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The British Film Industry During the 1930s

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Life in the 1930s was not necessarily... great. Panic, disease, and unemployment. 

People needed something to help relieve their stress, and one of the solutions was the cinema. And what makes the 1930s British films stand out? Some might argue that it’s their intention to distract people from daily life problems and the unpleasant reality.

The cinema was a great experience for the working-class, giving them hope for a better, prosperous life amid the chaos they were facing.

To understand the development of the British film industry during the 1930s, we must first look at the American cinema in the 1920s. After the first world war, the Eighteen Amendment introduced the Prohibition Era in the U.S., which inflicted severe damage on the Broadway entertainment industry at that time. However, on the opposite coast, at Hollywood, a new movie industry started flourishing, meeting the frustrated consumers’ demand for entertainment (Streissguth, 37).

With the beginning of the Great Depression and with the nations of Europe being in a state of economic chaos, the demand for exports from the United States fell (Streissguth, 59).

However, right before entering the new decade of the 1930s, the emerging film industry from Hollywood began to surpass its main competition in Europe and began reaching out to a worldwide audience.

Why didn’t the film industry take off in Europe? Because the needs of a war industry were considered more important than those of entertainment. Consequently, the film industries of European countries such as France, En­gland, and Germany had shut down, unlike the U.S. studios that continued to produce films (Streissguth, 247).

It seems that, out of the main well-developed film industries at that time, the British cinema of the 1930s is possibly the “least known and least studied and is certainly, for its size, the least respected” (Shafer, 9).

Although the British film industry was the largest outside the American film industry, British films were often dismissed as unaesthetic, with no essence, stage-bound, or poor play adaptations, until the very end of the 1930s.

However, the cinema was still a source of reassurance and comfort for the working-class, having a significant impact on the daily lives of the people in Britain during a time of great disappointment and suffering.

According to Shafer (1997), as British author George Orwell remarked, in a decade of unprecedented depression, the “consumption of all cheap luxuries” had risen, and the two examples that perfectly encapsulate this phenomenon are films and the mass-production of cheaply-made smart clothes (14).

It is important to keep in mind that not all films shown in British cinemas were made in Britain, but American films were also particularly popular at that time (Shafer, 17). To increase their market share in Britain, one of the proponents of the Films Act, Lord Askwith, declared that the legislation would encourage the production and distribution of British films.

The legislation, indeed, gave a substantial boost to British production during the initial phase, however, it did not lead to the production of “the expensive, globally competitive films that were envisaged by Lord Askwith and his colleagues” (Ede, 29).

Therefore, the 1930s turned out to be a period of false promise for the British film industry. Large sums of money were spent on large-scale film production, but the final products often proved to be disappointing. In the U.S., the situation was fairly different.

The American main players in the film industry had not only been successfully protecting their home markets but they also had substantial distribution and exhibition links in Britain.

Having to deal with their U.S. competitors, British production companies were overwhelmed and, after the initial period of rapid expansion, the British film industry plummeted in 1937 as investors withdrew their financial support (Ede, 29).

Although the British film industry of the 1930s is not known for its success in terms of aesthetics and innovation, there are three films that particularly stand out:

1. The Private Life of Henry VIII (1933)

    This British historical film is concerned with the personal life of an intriguing figure in British history, Henry VIII. The film made the incredible amount of £50,000 on its first run alone, being shown in 20,000 cinemas by March 1934. (Ede, 45) But what was one of the key elements that make the film so special? The fact that it allowed its audience to sympathise with the king by enabling them to take a peek at “his private boudoir world” (Street, 39) and that it is the first major historical film since the emergence of photography technology, being credited with “reviving a genre that had been dormant since the silent period" (Chapman, 13).

    It is worth noting that The Private Life of Henry VIII appears to have been “an isolated case of a British film conquering international markets” (Street, 9).


    2. The Iron Duke (1935):

      The Iron Duke, directed by Victor Saville, was one of the films produced as a result of the popularity of The Private Life of Henry VIII and the historical film genre (Chapman, 45). The film is concerned with the private life of the protagonist, Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington during the events that lead up to the infamous Battle of Waterloo in 1815.


      3. Victoria The Great (1937)

        The film is considered to have been a huge box-office success, partly because it was released soon after the Abdication Crisis, in a time “when confidence in the monarchy needed to be restored” (Street, 14), while portraying the monarchy as “serving the needs of the nation.” (Street, 122).

        In conclusion, the British film industry during the 1930s went through several stages, being mostly subject to an era of censorship, monarchism and propaganda, aiming to comfort British citizens during a period of profound distress.


        Works Cited:

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        • Chapman, James. National Identity and the British Historical Film. I.B. Tauris & Co Ltd., 2005
        • Ede, Laurie A. British Film Design. A History. I.B. Tauris & Co Ltd., 2010
        • Shafer, Stephen C. British Popular Films 1929-1939. The Cinema of Reassurance. Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005
        • Street, Sarah. British National Cinema. Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005
        • Streissguth, Tom. The Roaring Twenties, Revised Edition. Facts on File-Infobase, 2007