Principia College, Elsah, IL 62028

British cinema after the Second World War can be distinguished by a number of features. The films were generally comedies, melodramas, literary or horror films. Among the features surfacing through these films were 1) attempts to preserve the nostalgic values, such as community, of wartime Britain, and 2) the rejection of the realism and documentary style of the World War II films, particularly through expressionism and stylization.

The post-war period, particularly the years 1945-1950, was an era of renaissance for British cinema, although it was short-lived. Pre-war British film was dominated by Hollywood and its conventions. At that time, British commercial productions were often designed as second features on a Hollywood double bill. The post-war reaction to the war films also encompassed reaction to the pre-war films.

British society in the pre-war period, especially 1918 through 1935, was marked by a stratified class system and economic doldrums. The Conservative government under Stanley Baldwin implemented policies, such as the "means test," that accentuated class distinctions and worked against the working class. As mentioned, the British film industry was under the influence of the Americans. Unlike the Germans or the French, who had developed distinctive national film identities in the 1920's and 1930's, respectively, British film seem to lose its sense of national identity.

The first post-war Labour government under Clement Atlee came to power in 1945 among high hopes for a new society in Britain. World War II was remembered as a "people's war." There was euphoria over the victory and peace. The new society, built on the community spirit of the war years, would wipe away vestiges of classes. Starvation, depression and unemployment of the inter-war years would be eliminated. The government undertook nationalization of key industries, such as mines, railways, gas and electricity. It developed innovative social programs, such as free national health care and medicine. National education was expanded through the Education Act, which provided free education to age 14 and opened access to universities. Unfortunately, compounded by the post-war financial crises, the Labour experiment failed. Britain, saddled with massive war loans (particularly to the Americans), became a debtor nation. Disillusionment with the Labour government resulted in the Tories' return to power in 1951. Some have called this a "failure of nerve." Bevins referred to it as a "poverty of desire."

Post-war British film had high hopes for itself, especially to establish and maintain its own identify. One of the proponents was J. Arthur Rank, who through his Rank Organization sponsored the distribution of Olivier's Henry V in America. Unfortunately, distribution of British films in the United States was severely hampered by a tax crisis in 1947. In order to help deal with the severe balance of payments crisis following the war, the British government imposed a 75% tax on foreign film earnings. Since Britain was America's major overseas market, the Americans retaliated with a total boycott of the British market for eight months. An Anglo-American agreement in 1948 resolved the crisis by instituting a quota system. In order to meet the quota requirements, American companies in Britain produced a series of low-budget "quickies." Instead of stimulating home industry, the crisis contributed to large production losses. Among the victims of the struggle to meet the production demands of the quota system was the Independent Frame Experiment, sponsored by the Rank Organization.

During this era, British film industry was dominated by several major forces -- both personalities and studios. Among the personalities were producers such as J. Arthur Rank, Alexander Korda, Michael Balcon and James Carreras. They led studios such as Ealing, Gainsborough and Hammer. These studios produced the works of directors like Boulding brothers, the collaborative team of Powell and Pressburger, and a stable of creative writers and directors at Ealing.

The British film industry tried to expand overseas. J. Arthur Rank, of the Rank Organization, expanded his world-wide distribution. The Associated British Picture Corporation or ABPC joined Warner Brothers to establish distribution in the United States. Alexander Korda purchased London Films and British Lion, the former from MGM. Korda's London Films had in 1933 produced The Private Lives of Henry VIII. He established distribution of his films in the United States through Twentieth Century Fox. Unlike the ambitions of the highly financed studios, Ealing Studios focused its efforts on a series of modest comic films.

Teams of writer/directors made a series of notable "collective" films. The Boulting brothers, John and Roy, alternated as director and producer of a series of films, including Brighton Rock (1947), The Magic Box (1951), Lucky Jim (1957), and I'm All Right, Jack (1959). The team of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, working under the label of the Archers and supported by J. Arthur Rank, created two spectaculars, The Red Shoes (1948) and Tales of Hoffman (1951). The first popularized ballet while the second popularized opera. Powell and Pressburger's Stairway to Heaven (also called A Matter of Life and Death, 1945) was the imaginary tale of a pilot who is accidently called to heaven to soon.

Adaptions may be one of the strongest styles in post-war British cinema. Often the adaptions were from England's most famous works of literature -- the works of William Shakespeare and Charles Dickens. David Lean directed Dicken's Great Expectations (1946) and Oliver Twist (1947). Laurence Olivier followed his Henry V (1945) with Hamlet (1948) and Richard III (1955). Director Carol Reed adapted stories by F.L. Green (Odd Man Out, 1946), Graham Greene (Fallen Idol, 1948; The Third Man, 1949, based on a Greene script later written into a novel), and Joseph Conrad (Outcast of the Islands, 1951). Anthony Asquith adapted several plays, including Terence Rattingan's The Winslow Boy (1948) and The Browning Version (1951), and Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest (1952). The Boulding brothers adapted stories of Greene (Brighton Rock, 1947) and Kingsley Amis (Lucky Jim, 1957). Thorold Dickinson directed Alexander Pushkin's story The Queen of Spades (1949). The , whether from novels and short stories or from stage and theater, evoked literary structure and values.

Among the most remembered films of the period were comedies produced at Ealing Studios under the leadership of Michael Balcon. The Ealing comedies produced versatile character actors, such as Alec Guinness, Alastair Sim and Margaret Rutherford, and a number of talented directors, such as Alexander MacKendrick (Whiskey Galore, 1947; The Lady Killers, 1955), Robert Hamer (Kind Hearts and Coronets, 1949), Charles Crichton (Hue and Cry, 1947; The Lavender Hill Mob, 1951), and Henry Cornelius (Passport to Pimlico, 1949).

Gainsborough melodramas, appearing between 1945 and 1951, and Hammer horror films, appearing after the Forties, exemplified the various avenues of escape from the war. Gainsborough Pictures created a series of period pieces starring actors such as James Mason, Stewart Granger, Margaret Lockwood and Phyllis Calvert. Set in the Regency period, these melodramas told stories of highwaymen, rakes and "wicked ladies." The melodramas, such as The Man in Grey and The Wicked Lady (1945), were flamboyant escapism, while the Hammer films, such as Dracula and Curse of Frankenstein (1958), could include horror and terror unacceptable in war. Christopher Lee got his start as Count Dracula while Peter Cushing started as Count Frankenstein. There had been strong cultural taboos against horror during the war. Porter (1983, 205) has written that Sir James Carreras, producer of the Hammer horrors, "simply wanted to turn out fairy tales -- many designed to frighten, to horrify or to shock."

One of the myths that arose from war-weary Britain was a belief in the unity and equality of the community. The myth continued for a brief time after the war, fueled by hopes for the Labour government's experiment, when recovering English society felt the possibility of continuing the unity experienced in the "people's war" to solve the nation's massive social problems. The myth, in which all elements of society, even those not normally associating with one another, pull together, played out in a number of films, such as the Ealing films of Hue and Cry, Whiskey Galore, Passport to Pimlico, and The Blue Lamp. Michael Balcon of Ealing Studios produced these films as "fantastic escape." The fantasy created was of a sense of community engendered by the world war. The escape was in whimsy and retreat from reality.

Hue and Cry was the first of what have become known as the Ealing comedies and it began the fantasy premise of community. The setting in south London, an area ravaged by the German blitz, was scheduled for massive rebuilding in the years 1945-1953. In Hue and Cry, writer T.E.B. Clarke focused on a London community of youths living and playing around a bombsite, who come together to defeat a gang of criminals. The young hero, Joe Kirby (played by Harry Fowler), spends time reading escapist pulp detective comics. Through a series of fantastic and curious encounters, Joe discovers a criminal syndicate of black market operators using comic books as a code. Joe, with the help of the community of boys (a boy at the radio station yells into the microphone, "all boys wanting adventure"), subdues the criminals, led by the evil Nightingale (played by Jack Warner, who was soon to play a good guy). Barr summarized the theme of the movie:

The wartime spirit is resurrected in a number of forms. A little boy sits at the bombsite and mimics the noises of war. The film begins and ends with the boys in choir, singing "O for the wings of doves." As the camera pulls back from the choir, the audiences sees the "wounds of war" -- cuts, scraps, black eyes -- on the boys. The overall spirit is of nostalgia for mobilization and community.

In Passport to Pimlico, the borough of Pimlico struggles with post-war reconstruction, including development of a bombsite. The people of Pimlico, like other Englishmen and women, were suffering the effects of a sweltering heat wave and drought, and post-war austerity, bread limits and rationing. The film continued the daydream of community, for by fantastic accident the borough becomes independent of England as well as independently wealthy. Much to the chagrin of the English ministers, Pimlico (led by Stanley Holloway) exercised its independence by abolishing rationing controls and the like. The English government eventually imposed a total embargo on the "country." The citizens of Pimlico respond with rhetoric mirroring the wartime words of Winston Churchill. The English citizens responded with gifts of food and clothing. One scene of aerial food drops (including livestock) was a direct reference to the 1948 Berlin Airlift. Pimlico "can go on being itself as it was in the war...." (Barr, 1977, 81) Eventually, the two sides come to terms, with Pimlico rejoining Britain and loaning the government some of its wealth. The result, a retreat from independence to the status quo, was blessed by a downpour, breaking the drought. One character justified, "You never know when you're well off till you aren't."

The film is an adult version of Hue and Cry. Both movies are populated with eccentric characters, a trademark of Ealing, who propel the fantasies forward. Alastair Sim is the writer in Hue and Cry who opens the way to breaking the mysterious criminal code, while Margaret Rutherford is the professor of ancient history who confirms the legality of Pimlico's independence. According to Barr, "Within this framework, Ealing can play out at leisure the daydream of a benevolent community and can partly evade, partly confront in a more manageable form, awkward postwar issues, social and personal...." (1977, 81)

In between Hue and Cry and Passport to Pimlico, Ealing produced another comedy, Whiskey Galore. Although set in the Scottish Hebrides islands, it also focused on community. In this case, the community of Scottish islanders was generally exclusive to the English overseers. One Englishman, an army sergeant played by Bruce Seton, overcomes the barrier, wins the hand of the Scottish lass and is welcomed into the community only after he speaks Gaelic.

The movie was based on a real incident when the S.S. Politician, a cargo ship filled with whiskey, ran aground off the Hebrides during the whiskey rationing of World War II. The islanders apparently made sure that the whiskey did not go down with the ship. The movie, telling the story about the S.S. Cabinet Minister and the disappearance of its cargo of whiskey, begins and ends in the documentary style of Robert Flaherty's A Man of Aran or Nanook of the North. Although the tone is lyrical or poetic, it was really a satiric jab at Flaherty.

The Ealing films satirized the British class system and English national character traits. This satire was epitomized in the character of Capt. Waggett, played by Basil Rathford. Waggett is the English commander of the islanders' home guard unit, responsible for defense of the island in case of a German invasion. He is considered a nuisance by the islanders and by his own higher command. Unlike the character played by Seton, who speaks the local language, understands the islanders' customs and is from the working class, Waggett is a marionette from the upper class, complete with public school and "play by the rules" attitudes. He is the stereotypical rule-bound English agent. Ultimately, in his blind desire to punish the islanders for their obtaining whiskey against the rules of rationing, Waggett brings about his own downfall.

Whiskey is the symbol of the islanders' identity and they seek to preserve both throughout the film. For example, it plays a key role in the "reitlach" or engagement party and community dance (which is very important for Seton's character). In the end, even the customs agents, whom Waggett has called to the island, and Waggett's own wife sympathize with the islanders and reject him. Her laughter at the end of film symbolically castrates his English manhood.

Ealing produced another Clark film with an ending similar to Hue and Cry. The Blue Lamp has been considered part of Ealing's "social drama mold," rather than the typical comedy. Nevertheless, it continued the fantasy of community. The film opens with a documentary-style narration about the new bred of criminal, a reference to rising postwar delinquency -- young people who lack the discipline and order of the older criminal and lack any sense of code. The young criminals are rejected by the mainstream criminals. Eventually, the antagonist obtains a gun, which he uses to slay a police officer.

The plot involves the integration of a new police constable, P.C. Mitchell (played by James Haney), into police work and the killing of an older officer, P.C. Dixon (played by Jack Warner ). Among the many images, such as repetition of the "traditional image of police benevolence," the film honors "family":

Barr has pointed out that The Blue Lamp, in reference to the blue light hanging outside the entrance to English police stations, as the first post-war portrait of a service institution, was a perfect period piece:

The climax of The Blue Lamp in the capture of P.C. Dixon's killer, played by a young Dirk Bogarde, repeats the images of Hue and Cry:

By the Fifties, British film had returned to realism and repression. Curiously, British renditions of police in film and television underwent a similar cycle. Jack Warner survived the death of P.C. Dixon to star in a television show, Dixon of Dark Green. Warner continued the character for over twenty years on BBC, promoting the image of the cosy police tradition and police as family. Later police shows, such as Zed Cars, set in Liverpool, were cast in the realist mold and depicted a gritty side to crime and police behavior, often to the dismay of the audience. The officers were shown coping with marital problems and other unseeming behavior, such as going into betting parlors even though off-duty.

The Ealing comedies may have had some unintended results. For example, James Haney as P.C. Mitchell was intended to be the hero of The Blue Lamp. However, it was the sexually potent Bogarde who drew in audiences. Bogarde and other leading men, such as Stewart Granger, Ronald Coleman and James Mason, were acting against the grain. The stiff upper lip, English restraint and control were the norm for British male roles, with actors such as Richard Todd. Bogarde threatened the status quo, both within the film and within the industry. His character, Riley, was violent, hysteric, sexually threatening, and erotic. He used the gun as a symbolic phallus to control and manipulate his girl friend. The killing of P.C. Dixon by Riley was a form of patricide, the dark son killing the father. The role brought Bogarde to public notice and star status.

At the end of the war, British film was caught in a conflict between its realist, documentary tradition and a pull toward the fantastic and expressionism. The omnibus film Dead of Night (1945), co-directed by Alberto Cavalcanti, Robert Hamer, Charles Crichton and Basil Dearden, captured some of this struggle. The film shifts from the real to the Gothic. It utilizes expressionist techniques, such as a powerful mirror scene.

Realism was a primary trait of British cinema during the war. Realism was identified with black and white, straight-forward narrative and characters. It was heavily influenced by Britain's documentary heritage. However, many post-war films were reactions to realism. Of course, realism comes in many forms. Some films used realism superficially to further the story line, as in Michael Anderson's The Dam-Busters (1954), the Boulting brothers' Seven Days to Noon (1950) or Michael Powell's The Small Back Room (1949). The Boulting film involved a reconstruction of the evacuation of London when the city is threaten by a scientist with an atomic device. Powell's film included a long episode of the dismantling of a bomb. Ealing comedies, such as Hue and Cry and Passport to Pimlico, used realism as a framework for stories that were essentially non-realistic. In other films, such as Carol Reed's The Third Man or Odd Man Out, realism is used to heighten the drama and suspense. Other films used a documentary-style reconstruction, such as Charles Frend's Scott of the Antarctic (1948). The documentary-style opening of The Blue Lamp was an intentional device, although the story perpetuated the fantasy of community. The documentary opening and closing of Whiskey Galore were actually central to the film's satire. Realism, as a predominant style, resurfaced in the late Fifties, leading to "new cinema" or social realism.

Expressionism, rather than realism, dominated many of the British productions. Most of the literary were highly yet effectively stylized, including Lean's adaptions from Dickens, Olivier's Shakespearean films, and Dickinson's The Queen of Spades. Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's The Red Shoes and Tales of Hoffman are examples of the stylization. The films represent the nexus of several strands of film and literary tradition, including German expressionism of the 1920's, romanticism, Gothic, the combination of the arts, and the reaction of realism.

The Red Shoes was a story by Hans Christian Anderson, derived from a story by E.T.A. Hoffman (1776-1822), a German romanticist, and influenced by life of Russian ballet director Diaghilev and dancer Nijinsky. It is the story of a ballerina torn between the control of two men -- her director, Lermontov, and her husband, Julian, a conductor. Her husband wrote the score for a ballet just for her -- "The Red Shoes." Lermontov directed her in it. Although Vicki is strong at the start, able to return "the gaze" of Lermontov, she soon loses her ability to withstand either man. The men, primarily Lermontov, are puppet masters, using manipulation to suppress the female to the male's domination.

The battle of the masters is carried out on several levels. At the core of the struggle are the highly stylized ballet scenes, using images of Julian conducting, Lermontov directing and Vicki soaring on stage and in the air. The shoe maker in the ballet is, likewise, a puppeteer. The expressionistic ballet, a combination of music, art, dance and film, is surrounded by the narrative, in which the dancer shifts loyalties between herself, Lermontov and Julian. Lermontov manipulates both dancer and conductor. Vicki finally escapes by injuring herself and ending forever her ability to dance. Lermontov continues the final performance of the ballet without a dancer in the lead role.

The Tales of Hoffman was based on a opera of the German expressionist Jacques Offenbach. It is a composed film with little dialog. It recalls the universal visual language of the silent film. The various characters of the opera, who confront and challenge Hoffman, a nobleman/poet, include an array of manipulators -- an eye glass maker, a master of souls, and a demonic doctor. The filmed opera originally had four episodes, though one episode, hence another manipulator, was cut from the film. The film represents creator as monster and tormentor as well as tormented victim. This theme, said to cast Hoffman as a metaphor for Powell, recalls Lermontov and his attempts to reach out to Vicki. Both films utilize expressionist techniques such as the metaphors of the gaze and the mirror to symbolize and accentuate the struggle, which Werner Fassbinder has called sadism in the creative act and creation in destruction.

Both Powell and Pressburger films aim to create what Richard Wagner hoped to do with opera -- the total art by combining the visual with the aural. The Red Shoes mediates ballet cinematically. It interprets ballet into film rather than record ballet on film. The Tales of Hoffman interprets opera into film rather than record opera on film.

Adding to their stature, the creative collaboration of Powell and Pressburger combined the art tradition of European film and the technical advances of American film. Their films experimented with the new Technicolor technology.

The anti-realism traits of German expressionism, Gothic and fantasy even appeared in the Ealing comedies. At least twice in Hue and Cry -- when the hero and his friend climbed the stairs to the writer's apartment, and in the final fight with the criminal master-mind in the bombed building -- the camera angles and shadows evoked images of German expressionist films such as The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. The expressionistic device of the mirror appears in a number of films, such as Dead of Night, and The Blue Lamp. Likewise, the technique of "the gaze" appears in several films, including The Blue Lamp. The behavior of the writer and the Victorian clutter of his apartment, and the passage of the children through the London sewers, both in Hue and Cry, evoked images of Gothic horror. Likewise, the Hammer horror films were a reaction to realism. Fantasy appeared in a variety of films, especially the Ealing comedies, including the fanciful idea of a sovereign Pimlico or Hue and Cry's children against crime. These communities were rooted in fantasy not reality. They were no more than a daydream.

Post-war British film was both a response to the world war and a reaction to the film styles of the war and post-war periods. As a response to the war, post-war films adopted a style of pseudo-realism to construct a post-war fantasy world. This fantasy, sometimes captured as a daydream, attempted to preserve the spirit of the war years, including the values of community and egalitarianism. This daydream or fantasy world also served as an escape from the memory of the war and the disappointment over the failure of a new society in post-war Britain. As a reaction to the war, post-war films revolted against the realism of the war-period films. They utilized and integrated strands of romanticism, expressionism, and the Gothic.

By the middle of the Fifties, British cinema had begun its decline into cliche and a return to subjugation by Hollywood. The final years of the 1940's were marked by retreat. British film returned to its war nostalgia coupled with an escape from reality. As forewarned by Dead of Night, there was a refusal to deal with the darkside, a "return of the repressed" and a restoration of "tradition." The result was repression of creation and desire.

Out of this decline was to grow the British "new cinema" or social realism movement.

Charles Barr, Ealing Studios (London: Cameron & Taylor, 1977).

David Cook, A History of Narrative Film (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1981).

Ian Green, "Ealing in the Comedy Frame," in British Cinema History, eds., James Curran and Vincent Porter (London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1983).

George Orwell, "England, Your England" (1941), in A Collection of Essays (New York: Doubleday, 1954).

Powell, Pressburger and Others (British Film Institute, 1978).

Vincent Porter, "The Context of Creativity: Ealing Studios and Hammer," in British Cinema History, eds., James Curran and Vincent Porter (London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1983).

Tony Williams, various lectures, The Survey of Film History, fall semester, 1991, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale.