The Development of British
Cinema
Early growth
• 1914 c7-8 million tickets sold per week
• 1917 c20million
• 1939 c23million
Early growth
• 1914 c7-8 million tickets sold per week
• 1917 c20million
• 1939 c23million
• 1914 3,000 cinemas
• 1930s 5,000 cinemas
Pyke’s Cinematograph Theatre in Balham, south
london, photographed soon after it opened in 1911
Popularity of cinema going
• Cheap
Popularity of cinema going
• Cheap
• Accessible
Popularity of cinema going
• Cheap
• Accessible
• Sociable
Popularity of cinema going
•
•
•
•
Cheap
Accessible
Sociable
Glamour
Popularity of cinema going
•
•
•
•
•
Cheap
Accessible
Sociable
Glamour
Escapism
AJP Taylor
English History 1914-1945 (1992)
‘the essential social habit of the age’
Queuing for the pictures, 1937
Cinema audience
N Hiley
“Let’s go to the pictures” The British Cinema
Audience in the 1920s and 30s
Journal of popular British cinema vol .2 1999
Cinema audience
N Hiley
“Let’s go to the pictures” The British Cinema
Audience in the 1920s and 30s
Journal of Popular British Cinema vol .2 1999
Harper and Porter
Cinema audience tastes in 1950s Britain
Journal of Popular British Cinema vol .2 1999
Cinema industry in 1920s and 30s
Kenton Bamford
Distorted Images: British National Identity and
Film in the 1920s (1999)
Cinema industry in 1920s and 30s
Kenton Bamford
Distorted Images: British National Identity and
Film in the 1920s (1999)
• Power of the American film industry
Cinema industry in 1920s
Kenton Bamford
Distorted Images: British National Identity and
Film in the 1920s (1999)
• Power of the American film industry
• Portrayal of women
Cinema industry in 1930s
• Films with an Imperial theme
Cinema industry in 1930s
• Films with an Imperial theme
• Portrayal of the British character