Popular Filmgoing in 1930s Britain: A Choice of Pleasures

Front Cover
University of Exeter Press, 2000 - History - 316 pages
In the 1930s there were close to a billion annual admissions to the cinema in Britain and it was by far the most popular paid-for leisure activity. This book is an exploration of that popularity. John Sedgwick has developed the POPSTAT index, a methodology based on exhibition records which allows identification of the most popular films and the leading stars of the period, and provides a series of tables which will servce as standard points of reference for all scholars and specialists working in the field of 1930s cinema. The book establishes similarities and differences between national and regional tastes through detailed case study analysis of cinemagoing in Bolton and Brighton, and offers an analysis of genre development. It also reveals that although Hollywood continued to dominate the British market, films emanating from British studios proved markedly popular with domestic audiences.

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Contents

Tables
41
3
50
Shares in the British Market
84
Popular Films and their Stars in Bolton Worktown
105
Profits Film Budgets and Popularity
143
Stardom and Hits
180
Michael Balcons Close Encounter with the American Market
223
Difficulties Facing the Production Sector of the British
230
Conclusion
243
The national sample cinema
254
POPSTAT Top 100 films 19321937
262
Notes
277
References
307
Index
313
Copyright

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About the author (2000)

John Sedgwick is Principal Research Fellow at the University of North London.