Overview of British Film Industry

In the 1880s, London was the largest city in the world and the center of the world in arts and entertainment. The United Kingdom also had the largest organized import-export, shipping and sales related system in the world. With no taxes or tariffs on import and export until 1915, the UK was the first place that each country ran to for world wide distribution.

Because of their unique postition, the UK also led the way in the development of the film industry.

On November 9, 1876 Wordsworth Donisthorpe applied for a patent (B.P. 4,344) for an apparatus "to facilitate the taking of a succession of photographs at equal intervals of time, in order to record the changes taking place in or the movements of the object being photographed, and also by means of a succession of pictures so taken ... to give to the eye a representation of the object in continuous movement ...". He called this apparatus the Kinesigraph. Since film was not yet available.... AND sensitized paper was not yet available, it probably used glass slides...

He undoubtedly created his Kinesigraph but there are no records remaining to document it.
BUT on January 24, 1878, a letter from Donisthorpe, entitled Talking Photographs, appeared in Nature, in which he suggested that his Kinesigraph be used in conjunction with Edison's recent invention the Phonograph which could produce a talking picture. There is a STRONG indication that this is where Edison got the idea for producing his Kinetoscope.

With London the center of the world shipping, photographers and engineers in London were able to see developments handled by the advanced British sales organizations that travelled the world. Information became available from these fantastic advancements from inventors such as Ottomar Anschutz, Jules Janssen, Georges Demeny, Jules Marey and Emile Reynaud .

With this flow of information into London, it's no wonder that the UK led the way in the industry with developments by British inventors such as Eadweard Muybridge, Wordsworth Donisthorpe, John Rudge and Louis Aime Augustin Le Prince, who in 1888 patented the worlds first motion picture camera. (Oddly enough, Prince lived in Leeds which was also where Donisthorpe lived)

Edison tried to create a working model to combine moving photographs and his phonograph....... BUT COULDN'T.... Edison stated that he thought that this would be passing fad and not worth much commercial value. Under the guise that he was more interested in promoting his phonograph, he hired William K. L. Dickson, a brilliant BRITISH electrical engineer to work out all the problems.

ALSO...here's something that should be considered..........

While Edison was in Europe FOR MONTHS visiting inventors to see what they were doing,
Dickson purchased the celloid film from Eastman setting the 35mm standard;
Dickson perfected the Kinetoscope;
Dickson shot Fred Ott's Sneeze;
Dickson filed the film for copyright in the US copyright office under Dickson's name, and
Dickson supervised the building of the Black Maria to make the films for the Kinetoscope.

Edison started manufacturing the Kinetoscope and selling licenses. Edison sold the world distribution rights to Maguire and Baucus which opened offices in New York and London. Maguire and Baucus opened the first Kinetoscope parlor at 70 Oxford Street in London on October 17, 1894 under the name Continental Commerce Co.

George Trajedis and an associate, who were Greek entrepreneurs that bought the Edison Kinetoscope from Maguire and Baucus, approached R. W. Paul who owned an electrical engineering factory in Saffron Hill, to manufacture some Edison Kinetoscopes. Edison had not patented them in the UK.

Edison refused to sell films for what he called 'pirated' machines, so Paul approached Birt Acres to help construct a camera to shoot their own films. They obtained film from the American Celluloid Co. of Newark, N.J. and started filming their own films. Birt Acres presented the first official presentation at the London headquarters of the Royal Photographic Society, 14 Hanover Square on January 14, 1896.

On February 20, 1896, French magician Felicien Trewey had the first screening before a PAYING audience using a Lumiere Cinematopraphe at the Regent Street Polytechnic in London. He had a 3 week engagement and charged 1 shilling.

The first showing outside of London was by Birt Acres at Cardiff Town Hall on May 5, 1896. The first commercial showing of a film that they produced was the Oxford and Cambridge University Boat Race which was shown at Earl's Court on May 27, 1896.

Over the next few years, tremendous advancements were made from such innovators as Birt Acres, R. W. Paul, Cecil Hepworth, and Charles Urban which catapulted the British market to one of the most aggressive in the world. G. A. Smith devised the world's first colour system, Kinemacolor, in 1908 which was quickly utilized by Charles Urban who opened offices in France and the US.

As other countries increased in production, London, being the centre of trade AND with NO taxes or tariffs on import and export, began to be swamped with films from all over the world.... Pathe, who set up the first mass production operation with 6 film production companies dominated the world.

Competition grew fierce, and instead of trying to compete and constantly upgrade equipment and procedures, numerous British studios opted to produce more local oriented films, such as local comedies and vaudeville geared to the local market. Although these produced faster immediate profits, they weren't as marketable on the WORLD market. Consequently production quality suffered and exporting of British films dropped drastically.

World War I brought the UK film industry almost to a halt with the majority of studios being requistioned for propaganda films and sometimes used as production plants for war goods.

While Europe was occupied with the war, the US was gaining ground and establishing their marketing and improving their quality. Immediately after the war, as studios made tremendous efforts to resume production and pick up the industry, they were faced with monumentous obstacles from outdated equipment to having to completely rebuild and restructure the industry. The British public, tired from the war, was suddenly enjoying Charlie Chaplin, Harold Lloyd, William Hart and an overwhelming abundance of higher quality films to make them laugh and forget their troubles.

As British studios struggled to produce higher quality films, the profit margins plummeted. The British public wanted to see American films, and by 1918, there was no money left for home production. This continued on a downward trend until production stopped in 1924.

The problem was, that this was not just a British problem. All of the European countries were having the same problems. By the early 1920s, Hollywood films dominated the world. In Australia, over 80% of their imported films were coming from Hollywood compared to 5% coming from the UK. Over 80% of the films shown in India were from the US.

Trying to address the problem, a movement called 'Film Europe' was started with numerous initiatives between 1924 and 1928, such as joint production and reciprocal distribution between European countries, creating the first cinematic Common Market. The initial momentum was started by an arrangement for mutual distribution between Ufa of Germany and Etablissements in France.

Just when it looked like the solidarity of the industry momentum was starting to make a difference in Europe, in late 1925, Ufa ran into financial difficulties and had to be bailed out by the American studios. Part of the bail-out agreement specified that a specific number of Paramount and MGM films would be shown in Germany and Ufa films would be available through them to be shown in the US.

Finally the Parliment stepped in to help by passing the Cinematographers Trade Bill, which was designed to ensure there was a guaranteed home market for British made films. It limited the number of movies coming from other countries to give home studios a chance. The result was more British movies, but the majority of them were very poor quality.

American studios stepped in and started backing quota quickies so once the quota was reached American films could be shown in combination with the quota quickie.

During this time period of solidarity, Germany led the way producing over 220 films with France with 73 and Great Britain with 33, and other European countries producing less. If silent films had remained, 'Film Europe' could have made a major difference.. but the introduction of sound complicated the use of films from one country to the other with too many problems that they couldn't overcome.

The advent of sound offered more challenges to the British Film Industry's financial stability. In 1929 for example, 138 films were made and the growth looked promising. In 1933, J. Arthur Rank, who had started by making religious films, founded British National. In 1935, he went into partnership with C.M.Woolf to take over Pinewood Studios.

At the same time, Oscar Deutsch was building up the Odeon chain of cinemas. But by 1937, the boom turned into a slump. The year before, the British film industry had over produced, making 220 pictures. The result was poorly made, rushed films that were not worth watching and nobody wanted. This had a backlash effect and opened the door to the American industry, and American companies started buying the British Production companies so they would qualify under the home market quota.

Soon with the start of World War II, the industry took another turn. Many of the studio employees were engaged in the war, reducing available manpower. Half the studio space was requisitioned for military purposes, and only an average of 60 films were produced annually.

The British public demanded more realistic films, so British studios turned to documentaries and war related movies.

After the war, the Rank Organization became the dominant force in the industry. The shift was to make British films more acceptable to the audiences outside of the UK. In addition, television caused such a tremendous decline in attendance that British theaters were closing in record numbers. Studios switched to producing TV shows and TV movies to stay afloat. Even though there were a few bright spots over the next few decades like Hammer Films, the British production on its own was rather bleak.

In the late 50's, 60's and 70s, restrictions on the US studios soon had US studios looking at the UK as a production ground, almost like US studio outposts. There was such an influx of US production in the UK that American finances virtually took over the British industry. Some of this produced a large group of British actors that in the US were thought of as US actors instead of British... These included such fine actors as: Albert Finney, Alan Bates, Tom Courtney, Richard Harris, Julie Christie, Richard Todd, Laurence Harvey, Richard Burton, Peter Finch, Peter Sellers, Terrence Stamp, Donald Pleasance, Paul Scofield and directors such as Richard Attenborough, Brian Forbes and Ken Russell.

The late 70's and 80's saw British production turning to more television production and branching into more special effects studios for major US studios like Superman, Star Wars and the James Bond series. But by the late 80's, there seemed to be a major decline in US production in the UK.

With this vacuum being created, there seems to have started a renewal of independently made British movies. Through the 90's, British production has increased with such hits as Trainspotting, Brassed Off, Elizabeth, The Full Monty etc. Hopefully the trend will continue to stablize with more solid British production.

Here's a list of the British films in our database