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The oldest known surviving film (from 1888) was shot in the United Kingdom as well as early colour films. While film production reached an all-time high in 1936, the "golden age" of British cinema is usually thought to have occurred in the 1940s, during which the directors David Lean, Michael Powell, and Carol Reed produced their most critically acclaimed works.
Jun 18, 2020 · During the 1930s and 1940s, cinema was the principal form of popular entertainment, with people often attending cinemas twice a week. Ornate ’super’ cinemas or ‘picture palaces’, offering extra facilities such as cafés and ballrooms, came to towns and cities; many of them could hold over 3,000 people in a single auditorium.
Socially conscious films became popular, with many Northern, working-class anti-heroes dominating the big screen. James Bond was also born in this period, becoming a staple of British cinema. With the rise of ‘Swinging London’ in the 1960s, many films produced were centred around this enthralling, expressive culture.
Nov 2, 2020 · November 2, 2020 In 1920s, Headlines from History by Rose Staveley-Wadham. In 1948 cinema attendance peaked with a staggering 1,650 million visits recorded in Great Britain throughout that year. This was the height of the golden age of cinema going, something that had begun in the 1920s and burgeoned throughout the 1930s and 1940s.
- The Gainsborough Melodramas
- The Ealing Comedies
- The Studios’ Legacy
- Conclusion
The first major studio that pioneered their own genre of film was Gainsborough Studios, based in London, which was founded in 1924. Although it produced a plethora of films between its foundation and its closure in 1951, it is most famously remembered for the Gainsborough melodramas, a collection of films produced in the 1940s. These films became i...
Another major name in the studio film boom was Ealing Studios, a London-based studio that started in 1902. Ealing still produces films, TV and music videos to this day, but one of the most important eras of its history was the popularity of the Ealing comedy. Beginning in 1947, the year after the final commonly-accepted Gainsborough melodrama was r...
The popularity of both of these strains of studio film can be compared to modern day trends in cinema. Although to directly link cinematic movements over half a century would be a foolish overstatement, various elements of both Gainsborough melodramas and Ealing comedies can be seen in films to this day. Gainsborough melodramas, being mostly period...
The rise of studio films as important cinematic movements had no previous precedent in the history of British cinema, but the economic success of a series of thematically linked films would clearly be at home in the twenty-first century. Using the same sets, recurring crew and casts, and stories that spoke to British experiences in the war, the stu...
- Tom Bedford
Cinema became the main form of popular entertainment. Ticket sales went from 40 million per week in 1920 to 100 million in 1930. People went several times a week, and long queues outside were normal.
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Mar 30, 2023 · As well as being hugely popular with audiences across the globe, British films during this period also won many prestigious awards including multiple Academy Awards and BAFTAs. This article will explore in detail the Golden Age of British cinema from 1945 to the 1960s, looking at how it came to be, who was involved, and the films that were released during this period.
