British TV and Film Culture in the 1950s

Su Holmes

Description

This book focuses on the emerging historical relations between British television and film culture in the 1950s. Drawing upon archival research, it does this by exploring the development of the early cinema programme on television - principally Current Release (BBC, 1952-3), Picture Parade (BBC, 1956) and Film Fanfare (ABC, 1956-7) - and argues that it was these texts which played the central role in the developing relations between the media. Particularly when it comes to Britain, the early co-existence of television and cinema has been seen as hostile and antagonistic, but in situating these programmes within the contexts of their institutional production, aesthetic construction and reception, the book aims to ‘reconstruct’ television’s coverage of the cinema as crucial to the fabric of British film and television culture at the time. It demonstrates how the roles of cinema and television - as media industries and cultural forms, but crucially as sites of screen entertainment - effectively came together at this time in such a way that is unique to this decade.

Sujets

• Efficacité professionnelle
• Efficacité
• Media
• Référence
• General
• Business
• Accountancy
• Economics
• History of film
• Cinema of the United Kingdom
• History of Europe
• General officer
• Skill
• Reference
• Employabilité, métiers et formations
• Accounting
• Managerial
• Skills

Informations

• Publié par: Intellect Books
• Date de parution: 01 avril 2005
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781841509211
• Langue: English

Extrait

British TV and Film in the 1950s:
Coming to a TV Near You!
Su Holmes
First Published in the UK in 2005 by Intellect Books, PO Box 862, Bristol BS99 1DE, UK
First Published in the USA in 2005 by Intellect Books, ISBS, 920 NE 58th Ave. Suite 300, Portland, Oregon 97213-3786, USA
Copyright 2005 Intellect Ltd
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 1-84150-121-2
Copy Editor: Holly Spradling
Cover Design: Gabriel Solomons
Author Cover Image: Spencer Scott
Contents
Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Cinema in the Home: The Entertainment of the Future?
Chapter One
Broadcasting It: Approaching the Historical Relations between Cinema and Television
Chapter Two
The Cinema Programme Begins: Developing Film Specially For Television Purposes and Technique
Chapter Three
Current Release : Text and Audience
Chapter Four
The Cinema Programme in the Age of Competition:
Picture Parade and Film Fanfare 1956-8
Chapter Five
As They Really Are, and in Close-up : Film Stars on 1950s Television
Chapter Six
Glamour, Showbusiness and Movies-in-the-Making: The Film Premiere and Behind-the-Scenes
Chapter Seven
Looking at the Wider Picture on the Small Screen:
Reconsidering Television, Widescreen and the X Certificate in the 1950s
Chapter Eight
Picture Parade in Long Trousers : Maturity and Change in the Cinema Programme
Bibliography of Sources
Illustrations
Figure 1: Peter Haigh, presenter of Picture Parade (1956, edition 18a)
Figure 2: Derek Bond, presenter of Picture Parade (1956, edition 18a)
Figure 3: MacDonald Hobley and his quiz wheel (1956, edition 7)
Figure 4: Opening titles of Film Fanfare (1956, edition 15)
Figure 5: Paul Carpenter in Film Fanfare (1956, edition 8)
Figure 6: Peter Noble in the living-room set (1956, edition 8)
Figure 7: Peter Noble in his director s chair in the film studio set (1956, edition 19)
Figure 8: John Fitzgerald in the viewing theatre set (1956, edition 15)
Figure 9: John Parsons brings cinema back to the home: It has been a truly international week with visitors from Hollywood, Rome and Paris (1956, edition 19)
Figure 10: Opening titles of Picture Parade (1956, edition 18a)
Figure 11: British film director Maurice Elvey in Picture Parade s viewing theatre set (1956, edition 18a)
Figure 12: Diana Decker sings with the orchestra on Film Fanfare (1956, edition 7)
Figure 13: MacDonald Hobley chats to British film star Terence Morgan (1956, edition 7)
Figure 14: Peter Haigh interviews Joan Crawford (1956, edition 18a)
Figure 15: Marilyn Monroe faces the media on Film Fanfare (1956, edition 23)
Figure 16: Monroe waves to the crowd who weren t so lucky as the rest of us (1956, edition 23)
Figure 17: At the Yield to the Night premiere: Sabrina was wearing an unusual buckle on the shoulder of her gown (1956, edition 19)
Figure 18: Gig Young and Jeffrey Hunter introduce the behind-the-scenes story of The Searchers (1956)
Figure 19: Film Fanfare goes behind-the-scenes on the set of British thriller Assignment Redhead (1956, edition 9)
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank colleagues and friends at the Southampton Institute - David Lusted, Karen Randell, Julian Hoxter, Paul Marchbank, Ani Ritchie, Bibi Awan, Nick Rumens and Steve Lannin - for putting up with me talking about that 1950s book . I would also particularly like to thank my friends Sean Redmond and Deborah Jermyn for hearing more about it than most, and for always encouraging me along the way. Equally, thanks go to Pam Cook, Tim Bergfelder and Lucy Mazdon at Southampton University for nurturing my initial interest in the relations between television and film history, and for sharing my enthusiasm for the programmes.
My thanks also to May Yao and colleagues at Intellect for showing an interest in the project, and for seeing it through. To Jenny Hammerton at Path Pinewood for allowing me to access the editions of Film Fanfare , and to Christine Slattery at the BBC s audio visual archives.
Finally, I would also like to thank my parents, Jenny and Chris Holmes, for trying to remember the 1950s cinema programme, and what it was like when filmgoers first became televiewers ....... (They are a bit too young , not too old ).
Copyright:
With thanks to the BBC and British Path for permission to use the stills from the programmes.
An earlier version of Chapter Five appeared in Screen , 42 (2) summer, 2001, pp.167-187.
An earlier version of the first half of Chapter Seven appeared in Quarterly Review of Film and Video 21 (2) April-June, 2004, pp.131-147.
An earlier version of the second half of Chapter Seven appeared in Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television October, 2001, pp. 379-397.
Introduction
Cinema in the Home: The Entertainment of the Future?
The year is 1952. Britain s most popular film fan magazine, Picturegoer , has just published its survey on Films and TV , which enquired: What effect - if any - is television having upon the film habits and appetites of British picturegoers? 1 . But at the same time (and on the same page), the magazine also reports news of a TV cinema programme and explains: As the first regular link up between the BBC and your local cinema... it may shape the entertainment of the future . Now cut to 2002, and the popular BBC1 series Alistair McGowan s Big Impression (2001-), featuring impressions of contemporary media celebrities. One sketch involves an impersonation of Jonathan Ross, presenter (at the time of writing) of the BBC s Film 2004 programme. A key feature of the sketch involves Ross complaining about the lack of priority given to his programme, demanding in particular that the BBC Put me on earlier! (The programme usually goes out at 11:35 pm). He emphasises how people arguably seem more films per year than they take holidays, yet holiday programmes take up more time in the television schedules than cinema reviews.
The differences between these constructions of the cinema programme could be explained by reflecting on the decline of the cinema as a mass medium. Picturegoer could not necessarily foresee in 1952 that the impending shifts in cinemagoing would make it unlikely that the cinema programme would ever really represent the entertainment of the future , as the comedy sketch above confirms. But Picturegoer s comment points to more than simply the dangers of forcing a retrospective point of view onto an earlier period. Crucial here is that its news was characterised by excitement about this modern media synergy , not simply because it was hiding behind a na ve inability to take a more realistic look at the future of the cinema as a mass medium, but because in 1952 the cinema programme was representative of a different set of cultural, economic and technological possibilities for the relations between cinema and television. In fact, it is not an exaggeration to suggest that this was a time when these programmes were at the centre of the emerging relations between British film culture and television. In 1956 the BBC s Picture Parade appeared on the screen by announcing itself as a weekly montage of news from the world of the cinema and it is by exploring this world - television s world of cinema - that there exists a further lens through which we can consider the historical interaction between the media. In a period when television is perceived to have been cinema s biggest rival and at the very least, a prime factor in hastening its decline, how did it simultaneously play a role in promoting the medium, so that its films and stars, in fact its entire culture, pervaded the domestic sphere? What are the implications of these programmes for our understanding of the historical interaction between cinema and television and their cultural identities at this time? How did television offer perspectives on the cinema which were shaped by the aesthetic, technological and cultural specificities of its form, and how did these contribute to the particular experience of 1950s film and television culture?
This book explores this cultural role by tracing the development of the cinema programme on British television in the first decade of its existence: 1952-62. The primary focus here is on the three key series of the time, Current Release (BBC, 1952-3), Picture Parade (BBC, 1956-62) and Film Fanfare (ABC, 1956-7), and the book examines their emergence, development and change within this early period of interaction between cinema and television. The fact that these programmes are so central in understanding their historical relations here points to what I argue is the genre s special or unique status in the 1950s. One of the main reasons for this is that the roles of cinema and television (as media industries but crucially as sites of screen entertainment), effectively came together at this time in such a way that is unique to the decade. Television s growing status as a mass medium developed throughout these years, and although this certainly hastened the cinema s decline , the cinema still remained a central part of cultural consciousness and experience for much of the 1950s. This created a context in which the media temporarily shared a status as forms of mass screen entertainment, something that is often overlooked in conventional perspectives of their relations at this time. Particularly after the advent of a British television s second channel in 1955 (ITV), it is not surprising when viewed from this perspective that television coverage of the cinema became a key site in the competition for audiences. It was part of a shared, and still everyday culture that defined the existence of the cinema in such a way that is different from today. Whil