djdave

No worries - apology accepted.

I might be completely wrong: I'm only basing my opinion on the research I did for this particular piece and the information I assimilate more generally.

Insofar as the writing of the piece has since affected the way I interpret the information I pick up, then I'm just as biased as anyone else.

On a broader note, what I will say is this: I'm reading Easy Riders, Raging Bulls at the moment, Peter Biskind's account of "New" Hollywood in the 60s and 70s.

What comes across most is how thoroughly unpleasant many of the people involved in Hollywood have been. Whatever your definition of a British film is, I can only hope that our movie people are more pleasant than theirs.

smudge

What about periods when the Americans bought into not only our films, but our studios too ? Like in the 60s when Warner 7 Arts (IIRC) bought a sizeable slice of the ABPC Elstree shareholding ? By terms of finance, Americanisation, but at that point London was 'swinging' and they wanted that 'Britishness' up on the screen.

I have to agree that finance is always a point of frustration and (by definition) 'corrupts' the nationality of a lot of output ; but I also have to agree with DB7 that it's influence rarely shows up on the screen.

Does the above case of the US wanting films to be 'British' (and still nowadays, as in the Rom-Coms) mean that complying with this request and staying 'British' therefore makes them 'Americanised' and thus American... ?

SMUDGE

Welcome to my house. Enter freely, and of your own will...

Ambrosia

Well well so now its an examination of the decline and fall of British films, from the early 1900s to the late 1980s not sorry I was mistaken, forgive me I was going by the thread title, so I'm sorry but my appology is withdrawn and I stand by my statement as the Question was drivel not the statement, are well then, you might have a point to make but it has been made before. You might be intrested in this,

http://www.shu.ac.uk/services/lc/closeup/ryall.htm

It is cruel to discover one's mediocrity only when it is too late.

DB7

I think by the 60s the majors were beginning to withdraw and the downsizing or closure of many smaller studios was underway. The Americanisation for me only manifested itself creatively in the hiring of (often washed-up) American actors for commercial advantage and overseas distribution, or moving to present times Working Titles mid-Atlantic picture postcard rom-com's. I'm not sure the American interest went any further than being in a position to take advantage of tax loopholes and the levy or to dodge the quotas. Distribution has always been the key and for that reason the British have to jump in bed with the US majors; without them there is no market. Film is no doubt now tied up in international trade agreements and thus we can't introduce the protectionism and tariffs the French have to their film industry or the Americans to their steel industry.

AndrewLA

I'd question that sweeping statement. Let's not forget J. Arthur Rank. For many years, let's say mid-30s to early 60s, the Rank Organisation dominated the British film industry. And it was an industry. Although there were crises along the way (much of it self-inflicted by British government policy like the entertainment tax of the late 40s), Rank was the one who prevented the collapse of British movies and kept them going for almost twenty years. Ealing, the Archers, Gainsborough, Two Cities, Launder & Gilliat and many more were under his umbrella. You could even argue, as some people have, that this was a golden age for British films. In 1946, British films (heavily Rank's) outgrossed Hollywood's in the U.K. Korda and Associated British and British Lion etc. never came close to matching old Arthur. If you add in his studios and labs and equipment rentals and global chain of cinemas, it was a real old style empire.

The rise of John Davis and Rank-Xerox and Rank bingo halls, of course, is another story.

(The reason the French have a healthy film industry -- government subsidies. You'll usually find tax money somewhere in most French movies. We've rarely done that in Britain, other than relatively minor efforts like the National Finance Corporation.)

Moor Larkin

I'm glad I found this Thread. I read the "History of" on this site and was baffled at the downbeat nature of the critique. No mention of Rank at all or the success of 'Ealing Films', Hammer, 'Carry On' etc. I don't know much about the latter three but Rank was indeed the nearest we will ever come to a British Hollywood. Indeed it was the patriotic intention to create such a thing that led J. Arthur in his acquisitive quest. He recognised that in order to compete globally with the American giants, Britain had to concentrate her entire resource into one Organisation. Unfortunately the British love of the 'small' interpreted his accumulation as a dangerous megalomania and something unhealthy. The socially-minded governments then sought to destroy the percieved Monster by every taxation and anti-monopoly means available. They succeeded.

[code]http://www.flickr.com/photos/29487363@N02/sets/72157606700675506/code]

Steve Crook

And Korda. Even though, as is said above, he didn't make much money and was a bit of a wheeler dealer (as is needed to set up a large, international business), it was his Private Life of Henry VIII that was one of the first big British films to break into the American market and prove that it could be done.

In many ways Korda paved the way for Rank.

Steve

image45

yes in the 1920's we did! have you not seen Alfred Hitchcocks silent 1920's films and then his sound period from the 1930's before he left to work in the U.S

"Seya next time!"

DB7

Not really, I was listening to a commentary by Bryan Forbes the other day and he described filmmaking at Elstree during the 60s when unions were a major force - he relates bizarre moments when the staff would just walk off the set during shooting (they even had a 'wash your hands' break) or he'd cause a rumpus by moving a prop (somebody elses's designated task). It makes I'm Alright Jack appear semi-documetary.

But he summed it up that the US majors continual flirtations killed many studios. Many thought that the US backers were in it for the long haul and budgeted accordingly - then overnight collapsed when they pulled out. Many may have had to downsize but probably could have maintained a cottage industry existence so long as a distribution deal could be cemented.

If the government were to slash the taxes on film they'd come running back, plough money into Pinewood, then scarper a few years later. In the long term it's probably healthier for the studio to maintain control and survive on profits of a few million a year.

penfold

You could also equally argue almost the reverse...since the early 1900's British talent has gone to the US and colonised, infiltrated and made their own the nascent US film industry...you will know, I'm sure, of the astonishing influence of Chaplin in the first half of the century, not just as star but as a filmmaker and business leader. The first Hollywood studio, Nestor, was built by two Scottish businessmen. Who were the big stars of thirties Hollywood...Ronald Colman, Herbert Marshall, Errol Flynn (Tasman but via Britain) Charles Laughton, Boris Karloff, Basil Rathbone, Claude Rains, Vivien Leigh, Cary Grant, Niven....and many more. Directors? James Whale, Hitchcock, Chaplin....Hollywood of the thirties would have been very different without them...they had a cricket club out there, for heavens sake...and look at the films that were made...there were more films on the glory of the British Empire made out there than here, particularly by Warners, but that could equally be seen as a successful infiltration and subversion by the Brits of the twenties and thirties into Hollywood thinking as a failure of the industry at home.
Some of the examples may not be obvious ones...did you know that the sensational Madame Olga Petrova, writer and star of sensationalist films in early Hollywood - think Theda Bara with class - was plain old Muriel Harding from the Ribble Valley???

Bit of a Bay Window, what??