, perhaps the birth,
of a British film industry of real artistic merit was, of course, the
outbreak of the Second World War. Suddenly these filmmakers found themselves
with the financial resources (thanks mainly to one J. Arthur Rank),
the motivation and a supreme subject matter - the war itself - to make
films of genuine quality. The conflict could be viewed either from the
fighting front itself or the equally important home front (or, indeed,
from both). Thus, for example, there emerged Carol Reed's The Way Ahead
(1944) which expertly chronicled the transformation of a group of unwilling
civilians into fighting (and implicitly doomed) front-line soldiers;
on the home front, Launder and Gilliat's Millions Like Us (1943) showed
the impact of the war on one particular family and, significantly, indicated
how class barriers were breaking down for the sake of a common cause;
and Olivier's Henry V (1944) dealt, via Shakespeare, with a great English
victory on the Continent and foreshadowed another one, propaganda allied
to high art in the most potent manner. Occasionally a film would postulate
a deeper and more disturbing variation on the general theme.
So in Alberto Cavalcanti's Went The Day Well? (1942), an Ealing Studios
film based on a Graham Greene story, a quiet English village finds itself
invaded by an advance guard of the German army, revealing a traitor
in its midst and the readiness of the normally mild-mannered villagers
to kill the enemy without compunction - and also be killed. A pacifist
sub-text of this unusual film was identified by Cavalcanti himself at
a time when pacifism was definitely not the order of the day. While
a great war was ranging in the real world some escapism was permitted,
and relished by cinemagoers, if not by the critics. Thus the costume
melodrama The Man in Grey (1942) pulled in the crowds and made stars
out of James Mason and Margaret Lockwood. Later, the same actors had
an equally big hit with The Wicked Lady (1945).
David Lean The renaissance, if such it was, of the British cinema continued
for several years after the war. The same talented film makers continued
to create worthwhile films and the advent of peace enabled them to widen
their subject matter. So David Lean followed the classic 'train weepie';
Brief Encounter (1945) with two fine Dickens adaptations in Great Expectations
(1946), perhaps the best film version of the work of England's greatest
novelist, and Oliver Twist (1948); Carol Reed directed Odd Man Out (1946),
The Fallen Idol (1948) and, supremely, The Third Man (1949), the first
of this trio introducing a Continental-style realism in its evocation
of the dark, rain-sodden streets of a Belfast even then plagued by the
ruthless aspirations of political extremists. And Olivier, essentially
a man of the theatre, brought his equally dark, pared-down version of
Hamlet (1948) to the screen. And then the bright vision, the Brave New World of the British cinema,
began to fade, for both economic and artistic reasons. There were the
wonderful, the inimitable, Ealing comedies of course: Whisky Galore
(1948), The Lavender Hill Mob (1951), and perhaps the subversive jewel
in the crown - Kind Hearts Coronets (1949). But for directors like Lean
and Reed their best work was now arguably in the past. An era seemed
to be over.
