Popular culture and working-class taste in Britain, 1930–39 James_PopCult_Final.indd 1 16/03/2010 16:43 STUDIES IN POPULAR CULTURE General editor: Professor Jeffrey Richards Recently published Healthy living in the Alps: the origins of winter tourism in Switzerland, 1860–1914 Susan Barton Leisure, citizenship and working-class men in Britain, 1850–1945 Brad Beaven British railway enthusiasm Ian Carter Darts in England, 1900–39: a social history Patrick Chaplin History on British television: constructing nation, nationality and collective memory Robert Dillon Songs of protest, songs of love: popular ballads in eighteenth-century Britain Robin Ganev The BBC and national identity in Britain, 1922–53 Thomas Hajkowski From silent screen to multi-screen: a history of cinema exhibition in Britain since 1896 Stuart Hanson Juke box Britain: Americanisation and youth culture, 1945–60 Adrian Horn James_PopCult_Final.indd 2 16/03/2010 16:43 Popular culture and working-class taste in Britain, 1930–39 A round of cheap diversions? ROBERT JAMES Manchester University Press Manchester and New York distributed exclusively in the USA by Palgrave Macmillan James_PopCult_Final.indd 3 16/03/2010 16:43 Copyright © Robert James 2010 The right of Robert James to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Published by Manchester University Press Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9NR, UK and Room 400, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010, USA www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk Distributed exclusively in the USA by Palgrave Macmillan, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010, USA Distributed exclusively in Canada by UBC Press, University of British Columbia, 2029 West Mall, Vancouver, BC, Canada V6T 1Z2 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 iSBN 978 0 7190 8025 8 hardback First published 2010 The publisher has no responsibility for the persistance or accuracy of URLs for external or any third-party internet websites referred to in this book, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate. Typeset in Adobe Garamond with Gill Sans display by Koinonia, Manchester Printed in Great Britain by CPi Antony Rowe Ltd, Chippenham, Wiltshire James_PopCult_Final.indd 4 16/03/2010 16:43 STUDIES IN POPULAR CULTURE There has in recent years been an explosion of interest in culture and cultural studies. The impetus has come from two directions and out of two different traditions. On the one hand, cultural history has grown out of social history to become a distinct and identifiable school of historical investigation. On the other hand, cultural studies has grown out of English literature and has concerned itself to a large extent with contemporary issues. Nevertheless, there is a shared project, its aim to elucidate the meanings and values implicit and explicit in the art, literature, learning, institutions and everyday behaviour within a given society. Both the cultural historian and the cultural studies scholar seek to explore the ways in which a culture is imagined, represented and received, how it interacts with social processes, how it contributes to individual and collective identities and world views, to stability and change, to social, political and economic activities and programmes. This series aims to provide an arena for the cross-fertilisation of the discipline, so that the work of the cultural historian can take advantage of the most useful and illuminating of the theoretical developments and the cultural studies scholars can extend the purely historical underpinnings of their investigations. The ultimate objective of the series is to provide a range of books which will explain in a readable and accessible way where we are now socially and culturally and how we got to where we are. This should enable people to be better informed, promote an interdisciplinary approach to cultural issues and encourage deeper thought about the issues, attitudes and institutions of popular culture. Jeffrey Richards James_PopCult_Final.indd 5 16/03/2010 16:43 To my parents, Alfred and Patricia James, for their love and support over the years. James_PopCult_Final.indd 6 16/03/2010 16:43 Contents General editor’s introduction page ix Acknowledgements xi Introduction 1 1 ‘The people’s amusement’: the growth in cinema-going and reading habits 13 2 ‘Fouling civilisation’?: official attitudes towards popular film and literature 39 3 Trade attitudes towards audience taste 57 4 ‘What made you put that rubbish on?’: national trends in film popularity 81 5 ‘The appearance is an added incentive’: national trends in literature popularity 106 6 ‘A very profitable enterprise’: South Wales Miners’ Institutes 124 7 ‘Gunmen, rustlers and a damsel in distress’: working-class tastes in Derby 159 8 ‘The home of the brave’?: working-class tastes in Portsmouth 177 9 Popular film and literature: textual analyses 191 Conclusion: ‘giving the public what it wants’ 203 Appendices I: Broader patterns of film popularity 209 II: Sidney Bernstein questionnaires, 1932 and 1934: pre-report material 234 III: Patterns of literature popularity 244 Select bibliography 250 Index 257 James_PopCult_Final.indd 7 16/03/2010 16:43 James_PopCult_Final.indd 8 16/03/2010 16:43 General editor’s introduction In this thoughtful, well-researched and ground-breaking book, Robert James advances a revisionist interpretation of working-class taste in 1930s Britain. In doing so, he seeks to merge the often antipathetic structuralist and culturalist approaches to the subject in an analysis of both text and context, production and consumption. He examines the cultural assumptions and attitudes of the largely middle-class authorities and arbiters of taste, and compares them with the evidence of popular choice, derived from a range of important primary sources such as Mass-Observation, the Bernstein Questionnaires and the Miners’ Institute ledgers. He carefully establishes the economic, social and ideological contexts by analysing the choices and motivations of the producers and consumers of popular culture and the strategies of advertising and promo- tion. Having established the context, he undertakes a comparative study of Portsmouth, Derby and South Wales, chosen for their geographical spread and socio-economic differences, to assess in depth and detail the nature of working-class taste. A unique feature of the book is his examination of cinema- going and reading habits side by side. These two pastimes have normally been studied separately. His conclusion, contrary to the conventional wisdom, that the working-class consumer was an active and not a passive agent and that there were regional variations in taste rather than a single uniform national working-class taste, is consistent and persuasive. He is careful however not to reject the idea that some tastes transcended region and locality and he fascinat- ingly establishes that the most popular author in the tuppenny libraries and the most filmed author of the decade was one and the same – Edgar Wallace. This confident, well-informed and subtly argued study makes a significant contribution to our understanding of inter-war popular culture. James_PopCult_Final.indd 9 16/03/2010 16:43 James_PopCult_Final.indd 10 16/03/2010 16:43 Acknowledgements First of all, I would like to thank Jeffrey Richards for his kind and encour- aging comments during the various stages of this project. Jeffrey was external examiner for my PhD thesis, on which this study is based, and kindly suggested that it should be turned into a book. I am hugely indebted to Sue Harper. She has been a wonderful mentor over the past years, running a critical eye over, firstly, my PhD thesis, for which she was Director of Studies, and latterly, various drafts of this book. Without her guidance and support this study would not have seen the light of day. Her gentle coaching, constructive criticism and eternal optimism have made working on it a real pleasure. I should also like to thank Brad Beaven, who has also provided much welcome advice, especially during the latter stages of this project. I am extremely grateful for the financial assistance received from the Art and Humanities Research Council which has allowed me to undertake this research. Gratitude must also go to the numerous staff at the archives I have visited during my research. Their assistance has been most welcome. Especial thanks go to Elisabeth Bennett, archivist at the South Wales Coalfield Collection, University of Wales, Swansea; John Dallison and Trish Kenny at Derby Local Studies Centre; and Lizzie Ennion and Elisabeth Kingston at Peterborough Archives Service. All were helpful beyond the call of duty. Numerous archi- vists at Portsmouth Norrish Central Library and Portsmouth Records Office also deserve gratitude for their invaluable assistance. Janet Moat and Julia Bell at Special Collections, BFI, London were also adept at digging out less well- known archival material. I would also like to thank the Trustees of the Mass- Observation Archive, University of Sussex for the use of their material, and Dorothy Sheridan for her assistance in finding what I needed. I would also like James_PopCult_Final.indd 11 16/03/2010 16:43 xii Acknowledgements to thank Emma Brennan, editor at Manchester University Press, the produc- tion staff at MUP, and the anonymous reader, for their hard work in putting this project together. Various academics have also offered advice during the course of writing this book. I have been fortunate to gain valuable guidance from scholars at the Film History seminars, held at the Institute of Historical Research and convened by Dr Mark Glancy. Their willingness to share their wealth of knowledge in 1930s film culture has been very gratefully received. Colleagues in the History and Film Studies departments at the University of Portsmouth have also been very generous with their knowledge, especially Justin Smith.