Lejeune, C.A. (1897–1973)

Britain's first full-time film critic, whose writings for The Observer covered more than three decades of filmmaking. Born Caroline Alice Lejeune in Didsbury, Manchester, England, on March 27, 1897; died in 1973; daughter of Adam Edward Lejeune and Jane Louisa (MacLaren) Lejeune; had four sisters and three brothers; graduated from the University of Manchester, 1921; married Edward Roffe Thompson; children: son, Anthony.

Caroline Alice Lejeune was born in Didsbury, Manchester, England, in 1897, the daughter of a German-born Nonconformist minister of Huguenot ancestry. Her father died before she was two, and she grew up in a large house with her mother Jane MacLaren Lejeune , servants, a nanny, four sisters, and three brothers. Caroline began attending Oxford University, which she disliked, and transferred to the University of Manchester, graduating in 1921. By this time, she was contributing music reviews to the Manchester Guardian, made possible because C.P. Scott, the newspaper's editor, was a close friend of Caroline's mother Jane. At age 24, Caroline, henceforth known as C.A. Lejeune, decided to become a film critic. In a country which then had no full-time film critics, much less any women film critics, this was a bold decision. From 1922 to 1928, Lejeune was a film critic for the Manchester Guardian, signing her column C.A.L. In 1928, she began working for The Observer, a position she would hold until her retirement in 1960.

Many of Lejeune's reviews in The Observer remain of contemporary interest for their acute and perceptive commentaries on an emerging art form. When she began writing film reviews in the early 1920s, the medium was silent and in many ways primitive. But changes came quickly, and these were noticed with insight by Lejeune. Unafraid of film innovations, she welcomed the appearance of sound in films during the late 1920s, when other critics remained skeptical or even hostile to this revolution in filmmaking. From the start, she recognized the importance of newly emerging cinematic styles, including those in the powerful films being made in Soviet Russia, particularly Sergei Eisenstein's landmark Battleship Potemkin. Skilled at cultivating friendships, she was on close terms with many of the great personalities of the British prewar cinema, including Alfred Hitchcock and Alexander Korda.

For all of her sophistication about films, Lejeune was essentially a homebody, who enjoyed her family, friends, and garden to the fullest. After her retirement in 1960, she never again went to the cinema. (Even while she served as one of Britain's most influential film critics, Lejeune had never gone to film festivals on the Continent or made a pilgrimage to Hollywood.) Her books, well-received in her day, are still of value to readers.

sources:

Hartley, Jenny. Hearts Undefeated: Women's Writing of the Second World War. London: Virago Press, 1995.

Lejeune, Anthony, ed. The C.A. Lejeune Film Reader. Manchester: Carcanet, 1991.

Lejeune, C.A. Cinema. London: A. Maclehose, 1931.

——. Thank You For Having Me. London: Tom Stacey, 1971.

Powell, Dilys. "Lejeune, Caroline Alice," in Lord Blake and C.S. Nicholls, eds. The Dictionary of National Biography 1971–1980. Oxford and NY: Oxford University Press, 1986, pp. 497–498.

Rosenthal, Alan. "The Film Criticism of C.A. Lejeune." M.A. thesis, Stanford University, 1962.

John Haag , Associate Professor of History, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia