DB7

Encyclopedia of British Film and British Sound Films (both David Quilan i think) are two must-haves.

smudge

Encyclopaedia... is Brian Macfarlane, and a cracking reference work.

If you can get a copy of his Autobiography of British Cinema too, that's packed with interviews of people who made the movies.

His book on Lance Comfort for Manchester University Press is good, as are the other single volumes on British directors in that set.

Derek Threadgall's SHEPPERTON - an Independent View is worth a look.

For the horror genre I have found Jonathan Rigby's 'English Gothic' a very good overview.

John Mitchell's 'Flickering Shadows' is a good anecdotal tome of the sound recordist's life from when Pinewood was at it's peak in production.

Pinewood books - Movies From The Mansion (Perry) and The Pinewood Stry tend to be lighter weight. A good 'serious' one is J Arthur Rank and the British Film Industry (Macnab)

those should get your bookshelf groaning... [img]style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/eek.gif[/img]

SMUDGE

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

Billy Liar

Great stuff fellas, Duly noted.

What Powell & Pressburger books are worth purchasing?

Clinton Morgan

Ian Christie's 'Arrows of Desire'
Michael Powell 'A Life In Movies' 'Million Dollar Movie'
Kevin McDonald 'Emeric Pressburger The Life And Death of a Screenwriter'
Jack Cardiff 'Magic Hour'
Powell & Pressburger 'The Life And Death of Colonel Blimp (Screenplay)' More than just a screenplay!

All thumping good reads.

DB7

Agreed, and there's others in the series on the likes of Terence Fisher, Roy Ward Baker and Joseph Losey.

English Gothic: A Century of Horror Cinema is also a great chronological read of thrillers, chillers and cult film.

Has British b-movies/second features/quickie quotas ever been covered in detail?

penfold

For Quota Quickies, try 'The Unknown '30's', by Jeffrey Richards...his books with Anthony Aldgate, 'Best of British', and 'From Dickens to Dad's Army, Films and British National Identity' are both superb, the latter not as highbrow as the title suggests.
For British Silents, Charles Barr's English Hitchcock, Christine Gledhill's Reframing British Cinema 1918-1928. The latter is more academic, but rewards the effort...
And both are covered in a gossippy way by Matthew Sweet's Shepperton Babylon, a great read, tragic and comic in turns.

Bit of a Bay Window, what??

Wetherby Pond

Highly specialist, this one, but David MacGillivray's Doing Rude Things: A History of the British Sex Film is as much a fascinating social history as a study of a particular genre, as is John Trevelyan's autobiographical What The Censor Saw.

Individual studies of filmmakers that I recommend include Richard Kelly's magnificent oral memoir Alan Clarke, Jack Cardiff's Magic Hour, Simon Callow's Charles Laughton, Donald Spoto's The Dark Side of Genius: The Life of Alfred Hitchcock, Alan Bennett's Writing Home (plenty of film and TV anecdotes nestling amongst the rest), and assorted BFI monographs in the Film Classics and Modern Classics series.

smudge

: Has British b-movies/second features/quickie quotas ever been covered in detail?
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Name escapes me, but somebody who posted here awhile ago was working on a 50s/60s Brit Bs book IIRC...

And if we're moving into Cinematography, don't forget Freddie Young's 'Seventy Light Years'. He and Jack C were the masters IMHO. [img]style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/clapping.gif[/img]

SMUDGE

[img]style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/devil.gif[/img]

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

paulsroom

"Archeology of the Cinema" by C.W.Ceram is also a very good book. It describes the development of the moving image from pre-film days right up to World War I. It has very good information about the British Pioneers and in particular the Brighton filmmakers.

catflap

Name escapes me, but somebody who posted here awhile ago was working on a 50s/60s Brit Bs book IIRC...

SMUDGE



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Steve Chibnall and Brian Macfarlane are working on the B-Film book at present and the latter's "Encyclopedia of British Film" is due for a revised reprint edition shortly, so if you do not yet have it, then best wait a little while until the new edition hits the shops.

Liger

There's an interesting series of books (collectively published as the 'British Film Makers' series, and published by Manchester University Press) on some fine British directors (including Jack Clayton, Terence Fisher, Lance Comfort, Michael Reeves, Joseph Losey, etc.). Steve Chibnall's contribution to the series is a book on J. Lee Thompson. Elsewhere, however, Steve Chibnall has been responsible (as writer or editor) for some great books on British films / directors: British Crime Cinema; British Horror Cinema; Brighton Rock; Get Carter, etc...

Darling

Already mentioned, but a favourite is Autobiography of British Cinema, Brian McFarlane, with a forward by none other than Darling!

British Film Character Actors, Terence Pettigrew, covering most of the big players from my favourite era, the 1960s.

Hollywood, England: The British Film Industry in the Sixties, Alexander Walker

Sixties British Cinema, Robert Murphy

julian_craster

From Roger

The 2nd edition (with Red Cover) of Brian McFarlane's 'The Encyclopedia of
British Film'
is now released, and Amazon UK are now sending out copies. I received mine
yesterday.

This has 838 pages (including Preface etc, but plus photos) and 260
new articles to fill
gaps from the 1st edition......

New to the 2nd edition are [as you would expect, there no big names here,
but it does give some
idea of the range of the coverage]:

'Denham Concerto'
Compton Films
Germany and British Film
Italy and British Film
Canada and British Film
Music - Jazz in British Film
Harold Baim
Pierre Rouve
Ted Heath
Mario Fabrizi
Paddy Roberts
Kenneth Rive
Tsai Chin
Angela Morley
Susanne Neve
Miles Halliwell
Rolf Harris
Elvi Hale
Timothy Burrill
Virginia Woolf
Martin Slavin
Beth Rogan
Mike and Bernie Winters
Josef Locke
Pat Phoenix
Jimmy Thompson
Manny Wynn


Many more BIBLIOG entries are added, and existing articles updated and
corrected where necessary, with new information added (up to and including
death of Sir John Mills).

For those who already have the 1st edition, whether you decide to upgrade
would
largely depend on whether names such as the above ring any bells with you...

Roger

The_Late_Peter_Cook

Some of my favourites (such as Barr's Ealing Studios) have been mentioned, but here's a few more:

Alfred Hitchcock: A Life In Darkeness & Light - Patrick McGuilligan (which explodes a few of Spoto's 'inventions' [img]style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/wink.gif[/img] )

Hammer & Beyond - Peter Hutchings

Realism & Tinsel - Robert Murphy

British Cinema: Past & Present - J Astby/A Higson (eds)

Dirk Bogarde: The Authorised Biography - John Coldstream

So You Want To Be In Pictures? - Val Guest

Straight From The Horse's Mouth - Ronald Neame

British Cinema Of The 'Fifties : A Celibretion - Mackillap/Sinyard (eds)

The British Cinema Book - Robert Murphy (ed)

The Director's Cut - Roy Ward Baker

Secret Dreams - A Biography Of Michael Regrave - Alan Strachan

The Life And Death Of Peter Sellers - Roger Lewis

David Lean - Kevin Brownlow

The Family Way: The Boulting Brothers & film Culture - Burton/Wells/O'Sullivan (eds)

catflap

I scored a couple of weeks work researching the second edition and must say that it was was the Harry Potter films that we could always count on for updates!

Everybody seemed to work on those flicks in one capacity or another!