Lar Press and Film, 1919-1939
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ORBIT - Online Repository of Birkbeck Institutional Theses Enabling Open Access to Birkbeck’s Research Degree output The representation of London nights in British popu- lar press and film, 1919-1939 https://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/id/eprint/40490/ Version: Public Version Citation: Arts, Mara (2020) The representation of London nights in British popular press and film, 1919-1939. [Thesis] (Unpublished) c 2020 The Author(s) All material available through ORBIT is protected by intellectual property law, including copy- right law. Any use made of the contents should comply with the relevant law. Deposit Guide Contact: email The Representation of London Nights in British Popular Press and Film, 1919-1939 Candidate name: Mara Arts Submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Birkbeck, University of London 1 Declaration of original work I hereby confirm that the work presented in this thesis is my own. 2 Abstract This thesis explores the representation of night-time activities in the capital in popular British newspapers and films of the period. It argues that, whilst an increasingly democratised night allowed for more opportunities for previously marginalised groups, popular media of the period largely promoted adherence to the status quo. The thesis draws on extensive primary source material, including eighty British feature films and newspaper samples of the Daily Mail, Daily Express and Daily Mirror to systematically analyse the representation of London’s nightlife in the British interwar period. This period saw the consolidation of the popular daily newspaper industry and, after government intervention, an expansion of the domestic film industry. The interwar period also saw great social change with universal suffrage, technological developments and an economic crisis. London greatly expanded and modernised during these decades, and the city’s nightlife boomed as a result. The first chapter of the thesis offers a historical framework and literature review and explains the methodological foundations of the research. The remainder of the thesis consists of case studies of the representation of five aspects of the capital after dark. The first pair of these case studies are concerned with two aspects of the city’s built environment that expanded rapidly during the interwar period: the suburbs and public transport system. The latter three chapters deal with three groups of London’s inhabitants whose behaviour at night was scrutinised: journalists, police officers and women. Each chapter uses close readings of newspaper and film sources to highlight how popular media during the British interwar period used the night-time both to appeal to audiences and to advocate resistance to cultural change. Together, they provide new insights in the cultural outputs of interwar Britain which shaped how their audiences saw the world around them. 3 Table of Contents Declaration of original work ........................................................................................ 2 Abstract ...................................................................................................................... 3 List of illustrations ....................................................................................................... 7 Acknowledgments ...................................................................................................... 8 Introduction: ‘Dancing goes on until dawn’ ................................................................. 9 Research goal ...................................................................................................... 11 Newspapers and films as common culture ........................................................... 12 The development of London nightlife .................................................................... 16 Interwar Britain – a society in flux ......................................................................... 18 Chapter outline ..................................................................................................... 21 Chapter 1: British newspapers and films in the interwar period: a history and a review ............................................................................................. 24 Section 1: Setting out the parameters of the research .......................................... 25 The night in interwar London ............................................................................. 25 Popular newspapers and cinema in interwar Britain ......................................... 28 Section 2: A review of the literature ...................................................................... 32 Media studies, journalism studies ..................................................................... 32 Film scholarship considering the interwar period .............................................. 36 Considering a ‘common language’ for film and press ........................................ 38 Section 3: Interplays between film, press and the night ........................................ 42 Section 4: Historical context ................................................................................. 45 British film studios in the interwar period ........................................................... 45 The 1927 Cinematograph Films Act .................................................................. 47 History of the popular press in the interwar period ............................................ 52 Section 5: Methodology ........................................................................................ 57 Establishing the corpus of films ......................................................................... 57 Newspaper sampling ......................................................................................... 63 Section 6: Analysis of the data ............................................................................. 67 Occurrences of night-time news in newspapers ................................................ 67 General data from newspaper sampling ........................................................... 72 Newspapers in film ............................................................................................ 75 Cinema in newspapers ...................................................................................... 80 Crime in newspapers ........................................................................................ 82 4 Crime in cinema ................................................................................................ 85 Conclusion ............................................................................................................ 87 Chapter 2: London suburbs at night in interwar British films and newspapers ......... 89 Definition of a suburb ............................................................................................ 91 Class and the suburbs .......................................................................................... 92 Life in the interwar suburb .................................................................................... 93 Suburbs and national popular newspapers ........................................................... 95 Becoming familiar with the suburb: newspaper reports on nocturnal suburbs in 1920 ................................................. 97 Electric adventures: newspaper reporting on nocturnal suburbs in the 1930s .... 103 Suburbs in interwar film ...................................................................................... 109 Conclusion .......................................................................................................... 119 Chapter 3: Newspapers, films, and nocturnal public transport ............................... 121 The development of a unified transport system .................................................. 124 Night-time transport and its intended users ........................................................ 126 The impact of public transport on daily life .......................................................... 130 Trains and stations in film ................................................................................... 132 Vulnerable travellers ........................................................................................... 139 Being private in public: the possibilities of taxis .................................................. 143 Mysterious drivers ............................................................................................... 147 The taxi as a class-specific site .......................................................................... 148 Conclusion .......................................................................................................... 150 Chapter 4: Journalists in interwar Britain ................................................................ 152 Working conditions of journalists in interwar Britain ............................................ 153 Journalists in cinema – a brief literature review .................................................. 156 Journalists in interwar films – research findings ................................................. 157 Types of journalist............................................................................................... 161 Gossip columnists – It’s Love Again ................................................................... 163 Interwar journalists’ memoirs .............................................................................. 167 Female journalists