For almost all of the 20th century the British Film Industry has languished in the shadow of the Hollywood dream factory.  Before the end of the First World War the American Industry had organised itself into a number of powerful, vertically integrated companies that encompassed production, distribution and exhibition.  In Britain, during the same period, nothing of the same scale occurred, indeed actress Joan Morgan describes British film production at this time as virtually a "cottage industry". (Cinema Europe: The Other Hollywood) As Friedman puts it:

"Hollywood...effectively colonialised Britain's native markets and, except for some relatively brief periods, the British failed to mount any effective challenge to this foreign domination of its film industry".  (Friedman 1993: 2)

The sheer amount of product Hollywood was able to offer to an eager world market elevated it to a virtually unassailable pre-eminence, which has never been seriously threatened since.  In addition to the quantity of Hollywood output, their greater quality of production and presentation was rarely equalled by British films.   Although in the very early years of film production the British had been innovators in camerawork and editing, they were soon left behind by major stylistic developments in America, as well as Germany, Russia and France.

Hollywood's early dominance allowed the system of block booking to be employed by the US majors.  This meant that if British exhibitors wanted to show the big star vehicles that the audience would be clamouring to see, then they would be tied into agreements that forced them to take other product from the US companies as well.   Although during the 1920's and early '30's, as economic depression set in, British investment was ploughed into the construction of new cinemas, this was not matched by significant funding of indigenous film production.  By the late '20's the situation had deteriorated to the point where only 5% of the films shown in Britain were home produced. 

In an attempt to address this situation, the government passed the Cinematograph Act of 1927.  This introduced the concept that a quota of British produced films had to be shown to home audiences.  Many of these 'quota quickies', as they were derisively labelled, were funded by American companies. Generally considered to be shoddy and of little merit, they did provide a useful training ground for British actors and technicians. Important ideas and influences were also to be found at this time with the attempts to link British production to the co-operative idea of "Film Europe".  

"Film Europe" was an attempt by the major European production companies to create a large market for their own films, and by so doing establish a defence against the perceived hegemony of the US companies.  Indeed, this promising concept could have been a serious rival to American power had it not fallen victim to the economic depression of the late 1920's and early 1930's and the advent of synchronised sound with film.   For Britain, the advent of sound meant that, with our shared language, American influence was to be greater than ever, and our links with "Film Europe" were broken.  No longer was film completely universal; depending as it now did on a soundtrack recorded in the appropriate local language.  The impact of sound was also felt worldwide in the economic cost of having to install expensive sound systems in both the studios and cinemas.   Although "Film Europe" may not have survived as a movement, the influence of the films produced, particularly the German ones, had a great impact on certain British directors.

The early work of Alfred Hitchcock was greatly influenced by the techniques of German expressionism, as well as elements of French impressionist cinema.  Hitchcock actually directed his first feature, The Pleasure Garden (1925), at the UFA studios in Munich, and even though it was shot in Britain, The Lodger (1926) had all the stylistic touches of a German studio.  The German influence reached other British directors, such as Jack Cutts and Anthony Asquith, whose Underground (1928) and Cottage On Dartmoor (1929) also displayed a debt to the montage techniques of the Russian cinema.

Although these European influences were important in the development of filmmaking on a worldwide basis, it was American cinema that defined virtually all of the genres that have come to be accepted as the landmarks of popular movie culture.  From gangster movie to the detective story, later to metamorphosis into film noir, from western to horror film, from musical to screwball comedy, from love story to women's movie, and so on.   All of these American genres became staples in the diet of British cinema audiences in the 1920's and '30's, and, with variations and additions, remain so today.  This is not to forget that 'British film' is a genre in itself, containing many sub-genres, such as the Ealing comedies, Hammer horror, the Carry On series and - perhaps most influential of all British contributions to filmmaking - the documentary. However the mass popularity of the American genres dictated that British filmmakers had to follow a set of conventions if they were aiming for an international success, particularly if they wished to attract US finance at the outset.

The problem of raising finance for British films continues to be a major problem as the 20th century draws to its close.  America continues to be the major player in the industry, and is still the source for the bulk of the money for most British productions that aim beyond the low-budget or independent cinema.  However, if the aims of the British filmmaker differ from the expectations of the US financiers, will the money be forthcoming?  In the case of a film like The Krays (1990), the answer is "no". 

On the surface, a film about two twin brothers, notorious hoodlums in 1950's and '60's London, may be seen as a variation of the well-worn gangster genre.  The Krays, however, is not a standard gangster movie, and does not adhere strictly to genre convention.  The films director, Peter Medak, and scriptwriter, Phillip Ridley, investigate the Kray family background to an extent that the psychological development of the twins is more important in the story than any chronological charting of their rise to the top of their violent profession.  The film subverts the convention of the male dominated patriarchal family by showing that the real strength of this family unit lies with its women, especially the Kray's mother, Violet, and her sister Rose.  The Kray's father is shown as both weak and a failure, portrayed as a captive of the matriarchal society around him.

The depiction of matriarchal dominance producing the founders of a criminal empire may not have sat easily with potential American backers.  Not that the audience is shown Violet Kray as being involved in the detail of her sons activities.  Indeed, compared to, say, Ma Jarrett in White Heat (1949), Mrs Kray is almost a benign figure.   Whereas Ma Jarrett is portrayed as deeply involved in, indeed the driving force behind, her son Cody's criminality, Violet Kray is content to supply tea and biscuits for her sons gang as they hold their meetings upstairs at the family home.  What these two female characters share is their obsessive guardianship of their sons, with the subsequent effect of infantilising them.  In the words of Cameron, a "...fiercely protective attitude...akin to that of the proud mother of a gifted child" (Cameron: 1975: 116) However, unlike Ma Jarrett, the women in The Krays are given passionate voice to attack the patriarchal norm.  Rose says:

"Men!  Mum's right - they stay kids all their fucking lives and they end up heroes or monsters.  Either way, they win.  Women have to grow up.  If they stay children, they become victims".

The gender representation in The Krays, and the reassessment of the supposed national consensus of World War Two Britain, is particularly interesting in the context of the films date of production.  Coming at the end of Margaret Thatcher's eleven years as Prime Minister, the film can be interpreted as an attack on the values that she held so important whilst in office.  The Kray twins career could be seen as a natural culmination of the entrepreneurial spirit and rejection of the 'nanny-state' that Thatcher was so determined to foster in Britain during the 1980's.  As Desjardins puts it:

"The Krays suggests, with a kind of irony and cynicism that seems particularly relevant to a historical context in which a woman [Thatcher] can claim with no irony that "you get on because you have the right talents," that women can only save themselves from victimisation if they control men to act in the name of capitalism on women's behalf". (Desjardins 1993: 143)

It may well have been that because of such a sub-text American money was not forthcoming for The Krays, and a British company, Parkfield, eventually funded the project.  Potential American backers may also have seen the working class setting of the film as a disincentive in worldwide box-office terms. Social class may be an endlessly fascinating topic of British introspection, but has it any interest or relevance to foreign audiences, particularly American?  Friedman argues that the British film industry obsession with the class system "finds little resonance in the cultural consciousness of the United States." (Friedman 1993: 7)  It is interesting to note that few of the biggest British film successes in the US, in terms of box-office receipts, from The Private Life of Henry VIII (1933) to Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994), feature what could be described as working class characters.  The American audience may be willing to spend money on watching the antics of Britain's upper classes, but seem to find little identification with working class culture.  So, to quote Friedman again, "...while issues of class provided British filmmakers with a master theme, such concerns tended to characterise their films as mainly localised and essentially parochial." (Friedman 1993: 8)

This "master theme" has always been apparent in British film.  Graham Greene, then a film critic for The Spectator, wrote in 1935 of:

"...the social snobbery that hampers the English cinema.  The material of English films, unlike French or American, is nearly always drawn from the leisured class, a class of which the director and his audience know really very little". (Greene 1972: 39)

In the years since Greene made that comment British society has evolved greatly, and this has, not unnaturally, been reflected by class and gender representation on film.   World War Two was instrumental in starting this process.  There was a real need to establish a feeling of community, of everyone fighting for a common cause against a common enemy. Films such as In Which We Serve (1942), Millions Like Us (1943) and The Way Ahead (1944) all showed men and women from different classes and backgrounds bonding together, and leaving social distinction behind them.  How accurate a representation this was is certainly open to debate, as in The Krays, but the propaganda element was probably extremely successful in its time.  After the early 1950's British film largely retreated to a cosy middle class never-never land, which made the impact of social-realist movies such as Room at the Top (1959), Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960) and This Sporting Life (1963) all the more dramatic.  Shot on location in grimy industrial England, they all featured working class characters in a much more realistic manner than before. 

The lasting impact of this period, both socially and as depicted on film, was to make it unacceptable to treat working class characters with the glib condescension that they received previously.  The use of the Stanley Holloway and Joyce Cary characters in Brief Encounter (1945) has often been cited as a prime example of this patronising attitude the lower classes.  The purpose they serve in this film is also a common motif of the period.  They are allowed to swap sexual badinage quite openly, while poor, repressed Laura and Alec would presumably find such talk distasteful.  Prior to the very late'50's this theme of upper and middle class decency against working class delinquency ran through many British films.  It was at its most blatant in Madonna of the Seven Moons (1944), a risible piece from Gainsborough studios.  In this 'epic' the character played by Phyllis Calvert is a schizophrenic who changes from demure lady of the manor to an earthy, sexually provocative gypsy.  In gypsy mode, Phyllis is not adverse to a little theft, or living with a set of thieves, vagabonds and all round villains.  Seen from a vantage point of more than fifty years this is at best condescending to working people, and at worst downright offensive.  These stereotypes have now largely vanished from British film, although perhaps not as readily from British society.  So, if social class is judged to be anathema to American filmgoers, what is the result for British filmmakers?

The consequence of this would seem to be, if international and US audiences will not pay to see it, then US companies will not provide the finance for it.  So, to raise this capital there is a need to pander to a sense of 'Britishness' that can be commercially marketable abroad, particularly in the United States.  This leads to films that give an internationally recognisable representation of British life, particularly if set in the past, winning American backing at the expense of more contentious social realist efforts.  This has led to a schism in British film production between the prestige 'heritage' movie and low budget efforts that may attract good reviews abroad, but are never destined to be challengers for international box office success.

Having attracted the all-important US dollars to fund a movie, that movie has to a success and not just recoup the original investment, but show a profit.  As American producer Sam Goldwyn Jnr puts it, "movies are a business, not roulette". (The Business)   Goldwyn's company put up 80% of the financing for The Madness of King George (1995), a film very much in the heritage mode of British film.  Once completed, the hype machine moved smoothly into operation with a full-scale media blitz in the US designed to boost the films performance at the box office.  That such a campaign was first waged in the US is indicative of the vital financial power of that country.  By opening first in the US, cultivating influential critics and commentators and spending £1 million on publicity, Goldwyn saw an opportunity to elevate King George from an art-house movie into a mainstream success.  Four Oscar nominations did no harm to the campaign, and Helen Mirren was later to take the best actress award at Cannes to further help publicity.  Goldwyn, in common with many current producers and financiers, see initial US success as vital as a means of boosting the box office returns internationally, even in the country of origin.

The message would appear to be as obvious as it has ever been, Hollywood rules.   This dominance extends not just to the worldwide success of its own product, but to the influence it holds over the economic prospects and modes of representation in the British film industry.  British film would currently appear to be in something of a boom period again, following the success of a few movies.  Whether or not this period will have any longevity we can only hope, but it seems highly unlikely that the industry in this country will ever be independent of the Hollywood machine.

Richard Bird, 1998.

References

BOOKS

Cameron, I.  "A Pictorial History of Crime Films"
(London. Hamlyn Publishing Group Limited.  1975)

Greene, G. ed. Russell Taylor, J.  "The Pleasure-Dome: The Collected Film Criticism 1935-40"
(Oxford University Press.  1972.  1980 edition.)

CHAPTERS FROM BOOKS

Desjardins, M.  (1993)  "Free from the Apron Strings: Representations of Mothers in the Maternal British State"
(in Friedman, L. ed. British Cinema and Thatcherism: Fires were Started
London, UCL Press.  1993.  pp. 130-144.)

Friedman, L.  (1993)
The Empire Strikes Out.
(in Friedman, L. ed. British Cinema and Thatcherism: Fires were Started
London, UCL Press.  1993.  pp. 1-11.)

TELEVISION PRORAMMES

The Business: A tale of Two Movies
Directed by John Longley.
Produced by Jane Walmsley.

Cinema Europe: The Other Hollywood
Episode: Opportunity Lost (British Cinema 1900-1930's)
BBC Television.
Produced and Directed by Kevin Brownlow and David Gill.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Nelmes, J. (ed)  An Introduction to Film Studies
(London.  Routledge. 1996)

Street, S.  British National Cinema
(London.  Routledge.  1997)

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