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Download (2631Kb) University of Warwick institutional repository: http://go.warwick.ac.uk/wrap A Thesis Submitted for the Degree of PhD at the University of Warwick http://go.warwick.ac.uk/wrap/58603 This thesis is made available online and is protected by original copyright. Please scroll down to view the document itself. Please refer to the repository record for this item for information to help you to cite it. Our policy information is available from the repository home page. A Special Relationship: The British Empire in British and American Cinema, 1930-1960 Sara Rose Johnstone For Doctorate of Philosophy in Film and Television Studies University of Warwick Film and Television Studies April 2013 ii Contents List of figures iii Acknowledgments iv Declaration v Thesis Abstract vi Introduction: Imperial Film Scholarship: A Critical Review 1 1. The Jewel in the Crown in Cinema of the 1930s 34 2. The Dark Continent: The Screen Representation of Colonial Africa in the 1930s 65 3. Wartime Imperialism, Reinventing the Empire 107 4. Post-Colonial India in the New World Order 151 5. Modern Africa according to Hollywood and British Filmmakers 185 6. Hollywood, Britain and the IRA 218 Conclusion 255 Filmography 261 Bibliography 265 iii Figures 2.1 Wee Willie Winkie and Susannah of the Mounties Press Book Adverts 52 3.1 Argentinian poster, American poster, Hungarian poster and British poster for Sanders of the River 86 3.2 Paul Robeson and Elizabeth Welch arriving in Africa in Song of Freedom 92 3.3 Cedric Hardwicke and un-credited actor in Stanley and Livingstone 102 4.1 Madeleine Carroll and Paulette Goddard in North West Mounted Police 134 5.1 Herbert Lom as Van Layden waiting for Prince to Kishan and Eduardo Ciannelli as the Kali cult leader 156 5.2 Lauren Bacall with baby India in North West Frontier 163 5.3 Waiting in Darkness: Peter Illing in Bhowani Junction 180 6.1 Orlando Martins dancing in West of Zanzibar 200 6.2 A contrast between meetings in Simba 207 7.1 Harper’s Magazine illustration of Irish Iberian, Anglo-Teutonic, and Negro 220 7.2 King Solomon’s Mines Press Book Advert 227 iv Acknowledgements I must first thank my professor, Dr. Jon Burrows for his guidance during this project. Without his patience and direction, I could not have hoped to pursue this project. I have learned much in the three years under his supervision and am in debt for all that I will take away from these years. I would also thank Dr. John Hill for his aid in securing important materials for this project as well as Dr. Beth Wightman and Dr. James C. Robertson for helping me answer vital questions I had for this project. Also, to the staff of the British Film Institute, the National Archives, the British Library, the Margaret Herrick Library, and to the University of Warwick Library I extend my sincerest thanks. I want to also thank my family for their untiring support of my goals. To my father, mother, and sister, thank you from the bottom of my heart. Thank you Brenda, Buddy, Chad, and little Leah. To my partner’s family who have shown enthusiastic support of my project, thank you David, Elizabeth, Catherine, Stuart, wee David and wee Lauren. And since no goal is attained without the moral support of friends, I need to thank, Fiona Cox, Sharyn Chen, Cris Barrington, Kimberley Walter, Natasha Caplan, David Gudgeon, Amanda Daniel-Ennis, Zoe Clay, Demelza Moreau, James Lyon, Justin Carr, Stephanie Owens Carr, and though he is no longer with this world, Mark Ratliff. Thank you all for your unwavering support. Finally, to my partner, husband, and the love of my life, Sandy Johnstone: thank you for all your encouragement every step of the way. Thank you for helping me realise all of my dreams and being with me to see them come true. v Declaration by Candidate I hereby declare that this thesis is my own work and effort and that it has not been submitted anywhere for any award. Where other sources of information have been used, they have been acknowledged. Sara Johnstone April 2013 vi Thesis Abstract This project sets out to scrutinize three decades of feature length fiction films about the British Empire produced by American and British filmmakers beginning in the 1930s through to the end of the 1950s. It compares British and American film in these three decades because such a comparative study has yet to be done and situating such a study within the changing historical contexts is important to chart shifting patterns in filmmaking in these two cultures. Focusing on film narratives that favour sites of modern colonial conflict as setting, namely India, the African colonies and Ireland, the project will chart how American and British filmmakers started from significantly different positions regarding the British imperial project but came to share increasing homogeneity of approach during and after the Second World War. This thesis shows that the relationship of American and British filmmakers to the British Empire changed dramatically after the Second World War and followed political developments. The new special relationship which grew strong after the war had far reaching consequences to the colonial and former colonial nations: the way in which American and British filmmakers portrayed this transition has important implications within film history. 1 Introduction Imperial Film Scholarship: A Critical Review In a scene from the 1935 Hollywood film The Lives of a Bengal Lancer, set on the Northwest Frontier of British India, a group of officers discuss their Colonel’s refusal to make an exception to regimental orders, even though his strict obedience will likely result in the death of his own son (captured by a group of rebel natives). One of them, a Scottish-Canadian Lieutenant, is critical of his English superior’s stance – ‘Why can’t he be a little less of a soldier and more of a man? Why can’t he forget his blasted duty for once’ - but another staunchly defends him with more powerful rhetoric: Man, you are blind! Have you never thought how, for generation after generation here, a handful of men have ordered the lives of 300 million people? It’s because he’s here, and a few more like him! Men of his breed have made British India. Men who put their jobs above everything. He wouldn’t let death move him from it. But he won’t let love move him from it. When his breed of man dies out – that’s the end. And it’s a better breed of man than any of us will ever make. Good night, gentlemen. There are numerous other Hollywood films made in the 1930s, ’40s and ’50s which feature similarly stirring speeches presenting an eloquent defence of British imperialism and the values and sacrifices of the men (and, very occasionally, women) who helped to found or protect the British Empire. As the review of scholarly literature in this introduction will show, such manifestations of apparently vicarious pro-Empire patriotism on the part of American filmmakers have led many scholars investigating the representation of the British Empire in the cinema to make little distinction between Hollywood productions and relevant films made by the British film industry. There is an assumption that the ideological contours are practically identical. 2 The main premise of this thesis is that there is a pressing need to carefully distinguish, compare and contrast the representations of the history of British imperialism which appear in British and American feature-length fiction films. Hollywood productions did not by any means constitute a natural and obvious source of pro-imperial propaganda. The first piece of government legislation introduced to stimulate and protect the British film industry from foreign competition, the 1927 Cinematograph Act, was born of discussions which actually identified Hollywood as a major threat to Britain’s political authority over its colonies and dominions. As Margaret Dickinson and Sarah Street have shown, various branches of British government and industry saw Hollywood’s almost monopolistic stranglehold on the international film trade as an all-too-likely means by which American values and products would ultimately completely displace British ideals and exports in the colonies. The 1926 Imperial Conference debated this issue at length and reported that ‘It is a matter of most serious concern that the films shown in the various parts of the Empire should be to such an overwhelming extent the product of foreign countries’.1 In the same year the Federation of British Industries passed a resolution declaring that they viewed with great alarm the practical monopoly which has been obtained by foreign film production concerns of the kinema programmes of the British Empire. They consider that this must have a most detrimental effect on British prestige and must be seriously prejudicial to the best interests of the Empire, especially in those parts of the overseas Dominions which contain large coloured populations.2 1 Imperial Economic Conference, General Economic Sub-Committee, 18 November 1926, National Archives, CAB 32/59. 2 Kinematograph Weekly, 22 April 1926, 42; quoted in Margaret Dickinson and Sarah Street, Cinema and State: The Film Industry and the British Government 1927-84 (London: BFI, 1985), 27. 3 Indeed, it is common in this period to find Hollywood characterised as a rival imperial force, threatening to colonise the hearts and minds of British subjects throughout the colonies. The research conducted for this thesis has not identified any kind of ‘smoking gun’ document which can tell us if the Hollywood production cycle of tales of the British Empire like The Lives of Bengal Lancer, which started to proliferate from the mid-1930s onwards, were intended in part to assuage British fears about the negative impact of American films on the task of colonial governance, and thus to maintain cordial Anglo-American film industry trade relations – the latter being a key priority for Hollywood studios, given the commercial importance of overseas English- speaking territories in generating profits.
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