film industry

film industry. Cinematography, on which many experiments were made in various countries, became feasible after the advent of celluloid film in 1889 and subsequent innovations in the motion film camera and the projector during the early 1890s. Following rapidly on the first public film show in Paris in 1895, the first commercial showing in Britain in 1896 caught public imagination to such an extent that films were soon being shown in halls, music-halls, and theatres. Later many of these buildings were converted into cinemas and by the early 1900s cinematography was becoming widespread. The first major custom-built picture house, the Alpha, opened in St Albans in 1908. A tremendous boom in cinema building and conversion took place during the next few years and continued unabated until the First World War, by which time there were about 3,500. The Cinematograph Act, 1909, sought among other requirements the safety of the audience.

There was a corresponding growth in film-making and for the first decade British producers were very successful, establishing an important export market, particularly to the USA. Nevertheless only 15 per cent of films released in Britain were of British origin, with France and the USA accounting for 36 and 28 per cent respectively in 1910.

The main characteristic of the British film industry in the decade following the war was the dominance of American companies. This had reached such a degree of saturation that by 1926 British films occupied less than 5 per cent of British screen-time. The Cinematograph Films Act of 1927 attempted to counter this situation by setting quotas to combat the ‘Hollywood invasion’. The Films Act became the cornerstone of Board of Trade film policy, recognizing the propaganda value of film and its increasing economic importance, and going some way to assisting British film production. A golden era for the film industry began with the arrival of the talkies in 1927–8, and, despite the depression, cinema building accelerated, no fewer than 715 new cinemas being built 1927–32. There was a boom in British production 1933–6, but in attempting to emulate Hollywood's lavish output, costs of film-making escalated dramatically. The international success of Alexander Korda's The Private Life of Henry VIII (1933) was exceptional.

The Moyne Committee, reporting in 1936, suggested major reforms, including a Films Commission and a quality test, but the Films Act of 1938, rather than addressing the financial and production problems of the industry, mainly reiterated the quotas of 1927. However, the Films Council was established in 1938. By 1939 the post-war structure of the industry was evolving and the aims and limitations of state intervention were clear. The propaganda value of the medium can readily be appreciated by viewing documentary and feature films of the war years.

After 1945 there were belated efforts to assist the British film industry, mainly through the National Film Finance Corporation, but such success as this brought in the 1950s and early 1960s was consistently overshadowed by American imports. As television became more widely available there was a steady decline in cinema attendances and British film production suffered. After a period of painful rationalization, when even more production and acting talent was lost to the USA, increased government support assisted revival. Despite the overwhelming American challenge many British productions achieved international acclaim and cinema-going recovered dramatically during the 1980s.

The development of film has been promoted by the British Film Institute, founded in 1933, and in Scotland by the Scottish Film Council. The National Film Archive has an extensive international collection of books, periodicals, scripts, stills, posters, and over 200,000 films and television programmes, many of considerable historical interest. The Museum of the Moving Image at the South Bank traces the history of film and television. The Scottish Film Council, based in Glasgow, administers the Scottish Film Archive.

See also cinema.

Ian Donnachie