Brief Encounter

Surely a US production?

I agree it's great though. I await the DVD.

GRAEME

As I've pointed out earlier - it's a can of worms best left unopened. A lot of films we like to call British were funded by US studios.

Yes these are American productions of American stage shows - but the source material in both cases is British/Irish and the majority of the cast too. The settings are British.

There's definitely a Britishness about both of them...

julian_craster

Originally Posted by julian_craster
Nobody has mentioned the greatest of all

Goodbye Mr Chips (1969)
Surely a US production?

I agree it's great though. I await the DVD.



This was the last major film to be made at the MGM studios at Borehamwood in the UK,
so British in my book ! MGM made many films there in the 1950s and 1960s.

suzepulcheria

Almost any British 1930s musical- witty, elegamt and fun! Jack Buchanan of COURSE, but a senior member introduced me to Please Teacher which ought to be in anybody's top ten!

"I've come a long way you know!" "Equally long way to go back..."

howard 65

So by that criteria RANDOM HARVEST is a British film!

GRAEME

No. A Hollywood film. But it has Britishness in spades!

If we only talked about wholly British financed movies on this forum, we'd have to talk about a lot fewer movies than we do.

TimR

So would they be considered co-productions?

I am perhaps more aware of this question of definition as an American here - I try to make sure I stay within the definition of British films, and not move the conversation to American films.

I am not at all questioning the importance of definition. I enjoy this forum because the topic is British films and I understand the importance of not moving too far outside the boundaries. I'm just not clear at times what the definition is.

The classic British musical is Oliver. Perhaps there were classics in the pre-war years that I have not seen. My Fair Lady and Mary Poppins are American films based on British source material. I assume they are American.

"Home was never like this"

"Mine was"

Steve Crook

The tricky part is in deciding just what the definition of a British film should be. There are lots of different definitions that people use.

Should it depend on where the film is made, the director, the writer, the stars, some sort of percentage of certain members of the cast & crew?

The IMDb tries to do it based on the nationality of the production company. Where it is a co-production then it tries to put the countries in the order of importance (level of funding) of each production company involved. But that can only be done when you know all the production companies involved. And it can still be confused when a production company is created for a single production and is intended to be dissolved when that production has finished. That "shell company" can be set up in any country. Possibly whoever gives the best tax advantage and nothing to do with where the production really originated or was made.

Steve

TimR

It is difficult to pin down, isn't it?

I know what Graeme means by "Britishness", and it seems to me that many of the anglophile films made in Hollywood during the 30s were virtual tributes to Britain - yet certainly they were not British films because they were made in the US by American companies. But the films made in Hollywood owned studios in Britain makes it more complex.

I had been making the decision based on who the director and producers were, but that doesn't work very well.

Anne of 1,000 Days, The Chalk Garden and Nicholas and Alexandra are among my favorite films - and it seems impossible to determine if they are British or American productions. They all seem to be both.

"Home was never like this"

"Mine was"

Steve Crook

Or even films made by American production companies in British studios with a mainly British cast and crew. Definitely tricky to pin down

If it helps, the IMDb lists Anne of the Thousand Days (1969) as British because it was made by a British production company, Hal Wallis Productions.

The Chalk Garden (1964) they list as a joint UK / USA production because there were 3 production companies but the most significant funding was from the British one, Quota Rentals Limited.

Nicholas and Alexandra (1971) they list as British because although it was funded by a shell company set up by Columbia, that shell company, Horizon Pictures, was a British company.

As I said, it's not perfect but the technique of "follow the money" and working out who paid for it seems to work as well as many methods and better then most - and the IMDb have already done the work for most titles

Steve

julian_craster

If a film was filmed in a UK studio, and has a UK based Director of Photography, that is a pretty good indicator....

So MY FAIR LADY, MARY POPPINS........no

GOODBYE MR CHIPS, THE CHALK GARDEN, ANNE OF 1OOO DAYS........yes

Steve Crook

So something like The African Queen with its very American director and stars, you would consider British just because they had the wisdom to hire Jack Cardiff as DoP and to do some of the few studio scenes at Shepperton?

As it happens, the leading production company was British so the IMDb lists it as a joint UK / US co-production.

Steve

julian_craster

So something like The African Queen with its very American director and stars, you would consider British just because they had the wisdom to hire Jack Cardiff as DoP and to do some of the few studio scenes at Shepperton?


Definitely yes....

howard 65

How about the cases of THE THIRD MAN and YOU CAN'T SLEEP HERE/I WAS A MALE WAR BRIDE.

Both were filmed in Germany with studio scenes at Shepperton in 1948/49 and with mixed nation casts; yet the former is considered British and the latter American!

CaptainWaggett

Perhaps because the latter was made for Twentieth Century Fox by Howard Hawks and doesn't have a cast exactly overloaded with Brits whereas the former was made for London Films by Carol Reed and has plenty of Brits in the cast.

BTW has Vienna moved since I studied geography?