British cinema of the 1950s: a celebration MacKillop_00_Prelims 1 9/1/03, 9:23 am MacKillop_00_Prelims 2 9/1/03, 9:23 am British cinema of the 1950s: a celebration edited by ian mackillop and neil sinyard Manchester University Press Manchester and New York distributed exclusively in the USA by Palgrave MacKillop_00_Prelims 3 9/1/03, 9:23 am Copyright © Manchester University Press 2003 While copyright in the volume as a whole is vested in Manchester University Press, copyright in individual chapters belongs to their respective authors. This electronic version has been made freely available under a Creative Commons (CC-BY-NC-ND) licence, which permits non-commercial use, distribution and reproduction provided the author(s) and Manchester University Press are fully cited and no modifications or adaptations are made. Details of the licence can be viewed at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ Published by Manchester University Press Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9NR, UK and Room 400, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, 10010, USA http://www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data applied for 0 7190 6488 0 hardback 0 7190 6489 9 paperback First published 2003 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Typeset in Fournier and Fairfield Display by Koinonia, Manchester Printed in Great Britain by Bell & Bain Ltd, Glasgow Bell & Bain Ltd, Glasgow MacKillop_00_Prelims 4 9/1/03, 9:23 am Contents Acknowledgements page vii A 1950s timeline viii Celebrating British cinema of the 1950s Critics ………………………………………………………… Raymond Durgnat and A Mirror for England Lindsay Anderson: Sequence and the rise of auteurism in 1950s Britain Mirroring England ………………………………………… National snapshots: fixing the past in English war films Film and the Festival of Britain The national health: Pat Jackson’s White Corridors The long shadow: Robert Hamer after Ealing ‘If they want culture, they pay’: consumerism and alienation in 1950s comedies 87 Boys, ballet and begonias: The Spanish Gardener and its analogues Intimate stranger: the early British films of Joseph Losey 111 Painfully squalid? ………………………………………… Women of Twilight Yield to the Night From script to screen: Serious Charge and film censorship Housewife’s choice: Woman in a Dressing Gown MacKillop_00_Prelims 5 9/1/03, 9:23 am vi Contents Adaptability ………………………………………………… Too theatrical by half? The Admirable Crichton and Look Back in Anger A Tale of Two Cities and the Cold War 168 Value for money: Baker and Berman, and Tempean Films 176 Adaptable Terence Rattigan: Separate Tables, separate entities? Personal views ……………………………………………… Archiving the 1950s Being a film reviewer in the 1950s 213 Michael Redgrave and The Mountebank’s Tale 221 Index 231 MacKillop_00_Prelims 6 9/1/03, 9:23 am Acknowledgements We are very grateful for the patience of our contributors who have dealt with many queries. We have had indispensable editorial help from Hilary Barker, Rebecca Broadley, Rosie Ford, Helena Pinder and Sue Turton. MacKillop_00_Prelims 7 9/1/03, 9:23 am A 1950s timeline Occasionally names of personnel are included in these lists (‘d.’ for director, ‘p.’ for performer/s) to point up a presence, e.g. John Schlesinger as director of Starfish. Non-British films which were nonetheless really important are asterisked and put out of the alphabetical sequence. The temptation to include five excellent films of 1960 could not be resisted. Cinema Theatre, writing, Events broadcasting 1950 Humphrey Jennings dies Theatre: Hamlet (p. Michael Labour Party elected: Bitter Springs (music: Vaughan Redgrave) Clement Atlee PM Williams) Theatre: T. S. Eliot, The Korean War The Blue Lamp Cocktail Party ‘McCarthyism’ Dance Hall Writing: George Orwell dies The Happiest Days of Your Life Odette Seven Days to Noon The Starfish (d. John Schlesinger and others) 1951 ‘X’ certificates start Theatre: Richard II Festival of Britain South Pacific* (p. Michael Redgrave) Conservative Party elected: The Browning Version (p. Winston Churchill PM Michael Redgrave) Festival in London The Galloping Major His Excellency The Lavender Hill Mob Life in Her Hands The Magic Box The Man in a White Suit Tales of Hoffman White Corridors 1952 National Film Theatre opens Theatre: Agatha Christie, Coronation of Elizabeth II Sequence ends The Mousetrap Fog kills 4,000 Londoners This is Cinerama* Writing: Angus Wilson, Mau-Mau rebellion in Kenya The Robe (in CinemaScope)* Hemlock and After First British atomic tests MacKillop_00_Prelims 8 9/1/03, 9:23 am ………………………………………… A 1950s timeline ix Cinema Theatre, writing, Events broadcasting 1952 High Noon* Frightened Man The Importance of Being Earnest Long Memory Mandy Outcast of the Islands Voice of Merill (Tempean Films) Wakefield Express (d. Lindsay Anderson) Women of Twilight 1953 Richard Winnington dies Writing: L.P. Hartley, Soviet Union uses hydrogen (film critic of News Chronicle) The Go-Between bomb Ripening Seed (d. Claude Alfred C. Kinsey, Sexual Autant-Lara)* Behaviour in the Human The Cruel Sea Female Genevieve Smoking connected to lung Hobson’s Choice cancer The Titfield Thunderbolt World Without End 1954 The Belles of St Trinians Theatre: Kenneth Tynan British troops withdraw The Divided Heart becomes drama critic for from Egypt Doctor in the House the Observer Stanley Kauffmann’s The Father Brown Theatre: Terence Rattigan, Philanderer prosecuted for A Kid for Two Farthings (p. Separate Tables obscene libel Diana Dors) Writing: Kingsley Amis, The Maggie Lucky Jim The Sea Shall Not Have Them Broadcasting: Dylan Thomas, Under Milk Wood (BBC radio) Broadcasting: Dixon of Dock Green (BBC TV) 1955 Films and Filming starts Theatre: Titus Andronicus Conservative Party elected: 1984 (d. Peter Brook, p. Anthony Eden PM Animal Farm (d. Halas and Laurence Olivier) Batchelor) Writing: F. R. Leavis, D. H. The Deep Blue Sea (p. Vivien Lawrence: Novelist Leigh, Kenneth More) Broadcasting: Nikolaus Escapade Pevnser, The Englishness Foot and Mouth (d. Lindsay of English Art (BBC Reith Anderson for Central Office Lectures) of Information) MacKillop_00_Prelims 9 9/1/03, 9:23 am x A 1950s timeline ………………………………………… Cinema Theatre, writing, Events broadcasting 1955 1956 I am a Camera (p. Laurence Harvey) Impulse (Tempean Films) The Ladykillers The Quatermass Xperiment 1956 Sir Alexander Korda dies Theatre: Angus Wilson, The Hungarian revolution The Good Companions Mulberry Bush (first Anglo-French invasion of Jacqueline English Stage Company Suez My Teenage Daughter production) Richard III (d./p. Laurence Theatre: John Osborne, Olivier) Look Back in Anger The Spanish Gardener A Town Like Alice Who Done It? (Benny Hill) Yield to the Night 1957 The Archers productions stop Theatre: John Osborne, The Soviet satellite Sputnik I Happy Road (p. Michael Entertainer launched Redgrave)* Writing: John Braine, Room Anthony Eden resigns, Across the Bridge at the Top Harold Macmillan Admirable Crichton Writing: Evelyn Waugh, becomes PM The Bridge on the River Kwai The Ordeal of Gilbert Wolfenden report on Every Day Except Christmas Pinfold homosexuality (d. Lindsay Anderson) Writing: Richard Hoggart, European Economic The Running Jumping and The Uses of Literacy Community founded Standing Still Film Broadcasting: BBC reduces Shiralee hours of the Third The Smallest Show on Earth Programme Time Without Pity Broadcasting: Emergency Woman in a Dressing Gown Ward – 10 (ITV) 1958 Tempean starts its ‘A’ films Theatre: Harold Pinter, The Commercial stereo Carry On Sergeant Dumb Waiter recording begins Dracula (Hammer: d. Terence Theatre: Ann Jellicoe, The Campaign for Nuclear Fisher, p. Peter Cushing) Sport of My Mad Mother Disarmament launched The Duke Wore Jeans Writing: Raymond Race riots in Nottingham Horse’s Mouth Williams, Culture and and Notting Hill, London A Night to Remember Society 1959 Ealing Studios closes Theatre: Arnold Wesker, Labour Party pamphlet, Hiroshima Mon Amour* Roots Leisure for Living Carry On Nurse Theatre: John Arden, Obscene Publications Act Dangerous Age (d. Sidney J. Furie) Sergeant Musgrave’s Dance 1960 MacKillop_00_Prelims 10 9/1/03, 9:23 am ………………………………………… A 1950s timeline xi Cinema Theatre, writing, Events broadcasting 1959 I’m All Right Jack Theatre: Willis Hall, The Look Back in Anger Long and the Short and Make Mine a Million the Tall (d. Lindsay Sapphire Anderson) The Scapegoat Separate Tables Tiger Bay 1960 The League of Gentlemen Harold Macmillan Our Man in Havana acknowledges African Peeping Tom nationalism The Siege of Sidney Street Independence of Nigeria MacKillop_00_Prelims 11 9/1/03, 9:23 am MacKillop_00_Prelims 12 9/1/03, 9:23 am Celebrating British cinema of the 1950s ian mackillop and neil sinyard To counterbalance the rather tepid humanism of our cinema, it might also be said that it is snobbish, anti-intelligent, emotionally inhibited, willfully blind to the conditions and problems of the present, dedicated to an out of date, exhausted national idea. (Lindsay Anderson) Who will ever forget those days at Iver when, cloistered in the fumed oak dining room (reminiscent of the golf club where no one ever paid his sub- scription), frightened producers blanched at the mere idea of any film that contained the smallest tincture of reality? (Frederic Raphael) T this book is an event which took place on Saturday, 5 December 1998 at the British Library in London. It was a study day consisting of lectures about British cinema in the 1950s: most of these are printed here, with an equal number of new essays which have been written since. In the evenings of the week preceding the study day, seven films were screened. They appeared under the headings of ‘Festive Fifties’ (The Impor- tance of Being Earnest, in a sparkling new print), ‘Community Fifties’ (John and Julie and The Browning Version), ‘Tough Fifties’ (Women of Twilight and Hell Drivers) and ‘Women’s Fifties’ (My Teenage Daughter and Yield to the Night). I am Professor of English Literature at the University of Sheffield.