First published in 1973 The Film Business makes a factual survey of British films from their beginnings in 1896 to 1972. Ernest Betts offers character studies of men who have built the film industry and made it what it is. He examines the financial and political background and shows how, while intending to encourage film production, it has often had exactly the opposite effect and inhibited its free development. Betts also attacks the manner in which the American film industry has taken over the British film industry and points to the failure of successive governments to save it from repeated crises and losses. Through these fluctuations the author keeps a firm eye on the film itself and brings the judgement of film critics past and present to bear on British cinema, as it moves uncertainly and not without its triumphs into the 1970s.
This is an interesting read for students and scholars of film studies, British film history and British cinema.
Acknowledgements Preface Part I: Beginnings 1. The Threepenny Cinema 2. First Features: Hepworth and Others 3. Early Influences 4. Pearson, Samuelson, Elvey and their Contemporaries 5. Sound Erupts in the 1920s 6. Of Cinemas, Societies and Institutions Part II: Development 7. Wardour Street: The Structure of the Industry 8. The Building of the Cinemas: Bromhead, Ostrer, Bernstein, Deutsch 9. The 1930s: Rank and the Great Carve-up of the Industry 10. Boom and Crisis in the 1930s 11. The Studios: Conditions of Filming Part III: The Film Matures 12. Alfred Hitchcock and Anthony Asquith 13. Victor Saville, Herbert Wilcox, and Others 14. Sense and the Censorship 15. Alexander Korda and the 1930s 16. More Directors of the 1930s 17. Brief Encounters: Filippo del Giudice and Gabriel Pascal Part IV: Documents and War Films 18. The Documentary Movement 1929-1940 19. War Films: Documentary, 1939-1945 20. War Films: Fiction and Semi-Fiction 21. War Films: The Final Phase: 1943-1945 Part V: End of the Great Days 22. War-Time Changes and the Monopoly Report 23. The Post-war Film Industry 24. TV Changes the Pattern 25. Some Post-war Films, 1945-1950 26. The Englishness of Ealing Part VI: Transition Stage 27. The Lion’s Tail Twisted 28. Transition in the 1950s Part VII: Into the 1970s 29. New Men, New Cinema 30. The Changing Background -1960s- 1970s 31. The Director as Super-star Conclusion Appendix I Appendix II Notes Bibliography Index
Biography
Ernest Betts
