Cinemas and cinemagoing in wartime Britain, 1939–45: The utility dream palace 9781784997366

Citation preview

I

A landmark in the field of film history, this ground-breaking and accessible book shows that in order to understand the position and significance of the cinema in wartime, attention needs to be paid not only to the films that were watched, but also to the places in which they were screened and the ways in which they were consumed. It is an essential resource for scholars, students and anyone wanting to comprehend the intersection of culture, leisure, economics and politics in wartime Britain.

‘One of the most significant books on British cinema to appear for many years.’ Mark Glancy, Queen Mary University of London Richard Farmer is Research Associate in the Department of Film, Television and Media Studies at the University of East Anglia

Front cover – The Palladium, Plymouth, 1941. A German air raid on the city caused extensive damage to the cinema. Reproduced by permission of Plymouth and West Devon Record Office, Image 1418/27

ISBN 978-0-7190-9188-9

9 780719 091889 www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk

STUDIES IN

POPULAR CULTURE

Cinemas and cinemagoing in wartime Britain, 1939– 45 The utility dream palace

Cinemas and cinemagoing in wartime Britain, 1939– 45

Although promising escape from the hardships and occasional terrors of wartime life, the cinema was so intimately woven into the fabric of British society that it could not itself escape the war. Drawing on a wide range of contemporary sources, as well as the memories of wartime cinemagoers, Cinemas and cinemagoing in wartime Britain, 1939–45 is the first book to offer an in-depth exploration of the ways in which phenomena such as the blackout, the blitz, food rationing, evacuation and conscription affected the exhibition industry and popular experiences of the cinema.

STUDIES IN

POPULAR CULTURE

FA R M E R

n Britain, the cinema was never more popular – or more important – than it was during the Second World War. This comprehensive and innovative study provides a social and cultural history of cinemas and cinemagoing in Britain between 1939 and 1945, and explores the widespread impact that the war had on the places in which the British watched films.

R I C H A R D FA R M E R

Cinemas and cinemagoing in wartime Britain, 1939–45

STUDIES IN

POPULAR CULTURE General editor: Professor Jeffrey Richards Already published Christmas in nineteenth-century England Neil Armstrong Healthy living in the Alps: the origins of winter tourism in Switzerland, 1860–1914 Susan Barton Working-class organisations and popular tourism, 1840–1970 Susan Barton Leisure, citizenship and working-class men in Britain, 1850–1945 Brad Beaven Leisure and cultural conflict in twentieth-century Britain Brett Bebber (ed.) British railway enthusiasm Ian Carter Railways and culture in Britain Ian Carter Time, work and leisure: life changes in England since 1700 Hugh Cunningham Darts in England, 1900–39: a social history Patrick Chaplin Holiday camps in twentieth-century Britain: packaging pleasure Sandra Trudgen Dawson History on British television: constructing nation, nationality and collective memory Robert Dillon The food companions: cinema and consumption in wartime Britain, 1939–45 Richard Farmer Songs of protest, songs of love: popular ballads in eighteenth-century Britain Robin Ganev Heroes and happy endings: class, gender, and nation in popular film and fiction in interwar Britain Christine Grandy Women drinking out in Britain since the early twentieth century David W. Gutzke 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 Popular culture in London, c. 1890–1918: the transformation of entertainment Andrew Horrall Popular culture and working-class taste in Britain, 1930–39: a round of cheap diversions? Robert James The experience of suburban modernity: how private transport changed interwar London John M. Law Amateur film: meaning and practice, 1927–1977 Heather Norris Nicholson Films and British national identity: from Dickens to Dad’s Army Jeffrey Richards Cinema and radio in Britain and America, 1920–60 Jeffrey Richards Looking North: Northern England and the national imagination Dave Russell The British seaside holiday: holidays and resorts in the twentieth century John K. Walton Politics, performance and popular culture in the nineteenth century Peter Yeandle, Katherine Newe and Jeffrey Richards

Cinemas and cinemagoing in wartime Britain, 1939–45 The utility dream palace

RICHARD FARMER

Manchester University Press

Copyright © Richard Farmer 2016 The right of Richard Farmer 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 Altrincham Street, Manchester M1 7JA 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 ISBN 978 0 7190 9188 9 hardback First published 2016 The publisher has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for any external or 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 by Servis Filmsetting Ltd, Stockport, Cheshire

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

For Beatrice

Contents

List of illustrations viii List of tables x General editor’s foreword xi Acknowledgementsxiii List of abbreviations xvi Note on sources xvii Introduction1 1  Dark houses: cinemagoing in the early months of the war 22 2  The Cinematograph Exhibitors’ Association and the government 58 3  Forlorn and bedraggled spectacles: cinemagoing in the blitz 93 4  On the appearance and disappearance of staff 127 5  Showmanship in wartime 163 6  Cinemagoing in wartime 199 Conclusion235 Bibliography247 Index260

List of illustrations

  1 ‘Pictures? Pictures? Let me see now. Yes, I believe we have some pictures showing somewhere.’ Joseph Lee in London Evening News, 12 March 1935. Reproduced by permission of Solo Syndication/Associated Newspapers Ltd and the British Cartoon Archive, University of Kent: www.cartoons.ac.uk  9  2 Gaumont British News 594A, 14 September 1939. Reproduced by permission of ITN Source 23   3 Night architecture. The Odeon cinema, Weston-super-Mare, May 1935. Reproduced by permission of English Heritage. NMR, BB87/02801 44   4 ‘After five years of black-out, Human Bats train to face neon, flood and fluorescent lighting.’ Joseph Lee in London Evening News, 24 August 1944. Reproduced by permission of Solo Syndication/Associated Newspapers Ltd and the British Cartoon Archive, University of Kent: www.cartoons.ac.uk 50   5 Air-raid warning slide, as reproduced in Hope and Glory (dir. John Boorman; Goldcrest Films/Nelson Entertainment/ Columbia Pictures, 1987) 97   6 The Palladium, Plymouth, 1941. A German air raid on the city caused extensive damage to the cinema. Reproduced by permission of Plymouth and West Devon Record Office, Image 1418/27 101   7 ‘Actually we’re full up. This war-picture is so realistic the audience are all under the seats.’ Joseph Lee in London Evening News, 11 May 1943. Reproduced by permission of Solo Syndication/Associated Newspapers Ltd and the British Cartoon Archive, University of Kent: www.cartoons.ac.uk 111



List of illustrations

  8 Staff of the Odeon cinema, Isleworth, c.1935. Reproduced by permission of English Heritage. NMR, BB87/02711 132   9 Maurice McLaughlin in Punch, 8 March 1944. Reproduced by permission of Punch Ltd., www.punch.co.uk 141 10 Mother Riley (Arthur Lucan), complete with ‘saucy’ uniform, assists a patron in Old Mother Riley’s Circus (1941). Reproduced by permission of BFI Stills 143 11 Female projectionists, seen here in ‘flimsy’ and ‘inflammable’ clothing, at the Odeon cinema, Exeter, in 1941. Reproduced by permission of Plymouth and West Devon Record Office, Image 1418/1344151 12 Publicity still from The Stars Look Down, a ‘stolid and rather slow’ film that failed to win favour at the Granada, Wandsworth Road despite an extensive publicity campaign. Reproduced by permission of BFI Stills 171 13 Millions Like Us (1943) has fun with the official pronouncement that from June 1940 the display of place names on signs was prohibited (dir. Frank Launder and Sidney Gilliat; Gainsborough Pictures) 175 14 Detail from cinema programme advertisements as printed in Western Daily Press, 29 April 1940. Note the call for female projectionists visible at the foot of the column. Reproduced by permission of the British Library Board 179 15 Cinemagoers queue outside the Empire and Ritz cinemas in Leicester Square, London, in March 1941. The Empire is showing The Philadelphia Story (1940), which ran for four weeks; the Ritz – as it did for much of the war – is screening Gone With the Wind (1939). Reproduced by permission of the Imperial War Museum, IWM Image D 2973 203 Every effort has been made to obtain permission to reproduce copyright material, and the publisher will be pleased to be informed of any errors and omissions for correction in future editions.

ix

List of tables

1 Attendance figures for select Leicester Square cinemas, 10 May 1940 2  Admissions statistics for British cinemas, 1939–46 (in millions) 3  Entertainments Tax receipts, 1939–40 to 1945–46 4  Average cinema ticket prices, 1939 to 1945

4 11 78 78

General editor’s foreword

Unlike other works on British cinema in the Second World War, Richard Farmer’s book focuses not primarily on films but on the whole cinemagoing experience. Cinema going had become established as ‘the essential social habit of the age’ by 1939 and it continued throughout the war to provide a source of entertainment, information, escape and emotional comfort, but under drastically altered conditions. Drawing on a wide variety of sources, including newspapers, the trade press, fan magazines, police reports, Mass-Observation, oral history interviews, industry and government records, Farmer analyses and recreates with vivid immediacy the changes effected in the cinemagoing experience by the onset of war. He charts the impact of the blackout, air raids, child evacuation, transport restrictions and the introduction of Double Summer Time on shows and audiences. He examines the influence of the government on the exhibition industry, in particular the Ministry of Information, with its programme of official film propaganda, the Ministry of Food with its ‘Food Flashes’ and sweet rationing and the Treasury deriving revenue from Entertainments Tax. He analyses the changes in male and female staff, with conscription thinning their ranks, clothes rationing affecting their uniforms and women training as projectionists to replace their male counterparts. He looks at the strategies for promoting films when paper shortages meant fan magazines shrank and merged, the size and number of posters were restricted and advertising space in newspapers was reduced. There was still scope for competitions, stunts and personal appearances as managers’ ingenuity and inventiveness were tested to the limit. Among the many incidental details which encapsulate the era are the facts that cinemas could refuse entry to anyone not carrying a gas mask, and there was a ban on the manufacture and sale of ice cream between 1942 and 1945. This thoroughly researched,

xii

General editor’s foreword

fascinating and evocative account represents a significant advance in our understanding of the phenomenon of cinemagoing. By 1946 the cinemas, which had once prided themselves in being luxurious dream palaces, had become shabby and run down. Many of the shortages and restrictions besetting them would persist until the end of the decade. But 1946 was also the year of peak cinema attendance in Britain, eloquent testimony to the captivating power of film. Jeffrey Richards

Acknowledgements

Researching and writing a book can often be a fairly solitary pursuit, so it is with great pleasure that I thank the following people and organisations, not only for the practical assistance they have given me over the past few years, but also for providing me with the motivation, support and ideas I needed to make this project what it is. I would like to start by thanking the Leverhulme Trust for the award of the Early Career Fellowship that made possible my research into wartime cinemagoing. This book is the product of that research. I would also like to express my gratitude to University College London, where I worked during my Fellowship, both for hosting me and for giving me the chance to work with such a stimulating range of students and colleagues. In particular, I would like to thank Dr Claire Thomson, who offered sage and timely advice and knew the best places to get tea, coffee and biscuits. It also gives me considerable satisfaction to thank those people who agreed to be interviewed for the project, either in person or in writing, and whose memories of the cinema in the 1930s and 1940s have done so much to shape the tone and content of this book: Joan Armstrong, Tony Auguste, Henry and June Backen, Eric Barlow, George and Nancy Bush, Sandy Cameron, Joan Carbutt, Denys Chamberlain, Irene Craven, Tonie Downes, Vera Eldridge, Ninette Finch, Peter George, Christine Gitsham, Jackie Hainsworth, Josephine Harper, Joan Hearn, Rex Hipple, Steve King, George Lentern, Joseph Marks, Peggy Muir, d’Arcy Orders, Vivienne Phillips, Gladys Pritchett, Jim and Penny Putz, James Robertson, Doris Senior, Astor and Betty Sklair and Kathleen Wykes. Even when not quoted directly, these interviews have informed my thinking about what the cinema meant to people during the war, and ensured that the human experience of the cinema remain prominent in my work.

xiv

Acknowledgements

On an associated point, I would like to express my gratitude to Harry Rigby of the CTA Bulletin, Allen Eyles of the Veteran and Marella Hoffman at Cambridge City Council’s Open Door magazine for printing my requests for assistance and in so doing helping me to make contact with a number of wartime cinemagoers. I have visited and made use of material held in various libraries and archives, and would like to thank the following individuals and institutions for their assistance in arranging access to, and where appropriate providing permission to quote from, their collections: the National Archives, Kew; Clive Polden and Rachel Marks of the Cinema-Theatre Association; Cambridge University Library; the Bodleian Library at the University of Oxford (and the current Lord Woolton for allowing me to quote from the Woolton Papers); Annette Bedford at the Cinematograph Exhibitors’ Association; the BFI Library (especially those working in Special Collections and the Stills Collection); the British Library Newspaper Collection; the Trades Union Congress Library Collection at London Metropolitan University; the BBC Written Archive Centre at Caversham; the Trustees of the Mass-Observation Archive, University of Sussex; the Portsmouth City Archives; and the National Archives of Scotland, Edinburgh. Every reasonable effort has been made to identify and contact copyright holders to seek their permission to use the materials used in this book. In instances where rights may have been overlooked, apologies are offered to copyright holders, who are encouraged to contact the publisher so that this situation might be rectified in any subsequent editions of this work. Part of Chapter 2 appeared in a different form as ‘A Temporarily Vanished Civilisation: Ice Cream, Confectionery and Wartime Cinemagoing’, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, 31:4 (2011). I would like to thank the editors of that publication for permission to reprint. Illustrations are reproduced by permission of Solo Syndication/ Associated Newspapers Ltd, the British Cartoon Archive at the University of Kent, BFI Stills, the British Library Newspaper Archive, English Heritage/NMR, ITN Source, the Imperial War Museum, ITV Studios Global Entertainment, Plymouth and West Devon Records Office and Punch. Efforts were made, to no avail, to locate the rights holders for the still taken from Old Mother Riley’s Circus. Numerous individuals helped me in numerous ways, and space and discretion dictate that I cannot name all of them here. However, I would like to express my particular gratitude to Philip Horne, Jann Matlock, Sue



Acknowledgements

Harper, Polly and Graham Plender, Pat and Terry Ludkin, Ariadne Lack, Joyce Wells and Dolly Kay at Egerton Lodge, Eva Balogh, and Carol, David and Sandra Farmer. Special mention should also go to Simon and Blazenka Hrvojevic for hospitality above and beyond the call of duty. I would like to end by offering my love and thanks to Olivia, Isaac and Beatrice, whose own enjoyment of the cinema proved instructive, thoughtprovoking and inspiring in equal measure. Your love shines like neon in the blackout. This book is for all of you, but is dedicated to Beatrice, who arrived just too late to be included last time.

xv

List of abbreviations

ARP Air Raid Precautions BBC British Broadcasting Corporation BFI British Film Institute BoT Board of Trade CEA Cinematograph Exhibitors’ Association CTA Cinema-Theatre Association Met Metropolitan Police, London M-O Mass-Observation MOA Mass-Observation Archive, University of Sussex MoF Ministry of Food MoI Ministry of Information NAAFI Navy, Army and Air Force Institute NATKE National Association of Theatrical and Kinema Employees NSC National Savings Committee RAF Royal Air Force TNA The National Archives, London USAAF United States Army Air Force WDC War Damage Commission

Note on sources

The spelling and punctuation of quotations taken from some contemporary sources has been amended in an attempt to ensure consistency and improve clarity. Such amendments have been minimal, and have not altered the meaning or spirit of the quoted material.

Introduction

A

fter some seven months of Sitzkrieg, the Second World War on the western front burst into terrifying life in the spring of 1940. On 9 April, German troops entered Denmark and Norway. There was no time for Britain and France to offer any resistance to save the former, whilst the Allies failed in their attempt to prevent the fall of the latter. Indeed, so wretchedly unsuccessful was Britain’s campaign in Norway that it accounted for the premiership of Neville Chamberlain, who was replaced by Winston Churchill on 10 May. On the day that Churchill assumed office, the German army launched invasions of France, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. The advance was swift: the Netherlands surrendered on 15 May, Belgium less than a fortnight later. By the time that King Leopold’s government sued for peace, Operation Dynamo had begun, and nearly 200,000 members of the British Expeditionary Force and more than 100,000 of its French allies were being evacuated from Dunkirk. A war that only weeks before had still seemed distant was suddenly less than thirty miles from British soil. As it became increasingly obvious that the German advance on the Channel ports would not be stopped, and as it became clear that France would soon fall, the authorities in Britain turned their attention to assessing the impact of these events on British morale. There were very real concerns in official circles that the fighting spirit of the civilian population would wither in anticipation of a German assault, and the Ministry of Information (MoI) established a Home Morale Emergency Committee in an attempt to analyse and if necessary counteract just such an occurrence. Much of the MoI’s information about morale came from Home Intelligence reports, produced daily between May and September 1940, and at weekly intervals thereafter. These reports distilled material gathered from a wide range of

2

Cinemas and cinemagoing in wartime Britain, 1939–45

different sources – police reports, BBC listener surveys, Gallup polls and the Ministry’s own Regional Intelligence Officers, to name but a few – and although they tended towards the impressionistic the final product was, according to Robert Mackay, ‘unlikely to be very far from the truth’.1 The picture painted by Home Intelligence in May 1940 was decidedly ambivalent: ‘unstable and detailed reports over the last fortnight show in a striking way the day-to-day swing of public feeling: anxiety, optimism, pessimism [and] bewilderment chase one another over succeeding days’.2 This picture would have been recognised by anyone reading the MassObservation diaries produced by Christopher Tomlin during May 1940, which combine a sense of confusion and fear and a determination not to let the side down. Thus we find Tomlin expressing his growing horror at the realisation that the Wehrmacht and Luftwaffe were proving more than a match for their Allied counterparts: 15 May: Holland surrenders! It needs a gigantic effort to keep panic under control. Germany is invincible … I am very much afraid we won’t defeat Germany. 16 May: The fate of Britain hangs on a thread. People are full of hidden fear, fear the Government will blunder again, fear that the confident assertions of public men, generals and so on, are mere poppycock. Doesn’t this Government realise the population isn’t optimistic but despairs through recent experience? 23 May: The Germans are on the coast. The end is near. 24 May: I am afraid to read a newspaper.3

Such feelings, however, could only be confided, and in strictest confidence, to Mass-Observation: ‘Of course, I am determined to keep these thoughts to myself. I will try to steady people’s morale.’ The ‘of course’ is telling, and speaks of a more widespread practice of attempting to hide real and palpable anxieties beneath a veneer of stoicism. No matter how great his concerns, it seems unlikely that Tomlin would have voiced them in a public place where they might have been overheard by someone gathering intelligence for the MoI. Assessing morale was (and is) clearly a complex task; people do not always express or even understand the full range of their feelings. Individuals frequently experience simultaneously conflicting emotions and attitudes: as they vie for attention within the individual, it is difficult to assess which are most likely to determine behaviour. A qualitative assessment



Introduction

of morale – such as to be found in the Home Intelligence reports and the Mass-Observation diaries – is therefore likely to require a fair degree of extrapolation and conjecture. Understanding this, Stephen Taylor of the MoI’s Home Intelligence unit, proposed in October 1941 that actions rather than feelings might afford a more accurate gauge of morale, a phenomenon that was ‘ultimately measured not by what a person thinks or says, but by what he does and how he does it’.4 Taylor called, essentially, for a more quantitative approach to morale, one which was based on observing people’s actions as well as their attitudes. And whilst a quantitative assessment might not explain why it is that people feel the way that they do – or even outline in any detail what it is that they feel – it does offer some insight into how feelings affect actions. In the case of Britain during the Second World War, such actions have often been understood in terms of the direct contribution that an individual might make to the war effort – in terms of factory output, for example, or in the hours spent on Home Guard duty. But surely we should also consider the hundreds of prosaic and mundane activities that constitute everyday life. To attempt to maintain personal routine in the face of the disquieting realities of wartime is to proclaim a certain faith in the country’s ability to survive and function along something approximating normal lines. Conversely, to abandon elements of that routine as a result of wartime conditions is to make an unspoken declaration of underlying nervousness, even if loudly and publically professing confidence. It was with such an idea in mind that the Metropolitan Police attempted to gauge the public mood in London, a city that the MoI believed to have notably lower morale during the spring of 1940 than other parts of Britain.5 Looking to see if the grim news from the continent was changing patterns of behaviour on the Home Front, the Met turned to the cinema. Divisional Superintendents around London were asked to submit reports outlining how, or indeed if, ‘present war conditions’ and the fear of imminent German action against the United Kingdom had affected attendance at the places of entertainment found in the area they policed. Whilst in some districts ticket sales on 10 and 11 May compared favourably to a normal Friday or Saturday night, in many others the picture was grim, with West End box offices doing only a little over two-thirds of expected business on the night of 11 May.6 In Leicester Square, home to a number of prestigious first-run picture houses, the numbers were particularly bad, and not even Gone With the Wind (1939), which was then playing at the Empire, was immune from the sense of panic (see Table 1).7

3

4

Cinemas and cinemagoing in wartime Britain, 1939–45

Table 1  Attendance figures for select Leicester Square cinemas, 10 May 1940

Empire Warner Odeon Leicester Square Cinema

‘Normal’

10 May 1940

2,500 1,500 1,000 1,500

1,500   300   800   700

Source: TNA HO 186/229: Memo from Assistant-Superintendent ‘C’ Division to ACD, 11 May 1940.

It is telling that the entertainments industry was recognised to be a barometer for the mood of ordinary Londoners. For even though, as one trade paper noted, ‘the fact that box-office attendances had taken an appalling nose-dive all over the country … appeared to be of almost minor importance’ when compared to events in France and Belgium, it is clear that by 1940 a night at the pictures had become so normalised an action for millions of Britons that disruptions to expected patterns of cinemagoing were recognised as reliable indicators that something, somewhere was amiss.8 And whilst the Met’s methodology was far from perfect – not least in that there were a host of factors that might have affected attendance – the data collected offer an interesting glimpse both of the darkness of the mood in some quarters, and of the linkages that anchored the cinema’s crucial role in wartime life within the realities of wartime existence. The Met seemed convinced of the causal relationship between morale and people’s willingness to spend a night at the pictures: the more dispirited an individual felt, the less likely they were to visit the cinema. But although this is certainly plausible, it only looks at the issue that morale might have on cinemagoing, and fails to take into account the impact that cinemagoing (and by this I do not mean simply watching films) might have on morale. In their study of working-class cultural practices during the blitz, Brad Beaven and John Griffiths propose that ‘the most consistent and influential variable to affect working-class morale was the degree to which working-class communities were able to function as close to pre-war times as possible’.9 Not going to the cinema might be indicative of poor morale; not being able to participate in the ritual of cinemagoing – be that as a result of financial, martial, logistical or social factors – had the potential to bring about poor morale.



Introduction

Cinemagoing is something that people do. And because the cinema as a social practice and cultural institution is so fully embedded within the patterns of everyday life, it is acutely sensitive to the changing nature of the world in which it and its patrons exist. For although cinema is often characterised in terms of the escape it provided from the workaday, it was only able to make such sustained attempts to fulfil this ambition as the result of the position it occupied within the real world: where people were escaping from was as important to the popular experience of the cinema as where they were escaping to. The cinema was not distinct from normal life; it was, for tens of millions of Britons, a crucial part of it. British exhibitors had for many years recognised and traded upon the linkage that existed between their cinemas and the environments in which they operated, and further understood that factors pertaining in those environments had the potential to affect the public’s inclination to attend the cinema, for both good and ill. It was widely recognised that cinemagoing was a seasonal activity, with lower attendance figures in summer than in winter. Taking this one step further, the managers of venues such as the Playhouse and Palace cinemas in Edinburgh kept a meteorological record to see if the weather had a similar ability to influence ticket sales.10 Indeed, the Cinematograph Exhibitors’ Association (CEA) noted in its annual report that 1936 had been ‘fortunate from [the exhibitor’s] point of view in the enjoyment of a wet summer which kept attendances normal’. Because hot, dry weather encouraged outdoor activities, rain was the cinema manager’s friend. But in almost the next breath the CEA noted that what precipitation giveth, a precipitous political crisis taketh away: ‘the abdication of the reigning king [on 10 December 1936] … was an event to be remembered, not only for its national importance, but also because it effectively emptied cinemas until the close of the year’. The abdication was clearly a unique moment in the history of the British cinema, but the Association used it to draw wider-reaching conclusions: Every national event has a reaction upon the cinema, so largely does it enter into the lives of the people. When an event of this kind happens that absorbs the interest of the people, it does so outside cinemas and it is almost impossible to persuade them to maintain their regular attendances.11

This was no less true during the war, a ‘national event’ of quite extraordinary prominence and duration, and time and again the trade press

5

6

Cinemas and cinemagoing in wartime Britain, 1939–45

c­ontained reports of attendances fluctuating in response to events as dramatic as the blackout or the blitz, or as prosaic as the changing of the clocks or the seasons. This book will explore the interconnectedness of cinema and society in Britain during the Second World War not only in terms of the impact that the war had on British cinemas and cinemagoing between 1939 and 1945, but also in terms of how the cinema existed within wartime Britain. Few elements of cinemagoing remained untouched by the war, and, therefore, there are few elements of cinemagoing that cannot tell us something about what British life was like during the war. The history of British cinemas in wartime is in many ways the history of wartime Britain, for the changes wrought in British society all had an effect on the exhibition industry, cinema managers and cinemagoers. These changes, often introduced individually and incrementally, might appear insignificant; indeed, some were. But when taken together, they represented a sustained assault on the established norms of the pre-war cinemagoing experience. This is not to say that British cinemas lost all appeal during the war; one need only look at the rapid increase in tickets sales, particularly from 1941, to see that this was not remotely the case. Rather, it is to recognise that the war had a direct and decisive impact on the way in which people accessed, thought about and experienced the cinema in Britain after September 1939. Britons could still spend a night at the pictures, and did so with increasing frequency, but this does not mean that the cinema was able to sail through the war untouched by the events taking place in the world around it. The dream palace You or I and the people of England do not go to cinema theatres because they are big buildings or because they are very magnificent to look at. People go to see films that they wish to see … [and if necessary] will go and see that film in a tent in a field.12

To Lord Brabazon, who made this claim in the House of Lords in 1944, the cinema was simply a building (and sometimes not even that) in which films were screened. But although in the cinema’s infancy exhibitors did run film shows in tents in fields, this phase soon passed. Exhibitors came to be convinced of the economic rewards that might accrue from establishing cinemas as urban fixtures that constituted a physical riposte in brick, mortar, faience, glass, Snowcrete and neon to Brabazon’s way of thinking.



Introduction

Exhibitors began to lavish vast sums on their most prestigious cinemas (and not insignificant sums on their other venues) in the belief that such an outlay was justified by the likelihood of increased box-office receipts.13 This was certainly the case at many Granada cinemas, where opulence and grandiosity were the watchwords of magnate Sidney Bernstein’s relationship with designer Theodore Komisarjevsky. At Tooting, for example, Granada set out to recreate ‘the world of the Palazzo on the Grand Canal … in the midst of South London’.14 Exhibitors were in the business of recognising and catering to the desires of the public, and although the film remained central to this model, the exhibition industry was convinced that the experiential pleasures offered by a visit to the cinema should not be discounted. There were, of course, enough ‘flea-pits’ and ‘bug-hutches’ in Britain to demonstrate that the exhibition industry’s business model was not founded exclusively on the creation of an opulent environment. Indeed, at the end of 1934, when Simon Rowson conducted the first systematic survey of the British exhibition industry, he estimated that more than half the cinemas in Britain had fewer than 800 seats, and that one in five had 500 seats or less.15 Smaller venues such as these were less likely to be able to dedicate the same resources as were larger theatres to the creation of a luxurious environment. However, a great number of cinemas, especially those erected or refurbished during the cinema-building boom of the early 1930s, were statements intended to promote the cinema as a site of sensory and experiential possibility, as an environment with its own genius loci.16 Recent research has suggested that even the earliest permanent-site cinemas, whether constructed specifically or converted from existing buildings, were intended to manipulate the senses and create an experiential environment dedicated to establishing the wonder of film.17 To get a feel for the non-filmic pleasures on offer, one need only look at the design of and amenities and services offered by British cinemas in the 1930s. When the Paramount cinema opened in Newcastle in the autumn of 1931, a special commemorative promotional brochure – the Paramount News – was issued to mark the event. It contained a piece by Stuart Jackson, film critic of the Newcastle Evening World, which gave a detailed overview of ‘this luxurious Cathedral of Motion Pictures’: Wide staircases branched to the palatial regions above my head, and on my way up I glanced in at the lounges and smoke-rooms and the cosmetic cubicles where, amid futuristic splendour, Newcastle’s femininity will be able to apply powder-puff and lip-stick provided gratuitously by Paramount. Every

7

8

Cinemas and cinemagoing in wartime Britain, 1939–45

piece of beautiful furniture has been specially designed to Paramount’s own specification.

In short, ‘Paramount are setting a standard of luxury and entertainment which will captivate the senses and enchant the eye.’18 In such an environment, films were clearly only one of the pleasures on offer. By the mid-1930s, the extravagance of many ‘super-cinemas’ had become something of a running joke, and it was surely gushing promotional material of the type issued in Newcastle that the cartoonist Joseph Lee had in mind when he drew a glamorously attired usherette, standing in marble-columned splendour beneath signs for various cafés, palm courts, snuggeries and lounges: ‘Pictures? Pictures? Let me see now. Yes, I believe we have some pictures showing somewhere’ (see Figure 1). Even though large, city centre super-cinemas – the most expansive of which could seat several thousand paying customers – were the exceptions rather than the rule, they were thought by many to constitute the apotheosis of the cinemagoing ideal.19 Cinemas the length and breadth of the country lined up to align themselves with the supers, and were keen to discuss those aspects of their décor, facilities or service that set them apart from, or allowed them to compete with, their immediate rivals. The £20,000 spent in 1930 converting Her Majesty’s theatre in Dundee into the Majestic cinema allowed its owners to ‘spare no effort in making it the finest and most modern … in Scotland’, and some of its advertised features hint at how luxury and modernity were conceived of in 1930s Britain: The heating … will be a model of well-regulated comfort. A café is at hand, and telephone booths are available for the convenience of patrons. Vacuum cleaning is to be carried out all over the building, ensuring the absence of dust.

The central role that films played was not ignored, however, and great play was made of the fact that ‘a perfect view of the screen will be obtainable from every part of the theatre’ and that ‘efficient reproduction of the sound films to be shown is assured’ by the installation of ‘up-to-date’ Western Electric ‘“talkie” apparatus’.20 Rowson’s survey found that in 1934 there were some 4,305 cinemas operating in Britain, a number that was to rise to approximately 4,800 by 1939, offering a combined total of 3.8 million seats. Or, to put it another way, one cinema for every 10,600 men, women and children in the





Introduction

‘Pictures? Pictures? Let me see now. Yes, I believe we have some pictures showing somewhere.’ Joseph Lee in London Evening News, 12 March 1935.

country, and one seat for every twelve.21 Whilst there were concerns about over-capacity, especially in the wake of the period of rapid expansion in the first half of the 1930s, a report prepared by Mass-Observation in 1942 found that ‘The minimum economic catchment area of the cinema … is sometimes put at 7,000 population.’22 The accuracy of this figure might be

9

1

10

Cinemas and cinemagoing in wartime Britain, 1939–45

contested, but what it makes clear is that cinemas could be commercially viable even in relatively small towns, something that was no longer the case by the mid-1960s: ‘Visiting small country towns – Hereford, Newmarket, Sudbury, for example – one realises what a vastly different place cinemagoing had in the social life of the inter-war and early post-war periods for towns of this size to give rise to two cinemas.’23 Larger cities could, of course, support greater numbers. In 1934, Bolton and Brighton each had eighteen cinemas catering to populations of 180,000 and 200,000 respectively, whilst Portsmouth’s 250,000 inhabitants could choose to spend a night at the pictures at any one of 21 different venues.24 In Dundee, there was an even greater concentration: a population of less than 200,000 was served by as many as 28 different cinemas during the 1930s.25 The sheer number of cinemas meant that the exhibition industry was a very real and extremely visible presence in British urban environments. Numerical preponderance aside, cinemas were conspicuous features of many towns because they were intended to be so. Buildings designed to screen films were rarely coy, and were most often designed to dominate their environs, attract attention and ‘brazenly flaunt their dominance in the life of the nation’.26 Whilst the 120-foot tower on the Gaumont State cinema in Kilburn, north London, was an unusually forceful statement of intent, its immodestly monumental scale did epitomise the muscular confidence of the exhibition industry in the 1930s. The tower at the Gaumont State could be seen from several miles away, and physically manifested the way in which the cinema dominated the High Streets, the cultural landscape and the imaginative geographies of Britain.27 And dominate it did. In Ipswich in 1939, more than half of evenings spent outside the home were spent at the cinema,28 whilst in the winter of 1940–41 the Ministry of Labour found that amongst the industrial working class, 65 per cent of expenditure on entertainments went to the cinema, with 56 per cent of agricultural working-class entertainment expenditure going on the same despite there being fewer cinemas in rural parts of the country. In industrial areas, the average family’s weekly outgoing on entertainments amounted to 1s. 4½d. (1.6 per cent of total expenditure), of which 10¾d. was spent on picturegoing, 2¾d. on sporting events and 3d. on live entertainments such as the music hall. Some contemporary observers believed these figures to underestimate the amount spent on entertainments, and hence on the cinema, citing the ‘well-known tendency of informants of family budgets not to appear too extravagant on luxuries



Introduction

Table 2  Admissions statistics for British cinemas, 1939–46 (in millions)

1939 1940 1941 1942 1943 1944 1945 1946

Average weekly admissions

Annual admissions

19.03 19.75 25.17 28.73 29.63 30.28 30.48 31.44

  990 1,027 1,309 1,494 1,541 1,575 1,585 1,635

Source: H. E. Browning and A. A. Sorrell, ‘Cinemas and cinemagoing in Great Britain’, Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, 117:2 (1954), p. 134.

or semi-luxuries’ and on the fact that entertainments were often paid for out of ‘unaccounted pocket money’.29 By the time the war started, some 19 million tickets were being sold each week, and this number grew rapidly during the war (see Table 2). Given that the population of the United Kingdom in this period was somewhere in the region of 45 million, it becomes clear just how much time British people spent going to (and from, and in) the cinema. On average, in 1939, two people in five visited the cinema each week; in 1945, two in three. Higher wages and a greater desire for relaxation both fed into the massive increase in cinema attendance during the war. So, too, did reduced competition from rival leisure providers. Professional football and cricket leagues, for example, were suspended for much of the war, and although the fixtures arranged between scratch sides were frequently very well attended, the irregularity of such fixtures and the fact that teams rarely featured the same players from one match to the next meant that they did not hold the public imagination in the same manner as peacetime competitions. The rhythm of sporting fandom was disrupted in a way that cinema fandom was not. But bold numbers such as these do not tell the whole story. A study conducted in 1943 by the Wartime Social Survey for the MoI found that cinemagoing was not uniformly popular: almost a third of those questioned either never or only rarely visited the cinema, a third went no more than once a fortnight, whilst the remaining third – which accounted for the bulk of ticket sales – went at least once a week. Issues of class, age and gender all played important roles in determining into which group a

11

12

Cinemas and cinemagoing in wartime Britain, 1939–45

respondent was likely to fall. Thus, the working class accounted for a disproportionately high proportion of ticket sales, the young went more than the middle aged or the old and women were slightly more enthusiastic about the cinema than were men, with each of these tendencies becoming more pronounced in those who went most regularly.30 Further, Rowson’s 1934 survey found that four out of every five tickets purchased at British box offices cost no more than a shilling (inclusive of Entertainments Tax), and, of these, half cost 7d. or less – the cheap seats were often the most crowded.31 Although it is true that in terms of the money spent at the box office, or the cumulative hours that the British people spent in the auditorium, the cinema was undoubtedly ‘the essential social habit of the age’, it is also true that cinemagoing was far from being a monolithic phenomenon.32 This was the case at the regional, national and personal levels: cinemas within cities varied widely and as a consequence offered similarly varied experiences; clear contrasts could be drawn between venues in different regions (especially so between urban and rural halls); and cinemagoers made use of particular venues at different times – the flea-pit might suffice during the week, but a super might be more appropriate for the weekend or on a special occasion. What’s more, the power exercised by local laws and local licensing authorities and watch committees meant that cinema exhibition was shaped by the specificities of place, evolving in response to local events, cultures, tastes and prejudices. The arguments that raged over Sunday o­ pening – discussed in Chapter 2 – allow for an exploration of this localism, but censorship is another issue that was often handled at the local level. Scarface (1932), for example, was banned in more than 100 towns and cities (including Manchester and Birmingham), whilst other, sometimes neighbouring, localities permitted its exhibition: Preston and Bath banned the film, Blackpool and Bristol allowed it to be screened.33 When the film was reissued in 1938, the Lido cinema in Lichfield took full advantage of its location on an island of permissiveness in a sea of prohibition by declaring that Scarface ‘cannot be seen elsewhere for miles around’.34 Travelling between towns to watch films, or even between distant suburbs within the same city, might not have been the norm, but clearly it did happen. Inhabitants of rural areas seeking to while away a few hours at the nearest local cinema might have to travel not inconsiderable distances to take in a picture show. In an age before widespread car ownership, this



Introduction

meant that many cinemagoers travelled to the cinema on bicycles or on foot, or were reliant upon – or alternatively, were at the mercy of – local public transport infrastructure and timetables.35 The crucial role that public transport played in facilitating popular consumption of the cinema worked to ground venues within particular environments and made them most readily accessible to those who knew the route of the no. 32 bus or the fastest way to get to the Regal when the Rex was full.36 In this sense, bus, tram and train timetables were as important as screening times when planning a trip to the cinema, especially in a period of continuous programming. Before the advent of widespread television ownership in the 1950s, to watch a film – to watch moving pictures of any kind – was, with a very few exceptions, to visit the cinema; and to visit the cinema was ‘an event that also involved other people, performances (cinematic and non-cinematic), things (furniture and architecture), spaces, technologies and experiences: tastes, smells, sounds and sights’.37 Until relatively recently, scholars of the cinema have been able to maintain, with some accuracy, that ‘the field of film studies has ignored a rather important component of the film industry, its audience’.38 The growth of academic interest in the people who watched films, the ways in which they watched and thought about them and the places in which they were screened means that cinemagoing and the exhibition industry are no longer the mysteries that they once were.39 It is still the case, though, that if we hope to comprehend how the cinema as an institution functioned within society, we need to supplement the literature on individual films, particular genres and specific stars or directors with a more comprehensive understanding of cinemagoing as a social practice. This book does not seek to contest the centrality of the film in relation to the meaning of, and pleasures offered by, the cinema. Films and the entertainment that they provided clearly constituted the purpose of the cinema, and variations in ticket sales for different programmes at the same venue demonstrate that questions of taste are central to understanding the appeal and economics of the cinema.40 The film, as Shakespeare so nearly said, is the thing. But it was not the only thing, and to marginalise those aspects of the cinema that exist outside the nexus of projector, screen and spectator is to ignore alternative ways of thinking about what the cinema was (and is), how it works and why people so often found it to be such an important and enjoyable element of their lives. As Roger Manvell asserted, ‘There is more in cinemagoing than seeing films.’41

13

14

Cinemas and cinemagoing in wartime Britain, 1939–45

The utility dream palace The subtitle of this book, The utility dream palace, plays on some the meanings that the word ‘utility’ had in wartime Britain. First, it introduces the idea that, for many Britons, the cinema had become so essential an element of lived experience that it might be considered alongside electricity, gas and water as a public service. And just as the breakdown of public services had a direct impact on the ways in which people lived in and thought about British society during the war, so disruptions to the established norms of the cinema were also capable of bringing about similar re-evaluations. A lack of films was, of course, not comparable to a loss of light or heat or water, but it was of a part, an element of the more generally chaotic conditions that the war could produce. Indeed, the trade journal Cinema and Theatre Construction insisted that in the years before the Second World War ‘We demanded at all times that cinemas … be worthy additions to the amenities of the districts they served.’42 Such language makes clear the fact that cinemas were thought of as having not only a utilitarian function, but also a utilitarian purpose. Although they were private commercial enterprises they also constituted civic facilities to be considered alongside libraries, art galleries, public baths and municipal parks and gardens, and could therefore contribute to the life of the community in which they were situated. Such high-blown idealism may not always, or even regularly, have been realised, but it points to an idea that the cinema had a role to play as, in the words of Oscar Deutsch, ‘a public servant’.43 The usefulness of the cinema – and the uses of cine-literacy – came to the fore during the Second World War. Cinemas were expected to educate and entertain, to draw people’s attention to the mutable realities of the world around them whilst also absenting them from it, to aggregate groups of disparate individuals into something approaching the unified community idealised in so much British wartime propaganda. Films of all kinds were, of course, crucial to the service the cinema provided the British public, but cinemas as physical locations were also used to relay information about the war to patrons; education might take place in the foyer, or on the stage, as well as, or even instead of, on the screen. Similarly, the cinema as a site of sensory experience worked alongside the film to afford pleasure to patrons, and to determine that their experience was a communal one. For although an audience might have gathered in order to watch a certain programme



Introduction

in a particular venue at a specific time, any sense of community that might have been evinced by a night at the pictures came not so much from the films being screened, but rather from the presence of tens or hundreds or thousands of people gathered together in close, even intimate, proximity in a space designed for this very purpose. The physical spaces of the cinema were, then, absolutely crucial to the way in which Britons experienced the cinema, and to the cinema’s ability to do the jobs expected of it in wartime. The war and, as importantly, the government’s legislative response to it, made frequent and insistent demands of the cinema whilst simultaneously affecting the cinema’s ability to serve the nation. The word utility is also associated with a particular, pared-back, functional wartime aesthetic. Like utility clothing (introduced in 1941), ‘utility cinema’ was stripped of many of its pre-war frills as it was forced to cut its cloth to meet wartime conditions; like utility furniture (introduced in 1942), utility cinema found itself caught between two stools as its desire to provide consumers with something recognisably (and appealingly) pre-war conflicted with its need to operate within the constraints imposed by the conflict. And just as utility schemes for furniture and clothing prompted an extensive range of sometimes contradictory responses from consumers, so utility cinema was experienced variously, from those who felt relief that sweets rationing lessened the disruption caused by chocolate sales in the auditorium, to those whose pleasure was spoilt by the sound of air-raid sirens wailing outside the cinema, to those (probably in the majority) who noted, and more or less grudgingly tolerated, wartime changes because of their eagerness to partake in whatever passed for entertainment in a period of general scarcity. Although the cinema as a cultural and economic institution and a social practice was undoubtedly affected by the war, it still retained an ability to bewitch and entertain, to conjure escape and fantasy. For many Britons, the cinema remained, even in wartime, the dream palace. My title therefore also works to position this book in relation to Jeffrey Richards’s seminal The Age of the Dream Palace: Cinema and Society in Britain 1930–1939, which concludes, to paraphrase ad absurdum, ‘and then came the war’.44 Richards’s work does much to communicate something of the excitement and sense of wonder and possibility generated by the cinema in the decade before the outbreak of the Second World War. My own work will seek to explore the tensions arising from the collision of the pre-war ideal of the

15

16

Cinemas and cinemagoing in wartime Britain, 1939–45

dream palace and the wartime reality of utility cinema. Of course, neither of these ideas were absolute, but their juxtaposition provides a sense of the nature of cinema exhibition and cinemagoing in Britain between 1939 and 1945: old notions of what constituted the cinema bumped up against and overlapped with the new. Wartime conditions demanded that both cinemagoers and those working in the exhibition sector make a series of accommodations, with each other but also with their changed circumstances in order to transform what at first glance appear to be awkward contradictions into a series of pragmatic compromises. This book is divided into six chapters. The first provides an overview of the cinema industry in the first months of the war, discussing both the initial closure of British cinemas and the ways in which the blackout transformed the British urban landscape and, consequently, the position of British cinemas within it. The relationship between the government and the exhibition sector is the focus of Chapter 2, looking in particular at how the Ministry of Information, the Ministry of Food and the Treasury influenced the exhibition industry and its patrons. Chapter 3 details the sometimes physical impact that air raids, the blitz and V-1 and V-2 rocket attacks had on British cinemas and cinemagoers, illustrating the competing demands that the war placed on Britons, when desire for leisure, pleasure and entertainment came into conflict with a desire for physical safety. Cinema employees, who did so much to keep venues operational during the blitz, are the subject of Chapter 4, which describes the ways in which clothes rationing altered staff uniforms and conscription altered staff demographics. The ways in which exhibitors sought to promote their venues in wartime is discussed in Chapter 5, which advances the idea that both formal advertising and the creation of a site of experiential possibility contributed to the ‘showmanship’ so prized by the exhibition sector. The final chapter explores the appeal and position of the cinema as part of wartime culture, and analyses some of the factors that made the cinema so extraordinarily popular during the Second World War, exploring the cinema as a site of entertainment, emotion and community. This book makes use of a wide range of different sources and materials to ensure that the analysis it provides of the British exhibition sector and British cinemas in this period is as comprehensive and detailed as possible. Extensive research in a variety of archives helps establish the ‘official picture’, whilst contemporary trade papers and industry journals provide an insight into the exhibition industry’s view of itself, and of the impact



Introduction

that the war had upon business. I have also worked hard to ensure that wherever possible the voices of cinemagoers themselves are heard. Letters about films and cinema culture from film magazines such as Picturegoer, diary entries written for Mass-Observation and correspondence submitted to local newspapers all feature extensively, as do extracts from a series of oral history interviews that I conducted as part of my research. This is not, however, primarily a work of memory reclamation to sit alongside the influential and captivating monographs produced by, for example, Annette Kuhn or Jackie Stacey.45 Rather, I have used the voices of my interviewees to make sure that the personal experience of the cinema remains central to the arguments that I am seeking to make; the official and industry records for this period are extensive, the materials left by ordinary cinemagoers much less so. So varied were popular experiences of cinemagoing, and so different were the experiences of managing a theatre at different times in different parts of the country, that this book might be thought of as an exercise in attempting to pour a quart into a pint pot, or, to use a more cinematic example, of seeking to accommodate Gone With the Wind within a doublefeature programme. There is less on regional variations in cinemagoing (particularly the rural–urban divide) than the subject perhaps deserves, less on newsreels, less on the debates prompted by non-theatrical screening programmes and camp cinemas, less on film distribution and less on questions of taste. By training my focus on other issues, I do not suggest that subjects such as these are unimportant or uninteresting, or that they were marginal within British cinema culture in the war years. Further, there is less on films than some readers might expect. However, to concentrate more on films – their production, their consumption, their propagandistic content, their relation to ideas of personal and national identity – would have necessitated the writing of a book very different to the one that I wanted to write, and would have gone over ground already covered in enjoyable and fascinating detail elsewhere.46 So although it is only right that films feature regularly in this book, and whilst I have sought to demonstrate the depth and breadth of filmic entertainment served up during the war, I have taken a conscious decision to focus on cinemas and the people who ran, regulated, discussed and attended them and the ways in which the conduct and progress of the war caused the appeal of the cinema to wax and wane. The cinema was during the war at the very heart of many people’s cultural and leisure activities. This book is a social and cultural history

17

18

Cinemas and cinemagoing in wartime Britain, 1939–45

that seeks to establish the place that the cinema had in wartime life and the impact that the war had on the institution of the cinema, as it was understood by both cinemagoers and cinema managers. Because cinemas were real, concrete places – like the pubs, theatres, dance halls and sports stadiums that also drew large crowds of people in search of entertainment, diversion and companionship – they were embedded in particular places and in specific times. Such spatial and temporal rootedness made British cinemas, and the experience of British cinemas, be it as patron or employee, acutely susceptible to the changing fortunes of war. Cinemas, despite their promise of respite from the mundane concerns of the everyday, were intimately connected to the real world; they could no more stand apart from the rest of an individual’s life than could that individual him- or herself. The history of British cinemas during the war years, therefore, is complex, confused and occasionally disjointed and sometimes contradictory, because life in Britain during the war was all of these things, too. Notes  1 Robert Mackay, Half the Battle: Civilian Morale in Britain during the Second World War (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2002), p. 10.  2 Home Intelligence report, 24 May 1940. Paul Addison and Jeremy A. Crang (eds), Listening to Britain: Home Intelligence Reports on Britain’s Finest Hour – May to September 1940 (London: Bodley Head, 2010), pp. 24–5.  3 Christopher Tomlin, diary entries, 15, 16, 23 and 24 May 1940. In Simon Garfield (ed.), We Are at War: The Diaries of Five Ordinary People in Extraordinary Times (London: Ebury Press, 2009), pp. 221, 222, 233, 235.  4 Taylor’s October 1941 report ‘Home Morale and Public Opinion’ is quoted in Ian MacLaine, Ministry of Morale: Home Front Morale and the Ministry of Information in World War II (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1979), p. 9. Paul Addison has discussed Taylor’s thoughts on morale: ‘In [Taylor’s] view the factors determining morale could usefully be divided into the material and the mental. The material factors were more important, and consisted of food; warmth; work; leisure, rest and sleep; a secure base; and safety and security for dependents.’ The Road to 1945: British Politics and the Second World War (London: Pimlico, revised edn, 1994), p. 185.  5 Home Intelligence report, 26–7 May 1940. Addison and Crang (eds), Listening to Britain, p. 41.  6 The National Archives (TNA) HO 186/229: Memo from Superintendent ‘C’ Division to A. C. ‘D’, 12 May 1940.  7 See also Allen Eyles, ‘When exhibitors saw Scarlett: the war over Gone With the Wind’, Picture House, 27 (2002), p. 29. The German advance accounted for



Introduction

Gone With the Wind’s initial run at the Ritz in London’s West End, but when the film closed at the Empire in June 1940 it returned to the Ritz, where it would play for the next four years. Even allowing for the Ritz’s comparatively small size (fewer than 500 seats), this was still a remarkable run.  8 Daily Film Renter, 20 May 1940, p. 4.  9 Brad Beaven and John Griffiths, ‘The blitz, civilian morale and the city: MassObservation and working-class culture in Britain, 1940–41’, Urban History, 26:1 (1999), p. 72. 10 National Archives of Scotland: GD 289/1: Ledgers of the Playhouse and Palace cinemas. These ledgers are analysed in Ingrid Jeacle, ‘“Going to the movies”: accounting and twentieth-century cinema’, Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, 22:5 (2009). 11 CEA Annual Report, 1936, p. 1. 12 23 February 1944. Parliamentary Debates: House of Lords, 5th Series, vol. 130, cols 926–7. 13 Richard Gray notes that it was the exhibitors who drove their architects towards ever-more outlandish and luxurious designs in the belief that they would pay dividends. Richard Gray, Cinemas in Britain: A History of Cinema Architecture (Farnham: Lund Humphries, new edn, 2011), p. 65. 14 David Atwell, Cathedrals of the Movies: A History of British Cinemas and their Audiences (London: Architectural Press, 1981), p. 130. 15 Simon Rowson, ‘A statistical survey of the cinema industry in Great Britain in 1934’, Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, 99:1 (1936), p. 77. 16 On this building boom, see Stuart Hanson, From Silent Screen to Multi-Screen: A History of Cinema Exhibition in Britain since 1896 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2007), pp. 60–1. 17 Rosalind Leveridge, ‘“Proud of our little local Palace”: Sidmouth, cinema, and community, 1911–14’, Early Popular Visual Culture, 8:4 (2010), p. 391; Luke McKernan, ‘“Only the screen was silent…”: memories of children’s cinemagoing in London before the First World War’, Film Studies, 10 (2007), pp. 4–5. 18 BFI Special Collections: Cinema Ephemera – Regions: Newcastle-on-Tyne: Paramount News, 4 September 1931, p. 1. 19 Kinematograph Weekly, 20 December 1945, pp. 71–2. 20 Dundee Courier, 28 November 1930, p. 10. 21 Rowson, ‘Statistical survey’, p. 76. Leeds’ cinemas were reported to offer accommodation to one in seven of the city’s population. Kinematograph Weekly, 25 December 1941, p. 11. 22 Mass-Observation Archive (MOA): TC80/1/A: ‘P.E.P. – Leisure’, 9 September 1942, p. 4. 23 Richard Storey, ‘The archaeology of the cinema’, Industrial Archaeology, 3:4 (1966), p. 268. Storey may have been surprised to learn that Hereford had four venues that regularly screened films, and both Newmarket and Sudbury three. 24 John Sedgwick, ‘Cinemagoing in Portsmouth during the 1930s’, Cinema Journal, 46:1 (2006), p. 55.

19

20

Cinemas and cinemagoing in wartime Britain, 1939–45

25 Atwell, Cathedrals of the Movies, p. 115. 26 Audrey Field, Picture Palace: A Social History of the Cinema (London: Gentry Books, 1974), p. 108. 27 Ideal Kinema, 6 January 1938: ‘The Gaumont “State”, Kilburn – Souvenir Supplement’, p. v. 28 MOA: TC80/1/A: ‘P.E.P. – Leisure’, 9 September 1942, p. 1. 29 These figures, drawn from Ministry of Labour Gazettes of December 1940 and January 1941, are quoted in D. B. Halpern, ‘Economic aspects of the cinema trade’, Oxford Institute of Statistics Bulletin, 3:8 (3 June 1941), p. 170 and G. Findlay Shirras and L. Rostas, The Burden of British Taxation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1942), pp. 168–9. 30 The survey, which had a sample of more than 5,500 people, can be found in TNA RG23/44. It is analysed in Mark Glancy, ‘Picturegoer: the fan magazine and popular film culture in Britain during the Second World War’, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, 31:4 (2011), pp. 456–7. 31 Rowson, ‘Statistical survey’, p. 71. 32 A. J. P. Taylor, English History, 1914–1945 (Harmondsworth: Pelican, 1970), p. 392. 33 Western Daily Press: 15 November 1932, p. 9; 25 October 1932, p. 4. Lancashire Evening Post, 5 October 1932, p. 10. 34 Advertisement for the Lido, Lichfield Mercury, 5 August 1938, p. 1. 35 George Lentern, who during the war lived roughly equidistant from Newton Abbott and Exeter, almost always went to the cinema in the former town because the train timetables were more convenient, even if he did frequently have to change services. Interview with author, 16 June 2011. 36 Many entries in the Kinematograph Yearbook’s annual directory of British cinemas list the nearest railway station. 37 Robert C. Allen, ‘Reimagining the history of the experience of the cinema in a post-moviegoing age’, in Richard Maltby, Daniel Biltereyst and Philippe Meers (eds), Explorations in New Cinema History: Approaches and Case Studies (Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011), pp. 54–5. 38 Helen Richards, ‘Memory reclamation of cinemagoing in Bridgend, South Wales, 1930–1960’, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, 23:4 (2003), p. 341. 39 See, for example, Robert C. Allen, ‘From exhibition to reception: reflections on the audience in film history’, Screen, 31:4 (1990); Nicholas Hiley, ‘“Let’s go to the pictures”: the British cinema audience in the 1920s and 1930s’, Journal of Popular British Cinema, 2 (1999); Douglas Gomery, Shared Pleasures: A History of Movie Presentation in the Unites States (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1992). 40 Sedgwick, ‘Cinemagoing in Portsmouth’, p. 54; Sue Harper, ‘A lower middleclass taste-community in the 1930s: admissions figures at the Regent cinema, Portsmouth, UK’, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, 24:4 (2004) and ‘Fragmentation and crisis: 1940s admissions figures at the Regent



Introduction

cinema,  Portsmouth, UK’, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, 26:3 (2006). 41 Manvell quoted in Margaret O’Brien and Allen Eyles (eds), Enter the DreamHouse: Memories of Cinemas in South London from the Twenties to the Sixties (London: BFI, 1993), p. 13. 42 Cinema and Theatre Construction, June 1946 (12:1), p. 3. 43 This quote is taken from A Christmas Message from Mr Oscar Deutsch, which played at Odeon cinemas in December 1939. 44 Jeffrey Richards, The Age of the Dream Palace: Cinema and Society in Britain, 1930–1939 (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1984). 45 Annette Kuhn, An Everyday Magic: Cinema and Cultural Memory (London: I.B. Tauris, 2002); Jackie Stacey, Star Gazing: Hollywood Cinema and Female Spectatorship (London: Routledge, 1994). For a robust defence of oral history against some of the criticisms levelled against it as a methodological technique, see Alessandro Portelli, ‘On the peculiarities of oral history’, History Workshop Journal, 12:1 (1981). 46 See, for example: Anthony Aldgate and Jeffrey Richards, Britain Can Take It: British Cinema in the Second World War (London: I.B. Tauris, new edn, 2007); James Chapman, The British at War: Cinema, State and Propaganda, 1939–1945 (London: I.B. Tauris, 2008); Robert Murphy, British Cinema and the Second World War (London and New York: Continuum, 2000); Antonia Lant, Blackout: Reinventing Women for Wartime British Cinema (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1991); Nicholas Pronay, ‘Introduction’, in Frances Thorpe and Nicholas Pronay, British Official Films in the Second World War: A Descriptive Catalogue (Oxford: Cleo Press, 1980).

21

1 Dark houses: cinemagoing in the early months of the war

F

or a brief moment at the start of the Second World War, the Welsh town of Aberystwyth became the centre of the British film exhibition industry. On 5 September 1939, exhibitors in Aberystwyth, acting on the advice of the Chief Constable of Cardiganshire, reopened venues that, like all other cinemas in Britain, had been ordered to close as a consequence of the outbreak of the war two days earlier. Authorities feared that German air raids would, in the process of laying waste to British cities, kill anyone unfortunate enough to be in a cinema when a bomb hit. Aberystwyth’s location was thought to offer relative immunity from unexpected raids, if only because there were thought to be more appealing targets for the Luftwaffe on the journey from Germany to the west coast of Wales. Queues soon formed after the town’s five cinemas had been told that they  would share ‘the honour of putting on the first wartime entertainment’.1 Cinemas in other parts of the country remained closed, and jealous eyes were cast towards Cardigan Bay. In London, the Embassy cinema in Notting Hill Gate erected a sign stating that it would remain ‘closed until further notice’ and which informed would-be cinemagoers that the nearest open cinema was to be found 239 miles away. A bold directional arrow let passers-by know in which direction they should travel if they wanted their regular fix of moving pictures (see Figure 2). One man who made the arduous return trip from the capital was Guy Morgan, film reporter for the Daily Express and, some years later, author of Red Roses Every Night, a history of the Granada cinema circuit in wartime. Morgan believed that the many hours he spent travelling to Aberystwyth were ‘worth it’ to be able to watch Carole Lombard and James Stewart play the leads in Made For Each Other (1939), a film whose pat conclusion he had initially regarded





Dark houses

Gaumont British News 594A, 14 September 1939.

as a ‘slight disappointment’ but which in wartime seemed to have pleased him greatly.2 Morgan’s revision of his opinion of Made For Each Other neatly illustrates the desperation for entertainment felt in Britain during the opening days and weeks of the war, particularly as in many industrial centres, the south and east coasts and London, cinemas and theatres remained closed. Their closure was felt all the more acutely because of the dearth of alternative entertainment, and because the terrifying excitement of war came to naught when German bombers did not immediately darken British skies. In Preston, one diarist summed up the first days of the war: ‘No cinemas. No decent wireless programmes. No lights. No raids. BOREDOM!’3 London, meanwhile, was said to be ‘as dead as Sodom and Gomorrah before the disaster and without any chance of their vices.’4 The radio had been all but commandeered by the government and as a consequence became, in the words of Sidney Bernstein, owner of Granada cinemas, ‘a source of depression.’5 Each day, the BBC carried ten news bulletins – twice the pre-war number – whilst ministers and – joy! – civil servants were called to the microphone to speak about new regulations and other worthy, war-related topics.6 As late as 26 September, Clement Attlee

23

2

24

Cinemas and cinemagoing in wartime Britain, 1939–45

found fault with this entertainment-free diet of official programming: ‘at times I feel depressed when I listen in. You should not be depressed by listening in.’7 Yet Attlee was, by his own admission, ‘not a habitual listener’ and had he tuned in more regularly he would no doubt have been treated to numerous ‘gramophone recordings and jolly bouts of community singing stiff with nautical heave-hos and folksy nonny-noes’,8 and ‘large doses’ of Sandy Macpherson, theatre organist extraordinaire.9 Macpherson can lay claim to being the first radio celebrity of the war, beating Lord HawHaw to the title by some distance. For the first month of the conflict he was the only organist cleared for broadcast by the MoI, and as such was called upon at all-too-regular intervals – forty-five programmes in the first fortnight of the war alone – to keep people’s spirits up. Yet his ubiquity soon grated; one woman let the BBC know that she ‘could be reconciled to an air raid, if in the course of it a bomb would fall on Sandy Macpherson and his everlasting organ, preferably whilst he was playing his signature tune’.10 The hostility generated by the BBC’s over-reliance on the organ lingered to the extent that months later an MP who described the instrument as ‘Hitler’s secret weapon’ received his biggest ever postbag, almost all of it complimentary.11 With nerves fraying in anticipation of the expected devastating air raids, it became clear that Macpherson’s fingers would not, on their own, be able to maintain morale. The public wanted to be diverted. It was felt that the return of entertaining broadcasts such as Band Waggon, starring Arthur Askey and Richard Murdoch, would be doing ‘National Service’ by offering listeners ‘relief from the instructions, regulations, talks and lectures’ (not to mention organ music) that dominated the airwaves.12 Demands for changes to the wireless schedule were accompanied by calls for the reopening of the cinemas and theatres. Basil Dean insisted that ‘the importance of entertainment … in wartime can scarcely be over-estimated’ and based his call for reopening on the observation that ‘the strain upon the occupants of what might be termed the civil trenches will be almost as great as that imposed upon those who man the firing posts’.13 In the House of Commons, John McGovern suggested that ‘If there is one thing more than any other destined to bring a revolution in this country, it is the continual closing of the cinemas’,14 whilst Kinematograph Weekly claimed piously that the drunkenness said to be plaguing the West End of London would be solved at a stroke by the reopening of the nation’s picture houses.15 The best known – and most quoted – of the calls for reopening came from



Dark houses

George Bernard Shaw, who wrote to The Times to declare the closures to be ‘a masterstroke of unimaginative stupidity’ and ask, ‘What agent of Chancellor Hitler is it who has suggested that we should all cower in darkness and terror “for the duration”?’16 Such calls did not fall on deaf ears, and it was not long before cinemas returned to the business of, as one writer put it, ‘keeping our thoughts occupied so that they shall not dwell too long on the all too prominent topic of the moment’.17 Indeed, and as the exhibition trade well knew, the government had never intended to close all entertainments indefinitely. Rather, it had planned for a short break, which the popular press reported as likely to last at least a fortnight, to assess the nature and extent of the damage it was assumed would be caused by enemy action.18 When such action was not forthcoming, the Home Office felt that tentative permission for reopening might be given. This decision arose out of the recognition that, in the words of Archibald Southby MP, ‘all war is a risk’ and that consequently it was better ‘that the normal life of the people should continue so far as possible than that we should adopt [a] sort of super funk-hole policy’.19 The process by which places of entertainment were permitted to open was far from straightforward, however, and mirrored general uncertainty about the way in which the war would unfold given the failure of the German air force to immediately attempt to raze all British cities to the ground. Yet the threat from the air remained foremost in the minds of those called upon to decide whether it was safe to reopen the cinemas. On 5 September, Sir Alexander Maxwell of the Home Office chaired a meeting at which Wing Commander Whitworth-Jones, representing the Air Staff, advised caution: ‘Strategically and tactically no one knew when an attack would come, what would be the weight of the attack, and how strong the defences would prove. Until these factors were known by experience the Air Staff would be against a change of policy.’ Maxwell concurred, but conceded that operational cinemas were ‘desirable for public morale’. As such, he recommended that a statement be issued explaining that the government was ‘not insensitive … to the value of entertainment for persons under the strain of present conditions’, and assuring the public that restrictions would be lifted as soon as was practicable.20 Over the following days, representatives of the Cinematograph Exhibitors’ Association made a number of visits to Whitehall, and advanced arguments in favour of reopening. Foremost amongst these was

25

26

Cinemas and cinemagoing in wartime Britain, 1939–45

the service that the cinemas might provide to the public not only through the exhibition of feature films and entertainments, but also by screening newsreels and information films: ‘valuable propaganda was being lost through the closure’.21 The trade also requested that economic factors be borne in mind. Whilst they remained closed, cinemas were losing substantial amounts of money. Although the Home Office disputed the fabulous sums bandied about by the CEA, it found it harder to dismiss the Association’s assertion that thousands of employees might need to be laid off if the prospect of reopening was not forthcoming.22 British cinemas were permitted to ‘follow in the proud footsteps of Aberystwyth’23 only after a period marked by what Kinematograph Weekly described as ‘delay and confusion’, with the process complicated by the workings of the Home Office’s own initial scheme for closure.24 The Home Office plan had established a situation whereby cinemas would be allowed to reopen only at the discretion of the local Chief Constable. Yet in practice it was unclear whether each constabulary’s discretionary powers became effective only upon receipt of Home Office permission, or if they could be deployed entirely on a Chief Constable’s own initiative. Indeed, the cinemas of Aberystwyth were reopened only because the Chief Constable of Cardiganshire interpreted the Home Office directive differently from his colleagues elsewhere in Britain, and believed himself empowered to reopen the places of entertainments within his jurisdiction without reference to Whitehall. The Home Office disagreed. Geographical factors further complicated matters, in that different parts of the country were felt to be at differing degrees of danger from German bombers. In places that were deemed relatively safe, termed neutral or reception areas, it would be possible to allow the cinemas to admit patrons sooner than in evacuation areas, that is, places thought to face a greater likelihood of attack (and from which the evacuation of children and some women was advised). But in places such as the suburbs of London, for example, these different areas were often contiguous, producing a situation where cinemas on one side of a political boundary – which might run down the middle of a road – were allowed to reopen, and those on the other remained subject to enforced closure. Other districts were composed of both neutral and reception areas: in such instances, it was usually the case that all cinemas were to remain closed, but was this fair?25 Above and beyond all this was concern for the safety of the public. Even in the absence of air raids, it was felt that wartime conditions were likely to



Dark houses

have an impact on the way in which the British experienced the cinema. The coming of the blackout made British roads far more dangerous for motorist, cyclist and pedestrian alike, and Mass-Observation noted wryly that during the first three months of the war the 3,000 civilian deaths caused by the blackout easily outnumbered air force deaths on active service (467) or British civilian deaths from air raids (‘One Scotch rabbit’).26 In London, Sir Philip Game, Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, advised the Home Office against the full reopening of the cinemas in the West End, not so much because he feared the impact of German raids – ‘if people choose to take the risk, that is largely their own affair’ – but rather because if the cinemas were permitted to resume business after dark, it would be impossible to discriminate against the theatres. And as the theatres tended to attract a wealthier clientele, it was expected that their reopening would herald ‘a biggish increase in motor traffic in black-out conditions, which means a casualty list every night – air raids or no air raids’.27 On the evening of 8 September both newspapers and the BBC carried reports that places of entertainment in neutral and reception areas would be allowed to reopen the following day until 10 p.m. This news was at first flatly ‘contradicted’ by the Home Office, but later that same evening came a concession that it was in fact accurate. This almost paranoid fear of releasing information to the public was representative of much of the government’s confused relationship with the media during the first days of the war.28 Indeed, the announcement by the BBC on 5 September that cinemas in Aberystwyth had been given permission to reopen, a rare piece of genuinely interesting and heartening news amid the relentless flood of official pronouncements, sent the Home Office into a spin. The broadcaster was immediately instructed to omit any reference to the story from all subsequent bulletins, presumably because the government’s strategy for reopening British cinemas was still in the developmental stage.29 The Home Office might also have been sensitive to the way in which the BBC handled the news that cinemas were to resume trade in some areas but not others. This was not an unfounded concern: in Leyton, East London, one Mass-Observation correspondent noted that a number of local residents had spoken ‘quite bitterly of our cinemas being closed whilst those a little further out were still open’.30 When the decision to reopen in neutral areas was taken, the Home Office insisted that Chief Constables had to wait to receive an official communique from central government before exhibitors were permitted

27

28

Cinemas and cinemagoing in wartime Britain, 1939–45

to admit patrons. The decision to send this communique via the Royal Mail was subject to the delays which dogged the postal service in the early weeks of September 1939, and the CEA was so agitated by the prospect of any further loss of trade that it successfully persuaded the Home Office to send duplicate telegrams.31 However, by 12 September, well over half of British cinemas had reopened, with many doing very good business. In some instances, such as at the Rex in Cambridge, cinemas were so eager to advise patrons that they had reopened that the advertisements placed in local papers went to print before a full programme had been put together.32 The resumption of regular screenings came as a relief to many: Although we may not show a light, And from our beds the siren shrill May drive us in the dead of night To seek our dug-outs built with skill, No wasteful tear-drop shall we spill, From grousing we will all refrain, For still our stars have power to thrill The talkies have come back again.33

‘Thank goodness the local cinema opened’, noted one cinemagoer.34 ‘It will help keep the people cheerful’, remarked another.35 Some 1,600 cinemas remained closed, though, most importantly in the large industrial cities and in central London.36 Respite was offered on 15 September, when the Home Office announced that all cinemas outside the West End would be allowed to reopen until 10 p.m., and that cinemas in central London could resume trading, but only until 6 p.m. each evening. Whilst reopening in the capital was no doubt welcomed by many thousands of Londoners – ‘audiences gladly packed the Empire, Leicester Square’37 – the restrictions placed upon trading hours resulted in some cinemas being running at a loss of as much as £1,000 per week; by late September, the Tivoli, the Astoria and the New Gallery had all temporarily closed, and staff employed at other venues had been given ‘tentative notice’.38 The Daily Express’s Paul Holt, noting that the eight-hour trading day only generated between fifteen and 25 per cent of normal earnings, predicted the closure of ‘every West End cinema’ by the end of September if the 6 p.m. curfew was not lifted.39 Oswald Stoll wrote to the Home Office to suggest that select venues in central London should be allowed to trade until 10 p.m., and requested that his Stoll Picture Theatre on Kingsway be considered for this honour:



Dark houses

it was, its proprietor insisted, ‘an almost invulnerable structure. It seems to have been built for easy conversion into a fortress.’ Stoll’s professed commitment to the safety of the public was as admirable as his unvoiced commitment to his company’s finances was obvious. Noting that in the current circumstances it was not feasible for all cinemas to continue trading, Stoll offered to rent his theatre to rival exhibitors for £50 per day plus one-seventh of the weekly cost of staff wages, with each exhibitor to keep all admissions receipts accruing from the screening of his own film. Stoll claimed that changing the programme every day ‘would bring the maximum attendance’.40 Rival exhibitors were understandably dismissive of Stoll’s plan, but the idea of staggered closing, of allowing some cinemas to remain open for longer, offered the prospect of the West End’s cinemas becoming economically viable again, as it was felt that enough money could be taken one week to make up for losses that might be suffered the next. After staggered opening hours came into effect in the first week in October, however, exhibitors in central London found that this was not actually the case, and were soon pressing the Home Office for permission to open later.41 Restrictions were gradually relaxed, first by a reduction in the number of cinemas classified as being in the West End, and, then, on 2 December, by the introduction of scheme whereby all central London cinemas were permitted to remain open until at least 10.30 p.m. on the proviso that the conclusion of each house’s main feature be staggered so as to minimise the chance of thousands of cinemagoers flooding the West End’s streets and transport infrastructure at the same time.42 The decision to allow central London cinemas to close later came a month after cinemas in other parts of Britain were granted permission to remain open until 11 p.m. Indeed, so important was the extension of opening hours at places of entertainment considered to be that it was the lead story on a BBC news bulletin on 3 November: ‘Here is the News: It begins with the announcements about later closing hours for cinemas and theatres, and a small reduction in the blackout hours. Mr Churchill has gone to France; the United States Neutrality Bill will be law tomorrow.’43 It was the case, then, that it took until early December, three months after war had been declared, for the British exhibition sector as a whole to return to something approximating normal opening hours in all parts of the country. It took longest for the West End cinemas to resume late-night trading, and although such venues accounted for only a tiny proportion

29

30

Cinemas and cinemagoing in wartime Britain, 1939–45

of British cinemas, they were disproportionately important to the idea of cinemagoing as a phenomenological event: venues in and around Leicester Square, which held premieres and offered some of the most extravagantly luxurious interiors in the country, epitomised the glamour of the cinema. As such, the tendency of the national newspapers to focus on the experiences of these cinemas made them appear more representative than they actually were, and helped conflate the West End’s travails with the exhibition sector more generally. Most cinemas were, in most localities, closed for only a few days, but it was not the case that the financial dislocation caused by the outbreak of the war was limited to the period of enforced closure. Closing at 10 p.m. was the norm until November, and exhibitors were not slow to claim that this hour was no good from a monetary point of view: In many industrial districts … work now does not finish before 6 or 6.30 p.m. or later in the evening. Here the worker is accustomed to go home, have a wash and brush up if on a dirty occupation, have a high tea and then go to the cinema with his family. There is no time to arrive by 7 p.m. [the time by which the final programme had to start of it was to finish by 10 p.m.] and in consequence the whole family stops away and complains to us.44

The financial implications of short-time opening were not lost on shareholders, who saw the value of their stocks decline in response to falling box-office receipts. By late September, Associated British, Gaumont, Moss Empires and Odeon had all experienced sharp falls in the value of their shares.45 The market might have been spooked by stories in the popular press concerning the losses sustained by the sector as a whole; during the period of national closure, one paper claimed that the exhibition industry was losing as much as a million pounds each week.46 Losses at individual cinemas were less eye-catching, but no less damaging to the commercial prospects of what in many cases were still quite marginal businesses. In Littleport, Cambridgeshire, the Empire cinema saw takings fall to just £16 per week immediately after reopening; before the start of the war, the same venue could take £40 in a good week.47 Enforced closure, followed as it was in many instances by a longer period of short-time opening, helped colour the exhibition industry’s reactions to later wartime crises. Whilst the trade press rarely hesitated to use apocalyptic language to describe legislation that had even the remotest potential to threaten profitability, the fact remained that British exhibitors had first-hand experience of the negative impact that the war could have



Dark houses

on the financial stability of their industry. And although, as we shall see in subsequent chapters, it was the case that threats to the sector’s wellbeing for the most part remained more potential than actual, the CEA’s responses were underpinned by the knowledge that the events of the early weeks of the war might be revisited. There were enough examples of temporarily closed halls and laid-off staff and enough experience of dealing with unhelpful local councils and constabularies, for the trade to take nothing for granted. Fears for the survival of the industry were based on painful experience, not hypochondria; the ‘shattering blow’ of enforced closure and limited trading hours made it painfully clear how vulnerable British cinemas were to government interference that could bring ‘the whole machinery of the business … to a complete standstill’.48 Although patriotically claiming in its end of year report that its ‘optimism as to the ultimate future remains as undimmed as ever’, the CEA struck a resolute note that spoke to the difficulties it had already overcome as well as those it anticipated having to meet in the remainder of the war: ‘Your General Council would conclude, therefore, by saying no more than that it is watchful and determined, ready and prepared to deal with any fresh emergency that may overtake the trade’.49 Over the next four and a half years, the Association and its members would have ample opportunity to demonstrate these traits. Evacuees The evacuation of children to what were deemed to be safe areas during the first days of the war led to hundreds of thousands of British youngsters being billeted in rural areas. For many, this was their first experience of the countryside. Children who had grown up in the city were separated not simply from family, community and familiar surrounds, but also from facilities such as cinemas. Rural areas and small towns could support fewer cinemas, meaning that many evacuees had greatly reduced access to films than they were used to. For some commentators, such as Earl De La Warr, the President of the Board of Education, this was no bad thing, given that most schools had been closed at the outbreak of the war. Taking urban children out of temporarily school-less cities offered ‘compensations’ in that lack of easy access to urban distractions encouraged greater involvement with the ‘fresh experiences’ that life in the country had to offer: ‘They are seeing, in many cases, a totally new side of life and learning of those things in the country which are the very basis of life.’ For those left

31

32

Cinemas and cinemagoing in wartime Britain, 1939–45

behind, however, there were no such compensations: no fields, no trees, no cows – ‘For them, the street and the cinema’ and the risk of transforming into ‘little barbarians’.50 Such words, and the concerns they express, echo pre-war debates about the cinema’s influence on a generation of ‘movie-made children’, in which arguments frequently arose from the ‘predisposition [of critics] to regard the cinema as potentially and often actually dangerous’.51 These dangers were often articulated in terms of the risks posed by films deemed unsuitable for children because of their violent or frightening content,52 but also in terms of the prospect of increased delinquency and Americanisation posed by exposure to Hollywood productions.53 The CEA, however, was adamant that parents, rather than self-appointed moral guardians, were best placed to ensure that their children’s welfare was adequately maintained. In coming to this conclusion, the CEA spoke publically about the current regulatory system, in which children were denied access to ‘A’ films unless accompanied by an adult, and privately about the economic damage that would be done to many cinemas should child access be more strictly regulated (for example, by banning all under-16s from A films).54 What pre-war moral crusades failed to achieve, evacuation had the ­potential to bring about – namely, a reduction in the amount of time that British children spent at the cinema. This is not to say that evacuated children had no access to the cinema, for many were moved to places where films were still accessible, even if less easily so than they had been previously. As such, some venues actually experienced an increase in ticket sales. For children who were relocated to places within relatively easy reach of a cinema, films could provide a comforting continuity,55 even if local children were not always welcoming.56 Nor is it to say that all cinemas in evacuation areas suffered a permanent and fatal decline in juvenile ticket sales. Not all children left, and of those that did, a fair proportion returned relatively quickly – in some instances, it was claimed, because they ‘missed the pictures!’57 There is, however, little doubt that evacuation had an impact on box-office revenues. By 1939, one study estimated that more than 4.5 million tickets were sold to children each week, and a few years earlier, a survey in Merseyside found that most working-class children visited the cinema on at least a weekly basis.58 At the nominal price of a single penny a ticket, those 4.5 million youthful cinemagoers would contribute almost £20,000 a week; to deny children access to the cinema therefore threatened the viability of many venues.



Dark houses

Indeed, the CEA mentioned evacuation as one of the causes of economic hardship in the exhibition industry during discussions with the government about how such hardship might be mitigated.59 In Poplar, East London, for example, a cinema that had run at a profit before September 1939 closed in the summer of 1940 owing in large part to ‘the evacuation of children’.60 The exhibition industry was as concerned by the long-term implications of the lessening of children’s access to the cinema as it was by the immediate short-term impact on revenues. By the start of the war, children’s matinees had become increasingly popular with cinema managers, in part because the ‘increasing number of restrictions imposed by various authorities … is reducing to an alarming extent the percentage of children who may attend the usual performances’. Although such matinees rarely returned significant sums – special programmes had to be rented, the ‘untidy and occasionally unclean habits of some youngsters [resulted in] the depreciation of property and fixtures’ – there were other, more important, considerations: It is necessary for the future well-being of the industry that the children should become picture-minded. They are the patrons of the future, and if they are restrained from visiting cinemas at the usual times, then it is essential that some suitable form of film entertainment should be provided for them at other times.61

The exhibition industry, then, did not welcome the institution in the first months of the war of the ad hoc prohibition of children’s matinee shows in many districts, especially evacuation areas, even if individual exhibitors, such as the manager of the Odeon, Epsom, recognised that the risk inherent in collecting hundreds of children in one place with limited adult supervision was ‘too great to undertake’.62 In April 1940, more formal guidelines were put in place when the Ministry of Home Security issued advice to Chief Constables that the provision of children’s matinees in evacuation areas ‘should be avoided’.63 In neutral and reception areas, the idea of placing limits on the number of children that might attend a particular matinee performance was mooted.64 It was November 1943 before local police forces were informed that it was ‘no longer considered necessary to restrict the holding of children’s matinees in any part of the country [i.e. even in evacuation areas] West or North of the line Barnstaple/Tonbridge/King’s Lynn’. South and east of this line, Chief Constables were advised to exercise their discretion and continue to prohibit or restrict children’s matinees in areas thought to be at risk of enemy attack in daylight.65 In many parts

33

34

Cinemas and cinemagoing in wartime Britain, 1939–45

of London, for example, the prohibition was reinstated during the summer of 1944 when V-1 and V-2 rocket attacks were at their height.66 Although evacuation and the ban on matinees in evacuation areas did have an impact on the numbers of tickets purchased by children, exhibitors’ fears that the war would diminish British children’s appetite for the cinema proved unfounded. The first Christmas of the war saw appeals launched to raise money to provide those children who had not returned to their families with ‘their full share of seasonal festivities’, be that a trip to a local cinema or, where no such venue was immediately available, hiring films for private exhibition.67 Later in the war, on the morning of 20 March 1943, 1,106 children paid 6d. a head to watch an 80-minute film show and participate in half an hour of communal singing at the Odeon, South Chingford. Whilst local police officers were concerned about the risks this posed, parents and children were evidently more sanguine.68 Other stories are more individualistic. Steve King remembers being, even at a very young age, a habitual cinemagoer. Evacuated from Hull to a farm in east Yorkshire, Steve regularly read the local papers in order to see what was showing in Hull and York, but also at the Oak House, a 500-seat venue in Pocklington, the nearest town. One day, seeing that Old Mother Riley Joins Up (1940) was to be shown, but unable to afford the bus fare and the price of admission, he commandeered Daisy, a horse belonging to the farmer with whom we was billeted, and rode to Pocklington. Having tethered Daisy to a lamppost outside, in the style he had seen in so many westerns, Steve paid for his ticket and settled down to watch the film, only to be interrupted by a commotion in the foyer when Daisy attempted to follow him into the cinema. By this time, the farmer had reported Steve and Daisy as missing, and the local police arrived to ensure that both were returned home unharmed.69 The city of dreadful night Now open from 2.30–10 p.m. with Shirley Temple in The Little Princess [1939] and full supporting programme. Public air raid shelter next door. Advertisement for the Arts Theatre, Cambridge, 11 September 1939.70

British cinemagoers found that the country through which they moved to get to the reopened cinemas had changed. It was assumed that the anticipated German aerial assault would include the widespread use of gas, a terrifying prospect for a population still dealing with the memory and



Dark houses

the reality of chemical weapon attacks during the Great War. At the time of the Munich Crisis, the British government distributed more than 30 million respirators to adults and infants. The wholesale issuing of civilian gas masks ‘made the destruction of civilian lives and of domestic life itself no longer unimaginable or unknown’ in that it brought the possibility of suffering into the homes and hands of the non-combatant population.71 As it transpired, war did not inevitably mean gas, but masks, the use of yellowish gas-detecting paint to coat the top of Royal Mail post boxes, poster campaigns and radio broadcasts kept the ghastly possibility at the forefront of the public consciousness. In order to ‘educate the public on the importance of carrying a gas mask at all times’, teargas was occasionally released without warning in busy shopping areas or alongside queues outside cinemas.72 In many districts, picture houses were only permitted to reopen on the proviso that patrons desiring admission were in possession of their gas mask. As one Mass-Observation diarist noted, I was on the bus about 3 p.m. when a woman rushed out of a house towards us, with a gas-mask in her hand. ‘Aroo! Hey! Oo! You’ve forgotten your gasmask … they won’t let you in the pictures without it!’ A poor fellow came downstairs, blushing violently, to collect his precious toy.73

Because the carrying of gas masks was not compulsory, many exhibitors only reluctantly refused entry to those without a respirator, pointing out not only that they were losing trade to those who they were compelled to turn away, but also that department stores and many other sites in which the public might assemble in large numbers were not bound by similar rules.74 The high levels of concern experienced during the first months of the war quickly dissipated, however, and although bad news from the front could lead to an increase in the number of people seen carrying their masks in public, the trend was generally downwards.75 The prospect of gas attack became effectively normalised, and many of those who continued to carry a mask did so out of habit, ‘the same as if you took an umbrella in case it rained’.76 And just as with umbrellas, members of the public had a habit of leaving them behind in trains and shops – and cinemas – creating extra work for those in charge of lost property offices.77 If gas attack remained a potential horror, the blackout was a reality that, in the words of the official historian of British Civil Defence, ‘transformed conditions of life more thoroughly than any other single feature of the war’:

35

36

Cinemas and cinemagoing in wartime Britain, 1939–45

It made all movement by pedestrians or vehicles on the roads after dark a matter of at least difficulty and frequently of danger; subjected all work in factories, offices and shops to new physical and mental strains; seriously hampered all railway and dock operations; conferred on each citizen an additional responsibility for the public safety, and gave him in his own home a new and often unwelcome sense of isolation.78

When the amount of fuel used for street lighting in 1940, the first full year of the blackout, is compared to 1938, the last full year of unrestricted street lighting, it becomes evident just how dramatic was the change brought about by the blackout: only 5 per cent of electricity and 7 per cent of gas, with a proportionate decrease in illumination.79 Mass-Observation’s annual survey of wartime annoyances put the blackout in first position every year between 1939 and 1941 and then again in 1943, although the fact that the study took place in December, when early sunsets meant that the blackout was at its most disruptive, no doubt had some bearing on the results.80 In 1939, the blackout was by far the most common cause of grumbling; in an index where the blackout equalled 100, the next most common annoyance, food difficulties, measured only 67.5.81 As early as January 1940, a Gallup poll found that approximately one in five Britons had sustained some form of injury as a result of moving through ‘dark canyons which they had once known as brightly-lit streets’, and in December 1939 alone some 900 pedestrian deaths were recorded during blackout hours.82 The sudden, enforced darkness reversed the trend towards increasing illumination evident in interwar Britain, where the amount of electricity used to light public spaces increased by more than 700 per cent between 1920–21 and 1938.83 Britons, at least in urban areas, had become so accustomed to street lighting that an unlit city was understood to be ‘a contradiction in our civilisation’.84 Light after dark was the norm, so much so that Dorothy L. Sayers could playfully declare that ‘there are men and women born since 1918 who never saw the dark in their lives’.85 Indeed, the provision of street lighting had become so normal and reliable a feature of city life that it had become pretty much entirely taken for granted, an instrumental element of urban experience that was no more considered a triumph of humankind’s ingenuity or a symbol of modernity than was the sun that illuminated the daytime. Consequently, it was the blackout that was seen as unnatural, as a violent disruption of what the majority of people had come to regard as an established and irrevocable fait accompli that had banished



Dark houses

nocturnal darkness ‘into the realm of prehistory and mythology’.86 In cities grown accustomed to a night being ‘no longer night, but a veiled day’,87 the reversion to intrusively diurnal rhythms was a rude shock. In an attempt to mitigate the impact of the blackout, the end of British Summer Time was delayed from 8 October until 19 November 1939. When Summer Time was reintroduced early, on 25 February 1940, The Times noted wryly that the British were becoming increasingly familiar with temporal manipulation: It is hardly possible to deny that things in general are upside-down when lighting-up time has become identified with the time for blacking-out. Paradox in these matters has become so familiar that it now seems perfectly natural. We take almost as a matter of course the beginning of summer time in a bitter wintry spell, and we shall no doubt take just as philosophically its extension until winter is upon us again.88

This last point proved prophetic: Summer Time remained in effect until October 1945. Furthermore, the desire to offer additional natural light in the evening – even if this did make the mornings darker – resulted in the introduction of Double Summer Time in 1941. In contrast to the dark winter nights, Double Summer Time ensured that in some parts of the country ‘it was still daylight at midnight, which was lovely’.89 The exhibition sector concurred with this sentiment, and found that box offices were far busier during wartime summers than they had been before 1939. Whereas the industry had traditionally done its best business throughout ‘the dreary winter’, many managers now keenly anticipated the longer summer evenings, believing that they would make it easier for people to travel to and, more pertinently, from the cinema.90 However, during the winter of 1939–40, the blackout was an important factor in determining how Britons might spend their leisure time. Whilst nocturnal lighting was consumed as a spectacle in its own right – meeting the modern city dweller’s desire for ‘movement, light, glamour, ­atmosphere’91 – it also facilitated consumption. Street lighting allowed more people to make use of greater parts of the city for longer periods, and so made nocturnal culture accessible and commercially viable. By creating time and space, street lighting constructed a nocturnal city dedicated in no small part to pleasure and entertainment. Of course, it should not be assumed that the leisure spaces and practices of the nocturnal city were solely the product of gas or electric street lighting, for pubs, theatres and the like had been around for centuries. But the blackout was inescapable,

37

38

Cinemas and cinemagoing in wartime Britain, 1939–45

and therefore had a far-reaching impact on the ways that people could make use of their time and the ways in which they could make use of and experience the environment in which they lived. Although the blackout was intended to increase urban safety by making British towns and cities less visible from the air and so more difficult for the Luftwaffe to locate and attack, many people were apprehensive about moving through the darkened city. Rather than brave the blackout, many people preferred to stay at home in the evening, concerned that they would get lost or injured or accosted in the dark. One survey found that more than half of those questioned had changed their habits as a result of the blackout, with visits to friends, going for walks and going to the cinema and theatre amongst the most affected activities.92 Free time and social interaction came to focus on the home – in particular on the wireless and the attendant threat of Sandy Macpherson – and as people’s worlds got smaller they found that they had more time for introspective dwelling on the war.93 The exhibition industry was convinced that it could act as a bulwark against anxiety and depression: This black-out business is becoming very tedious [but] you can escape the black-out blues now – by going to the pictures! … Transported to warm and cheerful surroundings such as these, you are able to share your pleasures with hundreds of others, to mingle your laughing with theirs, to experience the same delights, thrills, fears and sighs of relief. Surely this is the very acme of enjoyment – and a perfect bolt from the black-out blues!94

The cinema could only perform this duty, however, if people could be induced to leave their homes, and in the early weeks and months of the war this was easier said than done. On 21 September, Kinematograph Weekly reported that evening business had been so ‘severely crippled’ that most cinemas could ‘hardly expect to do more than break even’.95 The CEA became convinced that ‘no-one can stand up to the blackout’, and in February 1940 estimated that the absence of street lighting had reduced patronage by ‘at least an average of ten per cent’.96 Although most people would eventually adjust, and ticket sales would recover, this took time, and many months into the war Mass-Observation could be found insisting that the blackout ‘continues to bewilder for the first thirty seconds every time you go out of doors … Nothing, no amount of experience, makes you really used to the blackout.’97 And just as people were beginning to attune themselves to the blackout, the end of Summer Time in mid-November led to renewed discombobulation. Some



Dark houses

workplaces closed at 4 p.m. so as to allow staff to travel home in daylight; standard working hours would have meant that with the blackout now coming into effect in London at 4:34 p.m., journeys home would have been undertaken in conditions of near total darkness.98 Elsewhere, workers were permitted to work later into the evening having taken a three- to fourhour lunch break, a system that offered them the opportunity to enjoy their free time when it was still light outside.99 Luke McKernan has noted that during the latter part of the nineteenth century, a rise in real wages meant that many working-class families enjoyed a greater amount of disposable income. Consequently, there was a growing ‘expectation of leisure’ amongst working-class consumers which produced demands for ‘a time that should be theirs’.100 The rapid growth in the number of cinemas was one of the responses to this growing demand for leisure. As the New Survey of London Life and Labour (1930) made clear, the expansion of the exhibition sector did not simply replace other entertainment venues, but rather greatly augmented them: In 1891 this huge area [six typical ‘working-class’ boroughs with a population of about a million] had within it only 18 theatres and music halls or one such place of entertainment to 58,000 inhabitants. In 1929 the total number of cinemas was 59, together with five theatres and music halls, i.e. one place of entertainment for 14,000 inhabitants, more than nine-tenths of this provision consisting of picture palaces.101

One result of the greater provision of entertainments was, the New Survey insisted, ‘to shift the main centre of interest of a worker’s life more and more from his daily work to his daily leisure’.102 Britons came to understand their lives and their society in part through what they did in their spare time; those who produced by day consumed by night, and defined themselves increasingly through reference to the latter activity. Although, as scholars such as Selina Todd have observed, many sectors of the working class – for instance those in domestic service – found it more difficult to participate in the new leisure economy, and although unemployment resulting from the economic downturn of the 1930s acted as a ‘significant impediment to [the] consumption of commercial leisure’, it is still possible to suggest that for vast swathes of the British population, leisure was not so much the reward for labour, but rather that one of the main purposes of labour was that it enabled leisure.103 The early months of the war saw an unbalancing of the work–play equation. Britons were being asked, and often willingly agreed, to work

39

40

Cinemas and cinemagoing in wartime Britain, 1939–45

harder  –  and for longer – by way of contribution to the war economy and the national effort. But there was, in the same period, a contraction of leisure opportunities, first as the result of the temporary closure of cinemas and other places of entertainment, and then as a consequence of the blackout. It was taken as read by exhibitors that the blackout was bad for business: consumers were much less willing to frequent the cinema if doing so meant travelling under blackout conditions.104 The problem was compounded by the fact that in many districts restrictions were imposed on public transport that required buses and trams to stop running at an earlier hour. For example, in Southampton during the early weeks of the war, an 8.30 p.m. transport ‘curfew’ was introduced which was held to have had a ‘serious effect’ on the cinema trade.105 In Coventry, the cinemas were required to close at 9.30 p.m. – earlier than exhibitors would have liked – but the city’s ‘hopelessly inadequate’ public transport stopped running twenty minutes earlier: cinemagoers were forced to leave before the end of the show if they did not want to walk home and as a consequence many did not bother to go at all.106 Even when Summer Time and then Double Summer Time came into effect, extending the period in which public transport might be safely and conveniently offered, many local authorities maintained winter timetables: in north west London, one cinema manager found that the last bus would run at 10.08 in the summer, just as it had in the winter,107 whilst in the north-east of England, cinemagoers in Hartlepool were told that the last bus would leave the town centre no later than 9.30 p.m.108 Indeed, so important did bus timetables become that some managers took to giving patrons needing to catch the last bus a fiveminute warning, either by superimposing a slide over the film, or by way of a light display at the side of the screen.109 Mass-Observation sought to understand the ways in which the blackout affected leisure culture, and in December 1939 sent interviewers to several locations in London to ask, amongst other things, what difference the war had made to the cinemagoing habits of those questioned.110 For some, the war to date had had little or no impact on leisure culture; a few, indeed, even replied that they attended more often than they had before the war. However, this was not the common experience, and many respondents spoke freely about the issues that had altered the frequency with which they attended the cinema. Money was a major concern, especially the price rises introduced in the early weeks of the war. One woman replied, ‘Does it [the war] make a difference! My God it does. In everything. There’s no money



Dark houses

now’, and another admitted that ‘I go less often because I don’t like the cheaper seats and I can’t afford the dearer ones.’ In Streatham in the east of London, one working man made clear the difficulties that dearer tickets caused poorer families: Naturally the war hasn’t helped my wages and if I go to the pictures with all the family, all four of them, well I just can’t do it. So I don’t go out often. And another thing. Supposing I look out and say ‘shall we go to the pictures tonight’ and then find it is pitch black and drizzling, I shall turn round and say ‘put some more coal on the fire’ and that’s that.

By contrast, Ewart Hodgson of Granada believed that the onset of the winter had made the cinema more appealing to working-class families, even if cold weather made no difference to middle-class patrons: ‘Take a man in a house in Sutton, say; he will come in, think of the weather, put another piece of coal on the fire and settle down for the night. But a poor man will say “let’s go to the pictures tonight and save a shilling’s worth of coal”.’111 Transport was another bugbear: one respondent complained that it was ‘Not easy to get buses’ on the return journey, whilst one woman on Oxford Street noted that cinemagoing in wartime was ‘rather different … The buses are full up.’ It was, though, the blackout that had the greatest impact, and even those who claimed that the darkness had not affected their own habits were aware that it had made a difference to others; as one man stated, ‘in the black-out there are no queues’. Although on occasion the darkness was used as a cover story to obscure more embarrassing reasons for less frequent attendance – one young woman admitted that ‘Money’s scarcer and the blackout’s an excuse’ – many cinemagoers admitted that cinemagoing in wartime had been transformed by the blackout: Terrible difference. I was just saying, I don’t get a lot of pleasure and now I’ve got to go home every night of the week and sit there … before the war I used to go out once every week and sometimes twice a week. (Female, 60, Streatham) I hate the blackout. I hardly go now. (Female, 20, NW2) The dark upsets me. Since the blackout I haven’t been so much. (Female, 50, Cricklewood) Well, I don’t like to be in the dark. You don’t know when you are on the pavement or on the blasted curb. (Female, 40, Streatham) [I]t’s nasty in the blackout. (Male, 30, Streatham)

The blackout here is understood as an almost tangible presence in people’s lives, a physical barrier with the same potential to restrict passage through

41

42

Cinemas and cinemagoing in wartime Britain, 1939–45

the urban environment as a barricade. It has been suggested that the night is a textured sensory environment that can be perceived and defined through the presence of darkness rather than simply through the absence of light.112 This approach might explain the British population’s ability, with different degrees of alacrity, to come to terms with the blackout: once they had attuned themselves to the presence of darkness, or, more pertinently, to their own presence within the darkness, they were able to function in this new environment. It is also possible, however, that knowledge of the light allows for an appreciation of the darkness. Indeed, the contrast between the previous light and the present darkness made the impact that the blackout had on British civilians all the more dramatic, especially in the early period of the war when the memory of streetlights, illuminated advertising hoardings, car headlamps and cinema floodlights and neon displays blazed bright in the mind’s eye. The blackout reconstructed the city, made it different, undermined spatial and experiential certainties. Britons had to learn how to navigate through the varying shades of night, and, further, choose whether they were prepared to make the effort to do so. That many were not, or at least took time to adapt the way in which they conceived of their position within what Nella Last, channelling the spectre of James Thomson, called ‘the city of dreadful night’, is evidenced by the very real impact that the blackout had on British leisure culture.113 Night-time came to dominate the hours previously available for leisure whilst simultaneously shrinking the area of the city in which the individual might confidently move. Time and space were both restricted, and because leisure needs both a time and a space in which to happen, leisure was restricted, too. As Mass-Observation noted, when ‘the bright lights of a city are turned off, bright life is turned off too’.114 Night architecture During the third week of the war, British cinemagoers in some 2,000 venues across the country were treated to Do It Now (1939), a government film that provided information about air-raid precautions and instruction about how the civilian population was expected to behave in wartime. As well as detailing how to deal with incendiaries and reminding viewers to keep their gas masks handy, the film demonstrated how the blackout was to be implemented in both private homes and public buildings. Having shown a couple carefully positioning a board over their living-room



Dark houses

window, the film cuts to a night-time shot of the Odeon, Leicester Square. Brightly illuminated letters on the front of the cinema advertise Conrad Veidt in The Spy in Black (1939), and neon tubing helps outline the shape of the building, especially the tower that dominates the left hand side of the shot. And then, just as the viewer’s eye is accustoming itself to this brilliant spectacle, all the lights are switched off. Suddenly, one of the ‘most prestigious’ cinemas in Britain’s premiere entertainment district vanishes into the darkness.115 The eye adjusts – as it does in conditions of actual darkness – and it becomes clear that the Odeon is still there, looming formlessly in silhouette against the night sky, its black granite façade camouflaging it in the gloom. Without its exterior lights, the cinema is far more poorly defined and is less able to project itself, and, as importantly, an image of itself. As a consequence, it loses some of its identity and appeal: the building might still be able to operate in the same way, but it functions differently. The blackout affected every building in Britain equally, but it affected some more equally than others. All buildings were blacked out so as to prevent lighting escaping into the street, but places of entertainment and commerce were also obliged to extinguish external lights that had worked to advertise location and purpose. Cinemas were amongst the most obviously affected buildings, for following on from the development of purpose-built venues, exhibitors and architects had come to regard external lighting as a crucial element of the cinema building’s form.116 Buildings that had previously used light to project themselves into their environments were rendered relatively anonymous. Where cinemagoing had once begun on the street – with a sense of anticipation generated in part by the thrill of witnessing brilliantly illuminated architectural spectacles – it was now restricted to the interior of the building: ‘the stars shine only within … the outer blaze is darkened’.117 Lighting displays were spectacles that could be enjoyed in their own right, as appears to have been the case in the run up to the opening of Newcastle’s Paramount cinema in 1931: ‘When the giant sign began to blazon the magic word ‘Paramount’ brilliantly into the night this week, the pavements were lined with people who paused and were held for a while in the lure of its magnetic spell.’118 Such lights advertised the location of a cinema, especially if they were used to adorn or pick out a vertical feature such as the fins that the Odeon chain favoured or a tower of the sort that rose above the Gaumont State in Kilburn: ‘A tower 120 ft. in height

43

44

Cinemas and cinemagoing in wartime Britain, 1939–45

rises above the line of shops which flank it, and provides a landmark for miles around. Sign names in red neon catch the eye from all points and act as a focussing point of attention.’119 Indeed, the development of what architectural critic P. Morton Shand called ‘night architecture’, whereby a building ‘should ignore the claims of sunshine and be interpreted in terms of night, not day’, resulted from an understanding that ‘the cinema depends wholly, in a technical sense, on the contrast between darkness and light; and that it has no concern with daylight effects’. Night architecture thereby fused form and function: ‘a brilliant focus of artificial light should be the shop-sign, just as it is the operating medium, of a picture house’.120 Although David Atwell has noted that very few British cinema architects exploited the possibilities of night architecture to the extent that, for example, German designers did, there was a general appreciation in the exhibition sector that lights could contribute to the appeal and visibility of a cinema.121 The brightest lights tended to be reserved for the most lucrative city centre locations, but there can have been few, if any, cinemas that offered no exterior lighting at all (see Figure 3). The blackout put paid to exterior lighting displays, and also to those companies that had previously turned a profit manufacturing neon

3

Night architecture. The Odeon cinema, Weston-super-Mare, May 1935.



Dark houses

signs.122 Cinemas that had purchased neon lights outright removed them and put them into storage for the duration, whilst exhibitors that had rented displays consulted the CEA’s lawyers to find out whether their contracts were still enforceable given that the blackout was a legal requirement.123 At other venues, such as the Embassy, Tottenham Court Road, scheduled to open in early September 1939, exhibitors found themselves prohibited from using the expensive lights that they had only recently installed. Whether in these circumstances Ideal Kinema’s assurances that such lighting should ‘prove arresting’ enough to attract patrons ‘when conditions enable its employment’ eased the pain or rubbed salt into the wound is unknown.124 Exhibitors adopted different methods in their attempts to comply with and overcome blackout regulations. Many more recently constructed cinemas had frontages consisting in large part of glass doors and windows. This glass needed to be obscured, and Kinematograph Weekly’s showmanship expert lamented that this process had ‘sadly affected’ the visibility of these venues and hence their appeal to patrons.125 As late as March 1942, so complete was the blackout that at some cinemas it was considered ‘doubtful whether strangers could be sure [that they were open] without actually trying the doors’.126 Whilst in many instances windows and doors were simply painted over, with many then used as hoardings to advertise coming attractions, in other cinemas heavy curtains were used in an attempt to prevent light leaking into the street. Indeed, at one cinema usherettes required to climb ladders to erect blackout curtains requested that they be allowed to wear trousers rather than skirts when carrying out this task, although it was not recorded if this was for reasons of practicality or propriety.127 The opening and closing of doors as patrons entered and exited the building was another issue that required attention. Cinemas that had canopies could build a wall of sand-bags between the front edge of the canopy and the street, a tactic that had the advantage of also ‘protecting the vestibule from [bomb] blast’ – even if it risked giving the venue the air of a military installation.128 Cinemas without canopies found the situation ‘rather more involved’, and had to institute structural changes to prevent light escaping from the foyer. The construction of baffles or light-locks required cinemagoers to make at least one, and sometimes two, ninety degree turns between leaving the street and reaching the foyer, introducing a touch of the labyrinth into a process that had previously relied on ease of access.129

45

46

Cinemas and cinemagoing in wartime Britain, 1939–45

Further changes affected the ways that cinemagoers moved through, experienced and hence understood the cinema building. Many cinemas took cinemagoers on a procession from the dazzling lights of a building’s façade through a series of carefully and less brightly lit spaces before ushering them into the auditorium.130 The blackout brought about an inversion of the established ritual. The projector became one of the few sources of unguarded light in the building, made comparatively and qualitatively brighter by the darkness that had come to shape the public’s experience of the nocturnal world outside the cinema. The light thrown by the projector had the power to entrance, not simply as a consequence of the pictures it cast onto the screen, but because it formed an unbroken link with a prewar world where the bright beam that pierced the smoky darkness of the auditorium was experienced as a spectacle in its own right.131 Cinemas that installed light-locks could maintain more ‘brightly lit and arresting interiors’, and these were held to have a ‘marked psychological effect’ on their patrons.132 Yet the desire for fuel economy and the fear that all light had the potential to assist the enemy ensured that a great number of foyers took on a ‘sepulchral’ air.133 The gloomy ambience created by a darkened foyer also created practical problems. Many a pay box that had previously opened onto the street was forced inside, but the semi-darkness made transactions more challenging, and patrons deemed it sensible to purchase tickets using the correct money as ‘sometimes the keenest eye found it difficult to discern whether the right change had been given’.134 To enliven foyers and other internal spaces, exhibitors experimented with ultraviolet lights and fluorescent paints that were advertised by manufacturers as being ‘almost a box-office attraction in themselves’, in the hope that displays of artificial flowers and decorative abstract wall designs would help the cinema ‘remain the most cheerful spot in the neighbourhood’.135 In Exeter, the Odeon, ‘with the aid of a local chemist’, applied luminous paint to the cuffs, collars, lapels and hems of employee uniforms to create both ‘the illuminated commissionaire’ and an ‘eerie’ sandwichboard-man, whose ghostly form could be found prowling the darkened streets advertising, appropriately, The Spy in Black.136 Managers working for the Granada chain were advised to keep their foyers as well-lit as conditions permitted, and were instructed to compensate for the loss of visual pleasure by ensuring that there was ‘always music’. However, ‘The news or other talks should never be given on your foyer radio. We want the contrast offered by your theatre from the streets outside to be as noticeable and bright as possible.’137



Dark houses

Yet despite all the cunning demonstrated by these promotional and experiential strategies, and their occasional successes, they were necessitated by the dramatic nature of the changes experienced by British cinemas as a result of the blackout. Cinemas were landmarks in a physical sense, but also within the psychological and cultural geographies of British leisure culture in the 1930s and 1940s. Cinemas were located in specific, concrete spaces, but they also stood apart from them; their prominence, especially after dark, was defined against the more prosaic buildings that surrounded them. Cinemas were characterised by their liminality, their ability to act as a gateway from the High Street to the Yellow Brick Road. However, the experiential allure of the cinematic environment was inherently relational: it was only because they were so firmly anchored in and accessible from the real world that their otherworldliness held such appeal. During the war, rather than standing out from their surroundings, casting as much light as possible in order to differentiate themselves from their neighbours and throw off the shackles of the mundane, cinemas found that they were ‘swallowed up in the prevailing darkness’.138 The blackout did away with the ‘beckoning neons [and] blazing canopy lights’ that had previously functioned as ‘urban lode-stars’, meaning that Britons had to find new ways to navigate within the nocturnal city, and to locate themselves in relation to the urban environment.139 Fiat lux, fiat luxury The blackout was not a static phenomenon, and the regulations that governed it evolved in response to the changing circumstances of war, both in terms of time and technology. Before the end of 1939 the hours of enforced darkness were reduced – coming into effect 30 minutes later and ending half an hour earlier – and the prohibition on street lighting was eased with the introduction of ‘pin-prick’ or ‘synthetic starlight’ streetlamps. This latter amendment was generally welcomed, all the more so because it complemented an announcement by the Ministry of Home Security to permit signs of low brightness and weak illumination to be placed in shop windows, at restaurants and hotels and at places of entertainment. One lighting industry trade journal observed that even ‘faint light is a great boon. There is all the difference in the world between one ten-thousandth of a foot-candle [the maximum permitted illumination] and complete obscurity.’140 The exhibition industry concurred, with Kinematograph Weekly

47

48

Cinemas and cinemagoing in wartime Britain, 1939–45

insisting that ‘We shall look upon the blackout almost with a twisted sort of ­affection – the affection of the man suffering from toothache, who appreciated it because it was so lovely when it was gone.’141 Such changes, and others like them that followed throughout the war, tended to be welcomed by the public and exhibitor alike. The general population proved itself fairly adaptable; although the blackout remained unpopular, people got used to it, or forced themselves to find ways to operate within it as the result of what Roger Manvell proposed was a simple risk–profit analysis: ‘people learned that their need for entertainment exceeded their dislike of the black streets and the unlit pavements’.142 In September 1944, Mass-Observation produced a report on the introduction of the ‘dim-out’, a less stringent form of blackout that permitted a much greater degree of street lighting. One contributor wrote of their excitement: I could jump and shout for joy over the relaxation of the blackout. No more groping about dark streets and fumbling at kerbs expecting to stumble and go full-length any minute. It will be lovely to see lights in windows, too, and see that the place is inhabited – feel people and homes are around. It has been so eerie and depressing in winter, groping through streets which appear entirely uninhabited. It is great for its significance, too, that our authorities don’t really expect any more serious raids.

There was, perhaps surprisingly, also a degree of uneasiness, related for the most part to the idea that the changeover to the dim-out was tempting fate: ‘It’s wicked of the government to tell us to take down blackouts before the war is over – we never know when Hitler will come for us again.’143 Such comments exemplify the way in which the blackout had become both a synecdoche for the war, and a psychological comfort blanket that offered protection against some of the potential terrors of the conflict. There was a widespread belief that the war would only really be over when the blackout was over, and that the end of the blackout would be one of the rewards for victory. As one woman put it, ‘Why don’t they hurry up and kill old Hitler? Then we can have our lights again.’144 The conflation of the war and the blackout helps to explain the ambivalence felt in many quarters about the dim-out: it left the population in limbo, offering relief but not release, lessening the contrast between the benighted wartime period and the much-anticipated and glorious brilliance of peace. It should come as no surprise, then, that VE Day was celebrated with an orgy of light. Searchlights that had sought to pick out enemy aeroplanes



Dark houses

now produced huge Vs in the sky above St Paul’s cathedral in London. In Gloucester, noted a reporter for a local newspaper, ‘people cheered as … the overhead lamps were switched on’ and ‘brought us back from the dark era into the city of light’.145 Bus, tram and train operators were permitted to remove the netting that had previously obscured their windows. And at British cinemas, the external lights were switched on for the first time in fiveand-a-half years. The manager of the Warner Theatre in Leicester Square reported that the crowd gathered outside his cinema ‘danced and cheered’ at the sight of a canopy light display dazzling enough to have recreated ‘pre-war days’.146 On the Strand, the Tivoli cinema produced a red neon lighting display that was said to constitute a fitting ‘tribute to those who brought about victory’.147 In London’s suburbs, the light shows were no less affecting: ‘Dusk came on VE night and every Granada manager switched on everything he had got. The effect was magnificent after five years of theatres shrouded in gloom. The crowds converged like moths around a flame.’148 For youngsters with no memory of pre-war conditions, and even for adults, the switching on of the lights was a change as dramatic and transformative as the first days of the blackout had been for their parents (see Figure 4). Cinema managers noted that ‘Children were brought from miles around in every district to witness the strange miracle of light.’149 Even allowing for a degree of end-of-war hyperbole, it is evident that the return of the lights was a major and ‘positively thrilling’ event in many British lives.150 Cinemas were central to this transformation. In towns and cities all over the country, cinemas were lit up, floodlights and neon blazing, each light a statement of victory and deliverance, each light a return to something approaching pre-war norms and also a symbol of the possibilities of the post-war period. But perhaps more than anything, the lights provoked wonder. Whereas in 1939 street and public lighting had come to be taken for granted, by May 1945 a whole nation was ready to be initiated, anew or for the first time, into the mysteries of the urban lightscape. In south London, a report contained in a local newspaper made clear the lights’ ability to transfix, their ability to recast the nocturnal world as a place of excitement and possibility, but also hinted at the experiential pleasures lost to ‘the long tyranny of the blackout’:151 Further down Mitcham Road, the Astoria, too, was lit up, and on the opposite side of each cinema, particularly the Granada, there was an admiring crowd of people just staring up at the lights, their happy faces illuminated in the glare.152

49

50

4

Cinemas and cinemagoing in wartime Britain, 1939–45

‘After five years of black-out, Human Bats train to face neon, flood and fluorescent lighting.’ Joseph Lee in London Evening News, 24 August 1944.

Notes 1 Daily Mirror, 6 September 1939, p. 2; Daily Express, 6 September 1939, p. 10. 2 Daily Express: 8 September 1939, p. 5; 31 March 1939, p. 10. 3 Christopher Tomlin, diary entry, 5 September 1939. In Simon Garfield (ed.), We Are at War: The Remarkable Diaries of Five Ordinary People in Extraordinary Times (London: Ebury Press, 2005), p. 32.



Dark houses

4 F. Tennyson Jesse, letter to Carl and Sonya Hovey and Edwin and Grace Hubble, 11 September 1939, in F. Tennyson Jesse and H. M. Harwood, London Front: Letters Written to America (August 1939–July 1940) (London: Constable, 1940), p. 18. 5 BFI Special Collections: Bernstein Papers, Box 78: Memo from Sidney Bernstein to A. Fraser Green, 11 September 1939. 6 Asa Briggs, The History of Broadcasting in the United Kingdom: Vol. III – The War of Words (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1970), p. 96. 7 Clement Attlee, 26 September 1939. Parliamentary Debates: House of Commons, 5th Series, vol. 351, col. 1249. 8 Mollie Panter-Downes, letter to the New Yorker, 7 September 1939. In William Shawn (ed.), London War Notes, 1939–45 (London: Longman, 1972), p. 7. 9 Briggs, War of Words, p. 96. 10 Sandy Macpherson, Sandy Presents (London: Home and Van Thal, 1950), p. 97. This correspondent’s wish was partially fulfilled on the night of 24 September 1940, when the BBC theatre organ was put out of action during an air raid that destroyed St George’s Hall. Macpherson was not present. 11 Henry Strauss, 28 May 1940. Parliamentary Debates: Commons, 5th Series, vol. 361, col. 467. 12 Daily Express, 9 September 1939, p. 7. 13 The Times, 5 September 1939, p. 6. 14 John McGovern, 13 September 1939. Parliamentary Debates: Commons, 5th Series, vol. 351, cols 708–9. 15 Kinematograph Weekly, 7 September 1939, p. 4. 16 The Times, 5 September 1939, p. 6. 17 Cambridge Daily News, 14 September 1939, p. 6. 18 Daily Mail, 26 August 1939, p. 4. In the Cinema, Onlooker accused Bernard Shaw of being ‘unfair to the Government’ because it had been made clear that closures were intended to be temporary. 6 September 1939, p. 5. 19 Commander Sir Archibald Southby, 26 September 1939. Parliamentary Debates: Commons, 5th Series, vol. 351, col. 1271. 20 TNA HO 186/1036: ‘Closing of cinemas and places of entertainment’, 5 September 1939. 21 Daily Film Renter, 7 September 1939, p. 1. 22 TNA HO 186/1036: Sir Alexander Maxwell to John Anderson, 6 September 1939. Cinema employees were not alone in finding that the turbulence of the early weeks of the war threatened their livelihoods, as the 20,000 hotel employees dismissed by early October 1939 could testify. Matthew Sweet, The West End Front: The Wartime Secrets of London’s Grand Hotels (London: Faber and Faber, 2011), p. 11. 23 Cornishman, 14 September 1939, p. 2. 24 Kinematograph Weekly, 14 September 1939, p. 4. 25 Kinematograph Weekly, 14 September 1939, p. 5.

51

52

Cinemas and cinemagoing in wartime Britain, 1939–45

26 Mass-Observation, War Begins at Home (London: Faber and Faber, 2009 [1940]), p. 216. Less than a week after the introduction of the blackout, the coroner in Paddington reported that ‘Fatalities [from road-traffic accidents] in Central London, after getting so rare as to be remarkable, are now increasing by leaps and bounds.’ This was despite a 50 per cent decrease in road traffic. Daily Express, 8 September 1939, p. 5. 27 TNA HO 186/1036: Sir Philip Game to Sir Alexander Maxwell, 21 September 1939. 28 Mass-Observation noted that the early phase of the war was marked by ‘newsstarvation’ for both the press and the public. War Begins at Home, p. 176. 29 TNA HO 186/1036: PJH to [unnamed], 5 September 1939. The BBC complied with this order; see BBC Written Archive Centre (WAC): Home news bulletins subject index, 1939 A–Z: Cinematograph, p. 2. 30 Mass-Observation Archive: TC 17/1/A: [Robert Carley], ‘War and the cinema’ (n.d., January 1940?), p. 1. 31 Daily Film Renter, 12 September 1939, p. 2. Permission to reopen was subject to conditions imposed by local police forces. In Musselburgh, near Edinburgh, cinemas were ordered to close at 7.30 p.m., whilst in Northampton limits were set on the number of patrons who could enter a cinema at any one time, with even stricter instructions about the number that could sit in the balcony. Kinematograph Weekly, 14 September 1939, p. 3; TNA HO 186/1036: John Williamson to Police Duty Room, Home Office, 12 September 1939. 32 Cambridge Daily News, 9 September 1939, p. 4. Patrons were informed that the reopening programme would be ‘as announced at theatre’. See also Portsmouth Evening News, 15 September 1939, p. 5: ‘At some theatres it is uncertain as to what pictures will be shown, but the public can rest assured that up-to-date programmes will be offered at every cinema this evening.’ 33 Nancy Gunter, in Picturegoer, 14 October 1939, p. 29. 34 MOA: Diarist 5212, ‘Summary of the first three weeks of the war’, n.d. (September/October 1939), p. 4. 35 Gloucester Citizen, 9 September 1939, p. 4. 36 Kinematograph Weekly, 14 September 1939, p. 5. 37 Mollie Panter Downes, letter to the New Yorker, 17 September 1939. In Shawn (ed.), London War Notes, p. 9. 38 Daily Film Renter: 20 September 1939, p. 1; 25 September 1939, p. 5; Daily Mail, 23 September 1939, p. 5. 39 Daily Express, 22 September 1939, p. 5. 40 TNA HO 186/1036: Oswald Stoll to Sir John Anderson, 23 September 1939. 41 Exhibitors claimed that staggered opening until 10 p.m. reduced losses rather than produced profits. At the Plaza, for example, business was said to have more than doubled, but the cinema still posted a loss of £350 (as opposed to £800 when closing at 6 p.m.). TNA 186/1036: ‘The position of cinemas in the central London area’, 16 October 1939. 42 Daily Film Renter, 4 December 1939, p. 1. Under this scheme, cinemas were



Dark houses

divided into four groups, with each group agreeing to end its main feature by either 10.30, 10.40, 10.50 or 11.15 p.m., with groups alternating between these times. 43 BBC WAC: Home News Bulletin, 3 November 1939, 12.00 a.m. 44 TNA HO 186/1036: Anon [CEA?], ‘Cinemas generally and hours of closing’, 16 October 1939. 45 Kinematograph Weekly, 28 September 1939, p. 5; see also Spectator, 15 September 1939, p. 388, which discusses the fall in value of cinema shares as part of a general weakening of ‘unessential trades (from the war standpoint)’. 46 Daily Mail, 7 September 1939, p. 1. 47 Cambridge Daily News, 20 September 1939, p. 3. 48 Cinema, 3 January 1940, pp. 1, 18. 49 CEA Annual Report, 1939, p. 21. 50 Gloucestershire Echo, 28 October 1939, p. 1; The Times, 30 October 1939, p. 3. 51 Jeffrey Richards, The Age of the Dream Palace: Cinema and Society in Britain, 1930–1939 (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1984), p. 70. On debates concerning the cinema’s ability to influence children, see pp. 67–85. 52 Annette Kuhn, An Everyday Magic: Cinema and Cultural Memory (London: I.B. Tauris, 2002), pp. 83–4. 53 Audrey Field, Picture Palace: A Social History of the Cinema (London: Gentry Books, 1974), pp. 111–12; Richards, Age of the Dream Palace, pp. 63–4, 110–11; Mark Glancy, Hollywood and the Americanization of Britain: From the 1920s to the Present (London and New York: I.B. Tauris, 2014), pp. 112–13. 54 Sarah J. Smith, Children, Cinema and Censorship: From Dracula to the Dead End Kids (London: I.B. Tauris, 2005), p. 63. 55 When Steve King, who had left Hull for the small town of Pocklington in East Yorkshire, got off the bus and was confronted with the Oak House cinema, he was temporarily distracted: ‘Oh, there was a cinema here.’ Steve King, interview with author, 31 January 2011. 56 Children in one Cambridgeshire village insisted of the evacuees, ‘They’ve spoilt the pictures for us.’ Mass-Observation, War Begins at Home, p. 322. 57 Gertrude A. Rodgers, letter, Picturegoer, 7 October 1939, p. 28. 58 Richard Ford, Children in the Cinema (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1939), p. 232; Merseyside survey cited in Simon Rowson, ‘A statistical survey of the cinema industry in Great Britain in 1934’, Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, 99:1 (1936), p. 121. June Backen recalls that she not once visited the cinema during her time as an evacuee in Devon, but that one of the first things she remembers doing upon returning home to London for a fortnight’s ‘holiday’ was going with her mother to Leicester Square to watch Bambi (1942) at the Warner Bros cinema. Interview with author, 4 December 2010. 59 Daily Film Renter, 8 April 1940, p. 1. 60 Kinematograph Weekly, 25 July 1940, p. 11. 61 J. H. Hutchison, The Complete Kinemanager (London: Kinematograph Publications, 1937), p. 124.

53

54

Cinemas and cinemagoing in wartime Britain, 1939–45

62 TNA MEPO 2/6418: Report by Inspector Jeffs, Metropolitan Police, 17 October 1939. 63 TNA MEPO 2/6418: ‘Protective measures suggested for theatres, cinemas and other places of entertainment’, April 1940, para. 12. 64 TNA MEPO 2/6418: Inspector to S. D. Inspector, ‘X’ Division, 9 September 1940. 65 TNA HO 186/1037: O. C. Allen to all Chief Officers of Police in England, Wales and Scotland, 12 November 1943. 66 TNA MEPO 2/6418: see, for example, correspondence sent from the Superintendents of ‘T’, ‘S’ and ‘F’ divisions, 24–26 June 1944. 67 Derbyshire Times and Chesterfield Herald, 22 December 1939, p. 8; Hull Daily Mail, 15 December 1939, p. 8. 68 TNA MEPO 2/6418: ‘Cinemas – children’s matinees’, 24 March 1943. 69 Steve King, interview with author, 31 January 2011. 70 Cambridge Daily News, 11 September 1939, p. 2. 71 Susan R. Grayzel, ‘Defence against the indefensible: the gas mask, the state and British culture during and after the First World War’, Twentieth Century British History, 25:3 (2014), p. 434. 72 Gabriel Moshenska, ‘Gas masks: material culture, memory, and the senses’, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 16:3 (2010), p. 621. 73 Christopher Tomlin, 16 October 1939, in Garfield (ed.), We Are at War, p. 59. 74 Kinematograph Weekly, 1 February 1940, p. 22. 75 See Mass-Observation, Home Propaganda (Bulletin of the Advertising Service Guild, No. 2) (London: Curwen Press, 1941), pp. 8–10, esp. table on p. 9. 76 Denys Chamberlain, interview with author, 13 June 2011. In The Goose Steps Out (1942), a German spy is instructed that if he wants to pass himself off as an Englishman, he must remember not to carry his gas mask. 77 See Angus Calder, The People’s War: Britain 1939–1945 (London: Pimlico, 2008), p. 67; Manchester Guardian, 11 September 1939, p. 4; Western Daily Press, 11 September 1939, p. 7. 78 T. H. O’Brien, Civil Defence (London: HMSO, 1955), p. 319. 79 Central Statistical Office, Annual Abstract of Statistics, No. 84: 1935–1946 (London: HMSO, 1948), pp. 136, 137. 80 MOA: File Report 2068: ‘Wartime inconveniences – 1939–44’, April 1944. 81 Mass-Observation, War Begins at Home, p. 185. 82 Calder, People’s War, p. 63; Stephen King-Hall, History of the War, Vol. 2: September–October 1939 (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1939), p. 17; O’Brien, Civil Defence, p. 322. 83 British Parliamentary Papers, 1930–31, vol. xxix, Cmd. 3767, SeventyFourth Statistical Abstract for the United Kingdom (1931), pp. 270–1; Central Statistical Office, Annual Abstract of Statistics, No. 84, p. 136. There was also a similar, if less dramatic, increase in the amount of gas used to light public spaces in Britain. 84 Mass-Observation, War Begins at Home, p. 187.



Dark houses

85 Dorothy L. Sayers, ‘Wimsey papers’, Spectator, 17 November 1939, pp. 673–4. 86 Joachim Schlör, Nights in the Big City: Paris, Berlin, London, 1840–1930 (London: Reaktion Books, 1998), p. 57. 87 New Statesman and Nation, 16 December 1939, p. 891. 88 The Times, 14 March 1940, p. 9. 89 Steve King, interview with author, 31 January 2011. 90 S. G. Rayment, ‘Facing up to it’, in Kinematograph Yearbook, 1941 (London: Kinematograph Publications, 1941), p. 8. 91 Light and Lighting, 32:7 (July 1939), p. 140. 92 Mass-Observation, War Begins at Home, p. 193. 93 Vera Brittain observed that during the first winter of the war ‘many English families, tired of travelling through the cold blackness to clubs and restaurants, come to know their homes as they have never known them before’. The result was an increase in reading: ‘The libraries flourish; sixpenny “penguins” with white covers carrying scarlet titles appear in their hundreds on every bookstall and are eagerly purchased.’ England’s Hour (London: Macmillan, 1941), pp. 26–7. 94 CTA Archive: London Suburbs: Stepney: Troxy Magazine, February 1940, p. 5. 95 Kinematograph Weekly, 21 September 1939, p. 7. 96 CEA Annual Report, 1939, p. 21; TNA CUST 118/405: letter from W. R. Fuller to Sir John Simon, 13 February 1940. 97 Mass-Observation, War Begins at Home, p. 187. 98 Daily Telegraph, 18 November 1939, p. 7. 99 The Times, 18 November 1939, p. 6. 100 Luke McKernan, ‘Diverting time: London’s cinemas and their audiences, 1906–1914’, London Journal, 32:2 (2007), p. 138. 101 New Survey of London Life and Labour. Vol. I: Forty Years of Change (London: P. S. King & Son, 1930), p. 294. 102 Quote from vol. IX: ‘Life and Leisure’ (1935), in Sally Alexander, ‘A new civilization? London surveyed 1928–1940s’, History Workshop Journal, 64 (2007), p. 298. 103 Selina Todd, ‘Young women, work, and leisure in interwar England’, Historical Journal, 48:3 (2005), pp. 800, 803–4. 104 Daily Film Renter, 8 April 1940, p. 1. 105 Kinematograph Weekly, 19 October 1939, p. 17. 106 Today’s Cinema, 3 November 1939, p. 3. George and Nancy Bush remembered people in Cambridge making a ‘quick exit’ at the end of the final  programme so as not to miss the last bus because of having to stand for the  national  anthem. Even so, the buses were often ‘absolutely packed with people and … they didn’t wait for you, they’d just press the bell and run off and it really was very difficult’. Interview with author, 11 August 2010.

55

56

Cinemas and cinemagoing in wartime Britain, 1939–45

107 Kinematograph Weekly, 12 March 1942, p. 40. 108 Kinematograph Weekly, 5 June 1941, p. 12. 109 Kinematograph Weekly, 5 March 1942, p. 36; 19 February 1942, p. 44. 110 Unless otherwise noted, all responses in this section are taken from M-O Archive: TC17/3/A. Interviews were conducted in Streatham, Cricklewood and Oxford Street between 18 and 24 December 1939. 111 M-O Archive: TC17/4/A: Interview with Ewart Hodgson of Granada, 28 December 1939, pp. 2–3. 112 This idea is advanced in, for example, Nina J. Morris, ‘Night walking: darkness and sensory perception in a night-time landscape installation’, Cultural Geographies, 18:3 (2011), pp. 334–5. 113 Diary entry by Nella Last. 5 September 1939. Richard Broad and Suzie Fleming (eds), Nella Last’s War: The Second World War Diaries of Housewife, 49 (London: Profile, 2006), p. 4. 114 Mass-Observation, War Begins at Home, p. 187. 115 Richard Gray, Cinemas in Britain: A History of Cinema Architecture (Lund Humphries: Farnham, new edn, 2011), p. 108. 116 Cinema and Theatre Construction, March 1939 (11:1), pp. 8–9. 117 Observer, 17 September 1939, p. 10. 118 BFI Special Collections: Cinema Ephemera: Regions: Newcastle-on-Tyne: Paramount News, 4 September 1931, p. 1. 119 ‘The Gaumont “State”, Kilburn – Souvenir Supplement’, Ideal Kinema, 6 January 1938, p. v. 120 P. Morton Shand, The Architecture of Pleasure Vol. 1: Modern Theatres and Cinemas (London: B. T. Batsford, 1930), pp. 27, 25. 121 David Atwell, Cathedrals of the Movies: A History of British Cinemas and their Audiences (London: Architectural Press, 1980), p. 62. 122 In Dad’s Army, Joe Walker, Walmington-on-Sea’s resident spiv, receives conscription papers having attempted to exempt himself from the call-up by claiming that he was a banana and illuminated sign salesman. Dad’s Army (radio series), ‘The loneliness of the long distance Walker.’ Original transmission: 22 April 1974. 123 BFI Special Collections: Bernstein Papers: Box 73 – P – Miscellaneous (1939): J. W. Barber to Pearce Signs Ltd, 14 September 1939; CEA Annual Report, 1939, pp. 30–1. 124 Ideal Kinema, 14 September 1939, p. v. 125 Kinematograph Weekly, 2 May 1940, p. 42. 126 Kinematograph Weekly, 19 March 1942, p. 46. 127 Norman Longmate, How We Lived Then: A History of Everyday Life during the Second World War (London: Pimlico, 2002), p. 38. 128 Ideal Kinema, 12 October 1939, p. i. See also the cartoon by Strube in Daily Express, 16 September 1939, p. 4 in which a cinema frontage is almost entirely obscured by sandbags, and where a poster for City Lights (1931) is plastered with ‘Censored’ banners.



Dark houses

129 Schematic plans for the obscuration of light can be seen Ideal Kinema, 12 October 1939, p. i. 130 Hutchison, Complete Kinemanager, p. 35. 131 Joseph Marks recalled youthful trips to the cinema: ‘I’d go to the pictures and I’d turn round half the time, I’d be looking at the light from the projector … Lovely, it was magic.’ Interview with author, 16 May 2011. 132 Kinematograph Weekly, 16 November 1939, p. 29. 133 Daily Film Renter, 29 November 1939, p. 2; Kinematograph Weekly, 27 November 1941, p. 44. 134 Joyce Storey, Joyce’s War, 1939–1945 (London: Virago, 1992), pp. 30–1. 135 Advertisement for Philips’s ‘Philora black lamps’, Kinematograph Weekly, 30 November 1939, p. 30; Kinematograph Weekly, 16 November 1939, p. 28. 136 Kinematograph Weekly: 5 October 1939, p. 4; 2 November 1939, p. 20. 137 BFI Special Collections: Bernstein Papers: Box 78 – Wandsworth Road (1939) – Undated memo from head office (September 1939?). Emphasis in original. 138 Guy Morgan, Red Roses Every Night: An Account of London Cinemas Under Fire (London: Quality Press, 1948), p. 23. 139 Morgan, Red Roses, p. 23. 140 Light and Lighting, December 1939, p. 245. 141 Kinematograph Weekly, 7 December 1939, p. 4. 142 Roger Manvell, ‘The British feature film from 1940 to 1945’, in Michael Balcon et al., 20 Years of British Film, 1925–1945 (London: Falcon Press, 1947), p. 81. 143 M-O Archive: File Report 2159: ‘Black-out to dim-out’, September 1944, p. 1. 144 Mass-Observation, War Begins at Home, pp. 184, 190. 145 Gloucester Echo, 10 May 1945, p. 3. 146 Today’s Cinema, 11 May 1945, p. 3; Kinematograph Weekly, 17 May 1945, p. 28. 147 Kinematograph Weekly, 17 May 1945, p. 28. 148 BFI Special Collections: Bernstein Papers: Granada News Letter, June 1945, p. 1. 149 BFI Special Collections: Bernstein Papers: Granada News Letter, June 1945, p. 1. 150 Surrey Mirror, 11 May 1945, p. 5. 151 Calder, People’s War, p. 563. 152 Balham, Tooting and Mitcham News and Mercury, 12 May 1945, p. 1.

57

The CEA and the government

2 The Cinematograph Exhibitors’ Association and the government

A

lthough the letters MoI are often, and understandably, used as the starting point when examining the relationship between the cinema and the state in Britain during the Second World War, the MoI was not the only government department to have a direct and intrusive influence on British cinemas.1 The Ministries of Labour, Food, Supply and Home Security, as well as the Board of Trade and the Exchequer, were closely involved in the regulation of British cinema exhibition, and this is to name but a few of the more energetic agencies. ‘Practically every Government department has a finger somewhere in the industry’s pie these days’, noted the Daily Film Renter in March 1940.2 To a considerable extent, this was simply the continuation of an established pre-war pattern; the cinema was, after all, a well-regulated industry and governmental i­nterference – be it national or local – was only to be expected.3 Yet during the war the number of laws, rules and regulations that affected the cinema grew, and were often amended, replaced or repealed with a frequency that bewildered many a cinema manager. The solicitor retained by the Cinematograph Exhibitors’ Association admitted to have being kept ‘pretty busy’ scrutinising the nearly 2,000 pieces of legislation passed in 1941 alone to see how and if they affected exhibitors.4 Of course, many of these regulations were not solely applicable to the cinema, but also affected other parts of the leisure industry and British society more generally. However, we might understand that the cinemas of Britain were subject to a unique regulatory burden that restricted many of their freedoms and consequently shaped the nature of the wartime cinema, both as an industry and as an experience. The sheer weight of this burden brought the eventual complaint that exhibitors were being ‘controlled to death … suffocated by wartime legislation’.5



The CEA and the government

Taken as a whole, however, the British exhibition industry had ‘a good war’. The growth of ticket sales and the dearth of competition compensated for, and in many instances outweighed, the increased costs of running a cinema in wartime and also the temporary downturns in trade resulting from events such as the blackout or the blitz. However, although boxoffice receipts grew, the British cinema industry did not adopt a supine position in relation to the state, and the CEA sent numerous delegations to Whitehall as it sought to mitigate the harshest elements of legislation that it believed had the potential to damage the interests of the exhibition sector. Whilst financial self-interest was undoubtedly the main motivating factor in the Association’s approaches to the government, its appeals were frequently justified in public through references to the special importance that the cinema was believed to have in wartime. In A Christmas Message from Mr Oscar Deutsch (1939), it was claimed that exhibitors provided a service that is just as vital as many of the controlled commodities. Millions of us need increasingly the relaxation of the cinema as an antidote to worry, as a means of forgetting trouble for a few hours, and as a method of preserving our private happiness.

The CEA argued that anything that risked undermining the viability or appeal of British cinemas also risked fatally undermining the nation’s morale – an idea with which many parliamentarians seem to have concurred.6 When the issue of morale was considered alongside the cinema’s ability to disseminate propaganda and information (in the shape of official films and newsreels), and its capacity to raise revenue for the Exchequer, it becomes easier to substantiate the occasionally grandiose claims that the CEA was prone to make regarding the significance of the exhibition industry’s contribution to the war effort. And whilst it is possible to quibble with H. P. E. Mears’s assertion that cinemas were ‘as essential to the progress of the war as any munitions you can possibly make … They are so essential that you cannot do without them’, it was undeniable that cinemas did have a crucial role to play during the war.7 In terms of the content of the cinema programme, the aspect of cinemagoing most likely to be commented upon by the average picturegoer and certainly the most analysed by both government pollsters and historians,8 the MoI was the government department that had the greatest impact on British cinemas between 1939 and 1945. It seems fair to say, however, that this was largely because its impact was the most immediately ­obvious

59

60

Cinemas and cinemagoing in wartime Britain, 1939–45

to those sat in the auditorium. Yet government films, whilst they had the potential to undermine the pleasures associated with cinema, never posed a threat to the continuation of the exhibition industry.9 This was not the case, however, with shortages of the basic raw materials crucial to the day-to-day functioning of British cinemas, and of which most patrons remained in blissful ignorance. With hindsight, it is all too easy to dismiss the CEA’s doom-mongering about the scheme to ration the carbons used in projectors as being misplaced, but in early 1940 it was not at all clear that the scheme would function smoothly: cinemagoers might not know what a carbon did, or understand the complexities associated with their distribution in wartime, but they would notice if the projectors summarily failed to work.10 Similarly, when in 1943 the CEA was consulted by the Board of Trade about the best ways to effect economies in the trade’s consumption of raw film stock, it sought a solution that would keep to a minimum any changes that patrons could not help but notice. So, rather than eliminate trailers or opening credits, it was decided that fewer prints be struck, and that each work harder. In order that newsreels might continue to be issued on a twice-weekly basis, cinemas agreed to share them, with cans of films often rushed from one venue to another on foot or by bicycle, and with ample scope for humorous misadventure.11 True, some patrons insisted that the deterioration in the quality of individual prints, which was particularly apparent in later-run halls, ruined their enjoyment of the programme, but the CEA clearly thought a qualitative change preferable to a quantitative one, believing that such a change would be likely to alienate fewer customers.12 As the CEA’s central role in negotiations with the Board of Trade showed, the industry was confident of its position, despite the challenges it faced. W. R. Fuller, CEA General Secretary and regular visitor to Whitehall, was adamant that the industry was not alone in recognising the value of the cinema, and insisted that there was ‘in Government and public circles, a widening acceptance of the cinema as a national institution for the maintenance of public morale, perhaps second only in importance to an ever-increasing production of modern means of war’.13 Yet herein lay the rub, for whilst the MoI might have regarded the nation’s cinemas as a vital component of the attempt to keep the British public feeling positive and well informed,14 the Exchequer – mindful of the cost of the ‘everincreasing production of modern means of war’ and concerned about how this might be paid – was liable to see the cinema in more rawly economic



The CEA and the government

terms, as a source of revenue. The Ministry of Labour, meanwhile, eyed it – or more accurately the seventy-five thousand staff it employed – as a source of productive manpower.15 Yet both the Treasury and the Ministry of Labour were also aware of the political implications of treating the exhibition industry too harshly. A balance therefore needed to be struck between what British cinemas might be expected to do for the government, and their ongoing duty to their patrons. Striking this balance was not always easy, however. As the government’s demands became more insistent, it repeatedly called upon ‘non-essential’ industries, a category that included the exhibition sector despite the CEA’s best efforts to have cinemas reclassified, to make even greater contributions to the war effort. In the main, this meant trying to maintain pre-war outputs with fewer resources, particularly staff. Indeed, cumulative demands on the British leisure industries eventually became so onerous that these industries, and several MPs, called upon the government to make a public statement outlining its thoughts on the position and function of popular entertainment in wartime. Consequently, in March 1942, Home Secretary Herbert Morrison told the House of Commons that the government had ‘no intention of imposing needless hindrances to recreations [so that] total war unnecessarily becomes total misery’. But the key word here is ‘­needless’ – the recreation industries were offered no guarantees that business would carry on unaffected by the war. Popular entertainments might be, as Morrison insisted, ‘a lubricant rather than a brake on the war machine’, but that machine needed staffing and it had to be paid for: ‘such requirements must obviously be the first consideration and there will be no hesitation to impose such further restrictions as may be needed in the interests of the war effort’.16 The state therefore reserved the right to increase taxes, conscript staff, restrict imports of raw materials such as film stock or carbons and divert resources away from theatres, cinemas and dance halls to those places where it was deemed that they might make the most telling contribution. Yet for all the pressing and immediate needs of the war effort, the national interest was also served by keeping spirits up. ‘Boredom’, observed the CEA, was ‘the greatest enemy of morale’; the British people – be they in uniform or in civvies – needed to be entertained if they were to cope with the demands made by a lengthy conflict.17 That the government was fully cognisant of this is demonstrated by the changes introduced to legislation concerning Sunday opening. Before the war, in England and Wales, cinemas had been permitted to open on Sundays only if a majority of electors in a particular

61

62

Cinemas and cinemagoing in wartime Britain, 1939–45

district had voted in favour, if cinema staff were scheduled to work no more than six days out of seven and if a proportion of box-office takings were paid to charity. From December 1939 military authorities were permitted under Defence Regulation 42B to request that in areas where there were significant concentrations of servicemen, Sunday opening be instituted on the say-so of the local authority without having to go through the process of conducting a vote.18 In little more than a year, Sunday opening was introduced in 174 new areas – ‘including some very quiet and respectable places’ – with a combined population of more than 7.5 million people.19 This brought the population of districts where Sunday opening was permitted to more than 21 million, meaning that those able to enjoy a trip to the pictures on the Sabbath constituted nearly 50 per cent of Britons (more, if those prepared to travel from neighbouring areas are included). The introduction of Sunday opening could be an intensely controversial subject. The length and breadth of the country, those advocating that Sunday be kept clear for religious observance – ‘No good will come to the town by departing from the strict command to keep holy the Sabbath Day’20 – were opposed by those who proposed that providing servicemen, and other would-be cinemagoers, with greater opportunity to visit the cinema would be beneficial to the nation on the grounds that ‘The war does not stop every Sunday [and] neither do war workers.’21 Allowing councils to introduce Sunday opening without having to take a public vote ratcheted up the tension, as both sides became more vocal, and strident, in their attempts to influence councils through the letters pages of local newspapers. Such passionate debates speak to the localised nature of the cinema, and demonstrate the importance of local factors in mediating how decisions taken nationally were implemented on the ground. In the early months of 1941, in a move that sought to place civilians on a par with uniformed servicemen, the Cabinet looked to amend Defence Regulation 42B in order to make Sunday opening easier in districts containing large numbers of industrial workers. Ernest Bevin, Minister of Labour, produced a memorandum in which he outlined his belief that the Sunday opening of cinemas was a prerequisite for the ‘efficient prosecution of the war’: the necessities of production require an ever increasing number of men and women to go and work far from their homes. They have to live in lodgings or billets away from home comforts and friends and are, therefore, far more than normally dependent on organised entertainment on their rest days.



The CEA and the government

[Furthermore], the necessities of production, in so far as long hours have to be worked and long distances travelled, combined with the effects of the black-out and bombing, make it increasingly difficult for all workers, including those living in their own homes, to go to cinemas during the week. In the case of all workers, but especially in the case of those transferred away from home, I am satisfied that the provision of entertainment at convenient times is most desirable in the interests of maximum production. It helps to avoid the staleness and boredom which are inevitable, to some degree, in the circumstances of today … For reasons which are obvious, the only way to provide more entertainment for these men and women who are busy all the week is to provide it on Sunday.22

Despite the strength of Bevin’s commendation, and the fact that 71 per cent of those polled by Gallup supported the Sunday opening of cinemas and 67 per cent the easing of restrictions on the opening of theatres, the government was not prepared to whip the amendment through the Commons.23 Churchill had received correspondence ‘urging that Ministers as well as private members be allowed to exercise their freedom of conscience and vote as they pleased’ and was not prepared to force any MP with ‘strong convictions on grounds of conscience or religious scruples, to do violence to those convictions’.24 Consequently, the amendment – which would also, and more controversially, have for the first time permitted the opening of theatres and music halls on Sunday – was defeated in the Commons by religiously motivated opponents, ‘amid loud cheers and some clapping of hands’.25 Although Bevin’s words testify to the government’s recognition that the  cinema played an important role in the cultural and economic life of the nation, the Cabinet’s refusal to force the measure through the Commons demonstrates that numerous other constraints also worked to shape the relationship between the state and the cinema during the Second World War. These constraints, be they moral, political, fiscal or military, suggest that the relationship between cinema and state was influenced by a host of factors that neither the government nor the cinemas could be confident of fully controlling. The CEA and the government might have sought to work together to find a way of ensuring that the cinema do its bit in wartime, but other parties were capable of exerting pressure in order that policies relating to the cinema sometimes developed and were ­implemented in unpredictable ways. The regulatory burden shouldered by the exhibition sector was onerous, but the CEA was correct to believe that those running the war were as

63

64

Cinemas and cinemagoing in wartime Britain, 1939–45

sympathetic and accommodating to the cinema as circumstances allowed. In turn, the CEA was committed to using the resources at its disposal to both please cinemagoers and screen government films, believing that ‘Our enemies are doomed to disappointment if the Government continues to give exhibitors the same facilities as hitherto to entertain the public.’26 The government never pretended that keeping cinemas operational was an overriding priority for the nation; nor would the CEA have expected it to. However, where possible, accommodations were made to keep the exhibition industry functioning as normally as possible. The CEA’s dealings with the state were complex and dynamic, and not always entirely cordial or productive, but they were defined most often in terms of mutuality rather than antagonism. In June 1945, Winston Churchill admitted that the cinema had afforded him ‘much pleasure and relaxation during the hard times through which we have passed’. Wherever practicable, and within the limitations imposed by the war, the government attempted to ensure that the millions of Britons who went to the pictures each week might enjoy a similarly beneficial relationship with the cinema.27 The CEA and the Ministry of Information By the beginning of June 1942, when the MoI’s Partners in Crime was first screened, so familiar were British cinema audiences with MoI shorts that a character in the film is able to suggest, when watching one, that it was ‘only another one of those propaganda pictures’. Propaganda was an important weapon in the British government’s armoury, a weapon with both offensive and defensive possibilities. Seeking to reach as many Britons as possible, it is not surprising that the MoI was eager to get government films onto the nation’s cinema screens. Yet despite its enthusiasm for film propaganda, the Ministry exercised no small degree of caution when placing its films in British cinemas, wary both of appearing overbearing in its dealings with the exhibition industry, and of alienating the public by overloading individual programmes with large, indigestible dollops of recognisable propaganda. Kinematograph Weekly believed that it should be possible to ‘put a few grains of powder in behind the jam’ without exciting too much resentment from the pleasure-seeking public, but insisted that a patron’s enjoyment of the cinema should never be compromised.28 The MoI agreed, and planned its short-film campaigns in line with Sir Kenneth Clark’s observation that ‘ten minutes for propaganda films were as much as people can stand’.29



The CEA and the government

In reaching this conclusion, the Ministry might well have been responding to the murmurs of discontent that resulted from the near-constant requests made of exhibitors for the screening of informational slides and publicity films. So great was the number received by the Portsmouth CEA by May 1940 that branch chairman Charles Clarke was moved to comment that if the Battle of Waterloo had been won on the playing fields of Eton, then ‘some people wanted to win the present war on the screens of the cinemas of the British Empire’.30 Reports that in an extreme case an exhibitor might be asked to include as much as 3,500 feet – more than 30 minutes – of publicity material in a programme raised concerns that cinemagoers would soon start to spend their time, and their money, elsewhere.31 Indeed, from the CEA’s point of view an important selling point of the Five-Minute Film scheme, which came into effect in July 1940 and which saw one MoI short included in each British cinema programme, was that it promised to regularise, and in effect limit, cinematic propaganda and so relieve the pressure then being placed on exhibitors by other ministries and charitable organisations.32 By signing up for the scheme, CEA members would be able to use the MoI as a shield: ‘[the Ministry] becomes responsible for issue of all propaganda films, any requests now made to you for showing of other official or local effort films can be declined and applicants referred to Ministry of Information’.33 For its part, the Ministry was equally determined that it become the sole arbiter of what propaganda made it into the cinemas, not only because it could thus ensure the coordination of film propaganda and so reduce the chances of any embarrassing clashes, but also because it was concerned that if too many demands were placed on exhibitors, they would ‘very soon rebel and refuse to show the short films produced by the [MoI]’. In the Ministry’s opinion, the CEA’s ‘compliance’ would only be maintained ‘if their generosity is not over-strained’.34 The MoI’s desire to maintain ‘the very friendliest’ relations with the CEA was also linked to the voluntary nature of the agreement that saw the Ministry’s films exhibited gratis in British cinemas.35 For the Ministry, the voluntary principle had two main benefits. First, it was less likely to set the government’s propagandists at odds with the exhibitors. True, not all Ministry films were popular, and not all exhibitors welcomed them with open arms, but by relying on a cooperative process, the CEA and its members became complicit in the regular screening of government films. This meant that propaganda was not simply foisted on unsuspecting

65

66

Cinemas and cinemagoing in wartime Britain, 1939–45

and ­unwilling cinemagoers by overbearing bureaucrats. Second, the cost of exhibition within the voluntary scheme was borne by the exhibitors, whereas compulsory screening of government films was more likely to necessitate paying for screen time, something that the MoI was keen to avoid if at all possible. Kenneth Clark had even advised against paying for the screening of advertising slides, a much cheaper alternative to films, fearing that such a move would establish a precedent, and perhaps concerned that paying for access to cinema screens would negate the idea that material produced by the government could be satisfactorily inserted into entertainment-based programmes.36 The most obvious disadvantage of a voluntary scheme was that there was no guarantee that the cinemas would stand by the agreement should they begin to feel that the films were irking customers, or even if they felt that the Five Minute films were making programme running times too long. Initial signs were, however, that the exhibitors would remain true to their word, and a little over a month after the start of the scheme, the MoI was able to announce that in the week of 17 August 1940 a Ministry film had been screened in every one of the country’s cinemas.37 This was no small achievement, and spoke to both the administrative and logistical skill of the MoI and National Screen Service Ltd, which distributed the films at an annual cost to the Ministry of approximately £100,000,38 and also to the exhibitors’ willingness to do what many saw as their duty, even if in order to squeeze government films into the programme it was on occasion necessary ‘to subject the newsreel, trailers, or organ show to careful cutting’.39 The Five Minute films seem to have been tolerated – and, on occasion, even enjoyed – by patrons and cinema exhibitors during their first year. In September 1941, a survey of 1,700 people in Bristol, Glasgow and Leamington found that in each location more than 70 per cent of cinemagoers had seen an MoI film, and of these, a similar proportion admitted to enjoying them.40 That same month, Mass-Observation discovered that in the five London boroughs it sampled, more than 90 per cent of those questioned were favourable to MoI shorts, and in another survey, conducted two months earlier, it was found that, amongst M-O panellists at least, government films were more positively received than government advertising on the whole.41 Yet although criticism of the MoI’s films being ‘as unpalatable as medicine, and almost as difficult to swallow’, as published in a May 1942 issue of Picturegoer,42 was relatively rare, it does seem that there was a fair amount of indulgent indifference to government films, which as



The CEA and the government

Mass-Observation noted, were often looked upon as ‘five-minutes of attention before the picture they have come to see’.43 However, in mid-1941 what had been a largely constructive relationship between the CEA and the MoI broke down temporarily over the question of just how many cinemas were still including government shorts in their programmes. Kinematograph Weekly carried a letter which accused certain London cinemas of either only playing the films at 10 a.m. or over closed stage curtains, not showing them in the final programme of the day, or, in some cases, of not showing the films at all.44 When, at the end of July 1941, Brendan Bracken, appointed Minister of Information less than a fortnight earlier, was asked whether he was satisfied with the number of cinemas screening MoI shorts, he stood by the voluntary nature of the agreement his Ministry had made with the CEA, but suggested that if his powers of persuasion were insufficient to secure a more widespread showing of government films, he would ‘consider taking compulsory powers’.45 This unguarded use of the c-word sent exhibitors into a fury. In June 1940, shortly before reaching an agreement with the CEA regarding the Five Minute programme, the MoI had investigated the possibility of acquiring powers that would have compelled exhibitors to screen government shorts. Seemingly concerned about how the trade would react, the Ministry did not invest itself with these powers, nor did it let on to exhibitors that it had considered initiating the programme on a mandatory basis.46 A year later, the outcry that attended Bracken’s ‘indiscreet’ hint that he would, if necessary, force cinemas to show MoI films suggests the wisdom of the initial softly-softly approach.47 The trade press bristled with indignation. In Today’s Cinema, one industry commentator noted that ‘Compulsion is an ugly word, and especially so when used in connection with official propaganda.’48 The whiff of authoritarianism introduced by the threat of compulsory screenings prompted ex-CEA president H. P. E. Mears to ask, ‘What are we coming to? Is this still a democracy or isn’t it?’49 To a degree, the CEA was able to get so exercised about this issue because it realised that, in this instance, it could afford to do so. Although the Ministry would have been able to force through an order insisting upon the screening of its films, this would have been something of a pyrrhic victory: a later MoI memo on the subject of compulsion insisted that it was ‘extremely doubtful whether, in the long run, the extra showing [i.e. of films] obtained by an Order would be worth the resentment that would be caused’.50

67

68

Cinemas and cinemagoing in wartime Britain, 1939–45

The MoI was extremely sensitive about the way in which its work was perceived, in no small part because of the poor reputation it had come to enjoy as a result of its activities, and perceived inactivity, in the first stage of the war.51 Forcing its films onto the public during their leisure hours would have done little to alleviate the rank bad odour in which the Ministry was held in many quarters. What’s more, compulsory screenings would have required the MoI to establish some form of inspectorate to ensure exhibitor compliance. It was a fine line between forcing exhibitors to screen MoI propaganda and forcing the public to watch it: Our newspapers have recently been laughing (I take it with the approval of the MoI) at German exhibitors who are forced to slip in Nazi newsreels when the public least expect them, so that they can’t escape the daily dose. Has it come to that in this country?52

Although the Ministry had from very early on in the Five Minute programme sent investigators into the field to gauge public reaction to its films,53 and would continue to make both overt and covert enquiries about the screening and popularity of its shorts, the prospect of having to police cinemas was not an appealing one, especially in the wake of the ‘Cooper’s snoopers’ affair which saw the MoI criticised both in parliament and the press for overstepping the line that separated the gathering of information about morale from an invasion of privacy.54 Further, both the MoI and the CEA understood that to compel exhibitors to show government films would require, quid pro quo, monetary compensation. For whilst the Five Minute films represented excellent value for money whilst they were screened for free – the authorised total budget for producing and distributing the first twelve films was £28,00055 – to pay for them to be exhibited would cost an estimated £25,000 per week, or about £1 per minute per cinema.56 Even allowing for a small government discount, as was offered by the print media, free screenings were ‘knowledgeably calculated’ to constitute a saving of £1.5 million a year, ‘a further oblique contribution to the Exchequer by the exhibitor’.57 This was almost five times the amount spent by the MoI on print and poster advertising in the first twenty months of the war, and would have made quite a dent even in the ‘unlimited funds’ Stafford Cripps believed to be at the Ministry’s disposal.58 Further to this extra cost could be added the expense of policing the compulsory screening of films, and also the loss of revenue associated with a select group of longer films such as Target



The CEA and the government

for Tonight (1941), which had previously been commercially distributed but which would subsequently have been lumped in with the Ministry’s shorts and sent out on a non-commercial basis.59 In short, the Ministry might show its films in a greater number of cinemas, but it would do so at a considerably higher cost, and in a manner seemingly guaranteed to rile exhibitors and public alike. And yet whilst CEA members might have been in some ways better off had they been paid for the time they had previously donated to the nation, and although they did toy with the idea of charging for screen time  (with proceeds going to trade charities such the Cinematograph Trade Benevolent Fund), industry leaders were minded to maintain the voluntary arrangement if at all possible. Charging the government for access to the screen risked convincing cinemagoers that ‘the ­non-entertainment parts of the show were put on as a money-making stunt instead of a patriotic or charitable gesture’.60 More importantly, the relatively small sums involved, which approximated to £5 per cinema per week, were less valuable to the CEA than was being able to demonstrate the exhibitors’ absolute and un-self-interested commitment to the war effort: ‘This is the kind of national service that will be an added inducement for the Authorities to want cinemas to keep open and to be visited by the public’, insisted the CEA when announcing the voluntary screening of Five Minute films to its members.61 At a more local level, the Bristol and West of England branch of the CEA argued that ‘Our policy should be to give all the help that we can to the Government, thus making them realize the necessity of keeping open as many cinemas as possible.’62 As the exhibition industry entered into negotiations with the Treasury about Entertainments Tax and the Ministry of Labour about the conscription of key personnel, it was able, as a point in its favour, to point to the work it was doing for the MoI and, following, the nation. For as well as voluntarily screening MoI shorts and contributing to the maintenance of public morale, the CEA also worked in conjunction with the National Savings Committee (NSC) to encourage Britons to contribute to assorted savings drives, collected money for British prisoners of war to the tune of £1.2 million, and placed hundreds of cinemas at the disposal of the War Office so that training and instructional films could be shown to the forces, Home Guard units and the Civil Defence Services.63 This was, as Kinematograph Weekly proudly asserted, a ‘100 per cent war effort’.64 The angry response to Bracken’s mention of compulsion, and also the

69

70

Cinemas and cinemagoing in wartime Britain, 1939–45

heated exchanges that followed on from not unfounded accusations that the MoI was employing spies to check whether cinemas were screening films, was not, then, intended to be heard by the MoI alone.65 For whilst there is little doubt that the exhibition industry was sincere in its commitment to the war, and so would have been genuinely slighted by the aspersions cast upon it by the MoI, there is also little doubt that this commitment could also be used as a bargaining tool. Accordingly, the CEA needed to be seen and heard to be upset by the threat of compulsory screenings, needed to respond in an aggrieved manner as its bona fides were challenged: ‘Can you’, the editor of the Cinema demanded of Brendan Bracken, ‘name any other single industry in the country that is doing MORE for the National effort – ABSOLUTELY FREE – than the FILM INDUSTRY is doing?’66 The CEA understood that cinematic propaganda was going to be an inescapable fact of wartime life, and would remain so whether or not it was popular with exhibitors or the cinemagoing public at large. It also understood that as a consequence of the war there were far fewer alternatives to the cinema than there had been in peacetime, and that patrons therefore had little choice but to sit through propaganda films in order to enjoy the  more attractive parts of the programme. The CEA therefore bowed to the inevitable, and worked to turn the screening of government shorts to the advantage of the industry. Even though the Association knew that potential patron apathy, or even antipathy, to government films would be comprehensively outweighed by the public’s desire to gain regular access to the cinema, playing up the extent, or even the possibility, of such sentiments made the exhibition industry’s contribution to the war effort seem all the more valuable. The CEA’s noisy response to Bracken’s threat of compulsion – a response that by mid-September 1941 had earned a reassurance from the Minister that the screening of government films would continue on a voluntary basis – is therefore better understood as being part of a wider strategy to deal with two of the big beasts of the wartime Whitehall jungle: the Ministry of Labour, which was threatening to conscript staff at a rate that alarmed the CEA (see Chapter 4), and the Treasury, which was responsible for determining the amount of tax that the exhibition industry was liable to pay. It has become a commonplace of histories of the Second World War that the CEA was of great use to the MoI; it is also true that the MoI was useful to the CEA.



The CEA and the government

The CEA and the Ministry of Food The MoI was not the only government department to exhibit films in British cinemas during the Second World War. Although the MoI coordinated the majority of government publicity, both the National Savings Committee and the Ministry of Food (MoF) produced their own publicity schemes, and spent vast sums on them. The NSC, for example, spent £834,100 on press advertising and posters between September 1939 and June 1941,67 and the importance of its campaigns, which sought to encourage ordinary Britons to invest money in the British war effort, is demonstrated by the stars that the organisation was able to attract to narrate its short films. In 1945, for example, Deborah Kerr, Laurence Olivier, Anna Neagle and Eric Portman all lent their voices to NSC shorts.68 The MoF was equally enthusiastic when it came to cinematic publicity, and in the four and a half years after March 1942 issued more than 200 short Food Flash films for inclusion in British cinema programmes.69 The MoF’s impact on cinemas in wartime Britain extended beyond the films it screened, however. As the department responsible for the regulation of consumption in the United Kingdom, the MoF also made its presence known to exhibitors through control schemes for confectionery and ice cream. Sweets rationing was introduced in July 1942 and lasted until February 1953 (with a short break in 1949), whereas the prohibition of its manufacture meant that ice cream – and the revenue it generated – was entirely absent from British cinemas between September 1942 and March 1945. The ban on ice cream – ‘purely a luxury trade’, according to the Minister of Food70 – demonstrates the competing pressures that came to bear on the British diet during the war, for whilst the MoF was willing to initiate the prohibition on the grounds that ice cream made extensive use of imported foodstuffs such as sugar, the ice cream industry’s demands for manpower, factory capacity, rail transport and packaging brought about criticism from the Board of Trade and the Ministries of Labour and Transport. The consumption of confectionary and ice cream had become an important element of the cinemagoing experience by the start of the war, and when sweets rationing was mooted, one trade paper noted that it would deprive patrons of ‘familiar sights and sounds – for it may mean there will no longer be girls parading up and down the aisles with the cry of “Choclits!”’71 Indeed, it might be suggested that the phrase ‘personal

71

72

Cinemas and cinemagoing in wartime Britain, 1939–45

taste’, when applied to the cinema, could describe flavour as much as genre. Although exhibitors were keen to satisfy their customers’ gastronomic desires, and in so doing help contribute to the notion of the cinema as something beyond the bounds of the ordinary, they were just as enthusiastic about separating them from their money. The desire to maximise revenue led to the development of specific sales techniques, and novice managers were advised that ‘An intelligent chocolate girl can materially increase sales if she works on scientific lines [by making] a bold display of the more expensive lines, leaving the cheaper lines in a more humble position from which they may be rescued if demanded.’72 The sale of confectionary and ice cream had by 1939 become ‘one of the most important and remunerative items of cinema service’,73 and government controls threatened income streams upon which many exhibitors had come to rely. At the Regent in Portsmouth, for example, confectionery and ice cream sales in 1939 were, respectively, £763 7s. 0d. and £1,234 14s. 10d., sums that constitute a fair proportion of the money paid out in staff wages in the same year.74 The confectionery situation deteriorated as the war progressed, and in July 1942, sweets rationing was introduced. Britons were given a Personal Points ration book, from which they had to detach coupons every time they bought sweets or chocolate; once the week’s coupons were used, no further confectionery could be purchased. Coupon exchange was expected to harm cinema sales, for it was anticipated that the act would be largely impracticable in the gloom of the auditorium: ‘You can hardly imagine customers handing over coupons in the dark – and I, for one, would have something to say if my enjoyment of a show were hindered by such a transaction.’75 The CEA asked that its members be exempted from this aspect of the rationing scheme, but the MoF was adamant that no exceptions could be made: ‘The rule must be universal that sales can only be made in exchange for a suitable coupon cut out at the time of sale.’76 Exhibitor concerns about coupon exchange proved to be well founded. A month after the scheme was introduced, Kinematograph Weekly noted that ‘few patrons will lay out coupons … sales have dropped to zero’.77 Cinemagoers proved unwilling to partake in the fiddly and ­time-consuming procedure whilst watching a film – or, perhaps, they had simply forgotten to take their ration books with them to the cinema. The apocalyptic tone adopted by much of the trade press spoke of the very real impact that sweets rationing was having on cinema confectionery sales,78 and reports emerged



The CEA and the government

from Plymouth suggesting that a cinema in the city had seen revenue from weekly confectionery sales fall from £100 to just twelve shillings.79 At the Regent in Portsmouth, sweets rationing brought about a marked decline in revenue. Chocolate sales for the whole of August 1942 amounted to £1 17s. 10d., a sum that exceeded by only four pence that for the final week before rationing was introduced. Subsequently, gross weekly income from confectionery sales often failed to reach even a pound. Net income would, of course, have been considerably lower after wholesalers and staff, many of whom were employed on commission, were paid. The Regent’s position as a confectionery retailer was becoming unviable, and sales, increasingly sporadic after January 1943, were discontinued in March that year, when cinemagoers purchased only 2s. 6d. worth of chocolate. It would be summer 1947 before sales resumed. Cigarettes, of course, were still readily available. At Granada, total sales more than doubled between 1939 and 1945, with the greatest year-on-year increase coming between 1942 and 1943; that is, in the period immediately after the introduction of sweets rationing and the prohibition of ice cream manufacture.80 At the Regent, the figures tell a similar story. In August 1942, the first month after which sweets rationing came into force, there was a jump in cigarette sales. In October the same year, following the end of ice cream sales, cigarette sales increased again, bringing in more than £75 for the first time. A third rise is visible in April 1943, immediately after the cinema ceased selling confectionery and therefore the first month in which neither sweets nor ice cream were available: sales rose to almost £120, the first time that more than £100 had been taken in a month. However, because a greater proportion of money taken from cigarette sales was remitted to the Treasury, tobacco had a lower profit margin than either sweets or ice cream. Thus although cinema managers were not prepared to look this gift horse in the mouth, tobacco sales were not as attractive a proposition to exhibitors, nor did increased cigarette sales fully compensate for the loss of income resulting from government control of confectionery and ice cream.81 Smoking in the auditorium was such a feature of many adults’ experience of the cinema that Elizabeth Bowen – who admitted that ‘I start slightly against … a foreign cinema where I am unable to smoke’ – claimed that ‘the supreme test’ of a film’s quality was whether it was able to ‘suspend my desire to smoke’.82 The fact that many a wartime cinemagoer was compelled to ‘look … through a smoke screen’ to see the picture might lead

73

74

Cinemas and cinemagoing in wartime Britain, 1939–45

us to question the quality of the films being shown, but more likely reflects that this was a period in which the cigarette was a ubiquitous feature of everyday life for most Britons.83 One survey conducted in 1948 estimated that 81 per cent of men and 39 per cent of women were smokers, and to cater to these groups most cinema seats were fitted with ashtrays.84 Indeed, so pervasive was the smell of tobacco that cinemas felt obliged to combat it, either through regularly spraying perfume in the auditorium, or by installing machines such as the Scentinel (‘kills moths, odours and germs’), manufactured by New Hygiene Ltd, to ‘wash’ and purify the air.85 The general shortage of cigarettes – and the reduction in quality of those that remained available – meant that tobacco products became a common target for thieves, pilferers and black-marketeers.86 It is hardly surprising, therefore, that cinemas suffered thefts. In Derby, the Forum was relieved of 520 cigarettes (and £1 14s. 6d.) by a doorman working at the venue,87 whilst in Aberdeen a Norwegian airman by the name of Anker Rogstad admitted to breaking into the Majestic cinema and stealing 190 cigarettes, 23 bars of chocolate, a bottle of gin, £8 3s. 6d and an attaché case.88 Sweets rationing would continue until February 1953, compelling exhibitors to dedicate time to the ‘tortuous job of counting sweet coupons at the close of business every evening’.89 In the post-war era, many exhibitors would come to view ancillary sales, particularly of ice cream, as a ‘necessary source of revenue’ which made a vital contribution to the very survival of their businesses.90 Indeed, so keen were exhibitors to maximise potential income from the confectionery market that by 1951 eight out of nine cinemas sought to generate additional income through refreshment sales, whilst the £3.5 million turnover generated by food sales represented 2½d. per ticket, or 13 per cent of the average ticket price that year.91 Kinematograph Weekly reacted to the increased interest in food sales by introducing a regular ‘Kine Sales and Catering Review’ section and in late 1953 asked exhibitors, ‘Do your ice cream sales average at least two pence per admission? If not, why not?’92 The CEA and the Treasury If, as Benjamin Franklin insisted, the only certainties in life are death and taxes, then it might be suggested that in wartime both are a good deal more certain than usual. The vast sums needed to fund the war required that an increased tax burden be placed upon the British people, and this increase



The CEA and the government

was felt in terms of both direct and indirect taxation. The standard rate of income tax rose from 5s. 6d. in the pound (27.5 per cent) at the start of the war to 10s. in the pound (50 per cent) by 1941, with higher earners paying an even higher rate. The amount of duty paid on a host of discretionary goods also increased, pretty much doubling in the case of both beer and tobacco, for example.93 As the state sought to raise ever larger amounts of money, the cinema industry found itself called upon to make ever greater contributions to the national coffers, most importantly in terms of Entertainments Tax, but also in the form of an Excess Profits Tax that was initially set at 60 per cent but increased to 100 per cent in April 1940.94 The Entertainments Tax had been introduced during the First World War, and was paid on all forms of recreational activity for which payment was a condition of entry. Although sporting events, theatres and music halls were all liable, it was the cinemas that contributed the lion’s share of the tax: in 1943, more than 85 per cent of the money paid in Entertainments Tax to the Treasury came from cinemas, and such a proportion had been the norm for many years.95 What’s more, cinema tickets, much to the frustration of exhibitors, attracted a higher rate of duty than did those for theatres and music halls, in the main because these rival forms of entertainment were deemed to be inherently riskier ventures and so in need of financial assistance. The preferential treatment enjoyed by the ‘living theatre’ would continue to be a bone of contention between the CEA and the Treasury throughout the war, even though the cinemas would continue to do exceptional business, and films would continue to attract many more patrons than stage shows. As it became clear in the early months of 1940 that the war would be a more expensive proposition than had first been anticipated, the Treasury set about increasing government revenues. The CEA was told that British cinemas would be expected to contribute increased amounts of tax, either through a Purchase Tax (which the trade rejected as impracticable) or higher rates of Entertainments Tax. Exhibitors were very sensitive to the potential impact that any increase in Entertainments Tax might have. There had been a ‘sharp fall’ in ticket sales in the wake of the introduction of the tax in 1916, and another in 1931 when, after a break of seven years, duty was reintroduced on tickets costing less than 6d.96 As it transpired, exhibitor concerns were largely misplaced: the Second World War dramatically reduced unemployment and brought about increases in both wages and disposable incomes, meaning that cinema patrons were able to absorb

75

76

Cinemas and cinemagoing in wartime Britain, 1939–45

increasing ticket prices without unduly straining household budgets. This, however, was not obvious in July 1940 when the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sir Kingsley Wood, announced plans to increase the rates of Entertainments Tax as of 6 October. The government sought to raise an additional £4 million in Entertainments Tax per year (almost half as much again as had been raised in 1939–40), with duty reintroduced on tickets costing between 3d. and 6d.97 Kingsley Wood anticipated that he would face opposition to this section of his budget, and had been warned by Treasury officials that without sensitive handling, the government could expect a backlash in the form of a ‘campaign [insisting] that it is monstrous to put a duty on the seats for the poor people’.98 The national dailies carried stories that the Treasury, in cahoots with the major circuits – whose case was put to the Treasury’s Wilfred Eady by an ‘eloquent Hebrew’ – was planning to eliminate the still-popular 6d. ticket at approximately one-fifth of British cinemas.99 Such an act would have the immediate effect, the Daily Express informed its readers, of ‘put[ting] up the price of your cinema seat’ to a minimum of 9d.100 There was some truth in this claim, and representatives of the circuits conceded during a meeting with Treasury officials that they were interested ‘in pushing people steadily up from a 6d. seat to the same seat for 9d’.101 Attempting to counter popular criticism of the increase, the Chancellor insisted that higher rates of Entertainments Tax were ‘not designed to discourage persons from having and enjoying the entertainments available to them’: ‘It is rather a contribution which I believe they will willingly make towards those defences which make it possible for them to enjoy, with their families and friends, reasonable relaxation and pleasure.’102 In her regular letter to the New Yorker, Molly Panter-Downes concurred, up to a point. Noting the controversy that attended Kingsley Wood’s announcement, she insisted that higher taxes on discretionary items such as cinema tickets were not only necessary, but would be welcomed by many people: ‘the British see … that in this war it is neck or nothing’.103 Not all consumers were so sanguine, though, and the Home Intelligence report for 24 July noted that there was ‘some working-class criticism about taxes on beer and cheap entertainment’.104 In a letter to Picturegoer, Gertrude Rogers gave voice to such criticism, stating that such was the need for entertainment in wartime that any ‘heavy imposition calculated to hinder or restrict cinema enterprises is, in a genuine sense, a tax upon “necessities”’. She continued:



The CEA and the government

If the result of such taxation is to increase prices of admission and reduce considerably the number of attendances at cinema performances, although the immediate national revenue may benefit to the tune of a few odd millions, it is questionable whether in the long run the nation will not lose financially through a lowering of national resistance to war conditions and the decline of … industry.105

A Mass-Observation survey, conducted after the announcement of the price rises but before their implementation, found that only 10 per cent of those questioned anticipated making fewer visits to the cinema if tickets became dearer. This is not to say that price rises would have no impact, however, as more than a third of working-class respondents admitted that rather than go less, they would in all likelihood pay the same amount as previously but for a ‘worse’ seat.106 Given that the new prices were introduced just as the full force of the blitz was making itself felt, it is difficult to assess the impact they had on British box offices. However, Kinematograph Weekly reported that outside blitzed areas there was ‘no indication of any falling off in numbers’ as a result of the increased tax,107 and noted that for British cinemagoers keeping up appearances was a not unimportant factor when it came to buying tickets: ‘the average person would rather pay the extra 2d. on his shilling seat than swallow his pride and … use the cheaper seat’.108 In Derby, picturegoers were said to have paid the higher prices ‘without a grumble’, with seats in different parts of the cinema still in ‘normal demand’.109 The 1940 increase in Entertainments Tax was followed by the imposition of yet higher levels of duty in 1942 and 1943. The 1942 increase was particularly steep, effectively doubling rates on most tickets costing 7d. or more. However, the exhibition industry patriotically insisted that it had ‘no regrets that the results of unprecedented patronage make their way to the Chancellor of the Exchequer’, a statement that is more convincing when considered in light of the fact that a proportion of the price paid for each ticket stayed with the cinema owners (Excess Profits Tax notwithstanding).110 As prices – and attendances – rose, so did the revenue generated for the government by the cinemas (see Table 3). Between 1939–40 and 1944–45, monies accruing from Entertainments Tax increased from £7.2 million to almost £46 million.111 Higher rates of duty had a direct impact on average ticket prices, which increased from just over 10d. in 1939 to just shy of 17d. by November 1943 (see Table 4), by which time the proportion of

77

78

Cinemas and cinemagoing in wartime Britain, 1939–45

Table 3  Entertainments Tax receipts, 1939–40 to 1945–46

Source: TNA CUST 153/9. Figures relate to all revenue generated by the Entertainments Tax. Cinemas were widely accepted to contribute more than 90 per cent, and perhaps as much as 95 per cent, of such revenues. Table 4  Average cinema ticket prices, 1939 to 1945

Source: H. E. Browning and A. A. Sorrell, ‘Cinemas and cinemagoing in Great Britain’, Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, 117:2 (1954), p. 134.

total ticket price accounted for by tax had reached, on average, some 35 per cent (as opposed to approximately 13 per cent in 1938). Indeed, by the end of 1943 it was estimated that the average amount of duty paid per visit by British cinemagoers was 6d., a notable sum given that as late as July 1940



The CEA and the government

tickets costing this amount were understood to represent ‘the bread and butter of the very large number of small cinema proprietors in industrial areas’.112 When considering these figures, it is important to bear in mind the increases in real wages enjoyed by many sections of the British working class, increases that might have amounted to as much as 18 per cent in the decade after 1938.113 Although this did not come close to matching the rate at which the cost of cinema tickets increased – meaning that there was both an absolute and relative rise in the cost of entry – higher wages worked in tandem with price control of essential commodities to bring about higher levels of disposable income. It was this increase that made possible an almost 300 per cent growth in the amount of money spent at British cinema box offices between 1939 and 1945.114 This, of course, suited the government very well: more frequent cinemagoing, especially at higher prices, channelled discretionary expenditure back towards the state. Yet from 1942 the government launched a concerted ‘attack on luxury spending’ that sought to soak those whose continued spending on non-essentials ‘absorbed valuable resources and so aggravated the strain of the war effort’.115 As the Chancellor himself pointed out, ‘I do not think it is much to ask people, if they cannot afford it, to reduce their cinema entertainments from one a week to one a fortnight or from three or four times a week to once’.116 Such sentiments, which seemed to suggest that too frequent visits to the cinema might actually retard the war effort, did not go down well with exhibitors, and led the CEA to make representations in advance of the 1943 budget to request that nothing be said which might imply that any increase in Entertainments Tax was ‘intended to serve the double purpose of raising additional revenue and reducing attendances at entertainments’.117 However, as the official historian of British financial policy during the war was quick to point out, it was not government policy to create ‘a nation of Dismal Jimmies’ by prohibiting such consumption in its entirety. Rather, the plan was to raise prices so that consumers of nonessential products and services should ‘contribute heavily and in proportion to their indulgence’.118 The steep increase in duty in 1942 did nothing to reverse the growth of annual admissions. The trade press, though, believed that higher prices led cinemagoers to dedicate more thought to the price of the tickets that they purchased, with Kinematograph Weekly commenting that in contrast to earlier increases patrons were selecting seats ‘in a lower price category than

79

80

Cinemas and cinemagoing in wartime Britain, 1939–45

those to which they had become accustomed’.119 Yet the Treasury’s own figures suggest that if this was the case, it was a temporary phenomenon; by the end of 1944, only 57 per cent of tickets cost 1s. 6d. or less, as opposed to 91 per cent at the start of 1942. Rather than buying tickets for ‘worse’ seats, cinemagoers were clearly prepared to pay more for their usual seats (or pay even higher prices for better seats).120 Modal ticket prices are also instructive of the changes occurring at British cinema box offices, for whilst Simon Rowson’s analysis showed that in 1934 the most popular ticket had cost 1s. (21 per cent of all sales), by January 1942 the most commonly purchased ticket was 1s. 2d. (24 per cent), and by late 1944, 1s. 9d. (c.25 per cent).121 After five years of war, a ticket which Laura Jesson (Celia Johnson), Brief Encounter’s pre-war middle-class housewife par excellence, described as being ‘very extravagant’, and which had been virtually unknown in 1934 (sales of 1s. 9d. tickets account for only 0.04 per cent of Rowson’s sample), had become entirely commonplace.122 Laura Jesson’s ticket, of course, granted her entry to the circle at Milford Junction’s Palladium cinema, and she admitted to feeling ‘awfully grand perched up here’ after she had taken her seat. Cinemas offered a range of ticket prices, with different cinemas catering to different markets: circuit and other first-run cinemas tended to charge higher prices, whilst suburban and second-run cinemas were cheaper. Flea-pits and other neighbourhood cinemas, many of which showed older films, were cheaper still. What this meant was that patrons could find a cinema and a seat to suit their personal (and changing) financial situation. In 1934, it was still possible to gain entry to the pictures for a penny, whilst the most expensive seats (most probably at one of the West End cinemas, which were dearest of all) cost 8s. 6d.123 Ten years later, prices ranged from 4d. to 11s. 6d.124 What the 1934 statistics demonstrate is that there had always been a market for more expensive tickets; indeed, Rowson’s figures show that in 1934 almost twice as many 3s. 6d tickets were sold as those costing a penny. There are, of course, other factors to bear in mind when discussing ticket sales, not the least important of which concern the range of prices offered by individual exhibitors. Certain prices were not charged because of the practical difficulties associated with them. For example, 1s. 5d. was held to be an ‘inconvenient’ price because it dramatically increased the likelihood of having to provide patrons with change. This was something that cinema managers and cashiers were keen to avoid; such transactions took more time, especially in the gloom of a blacked-out box office.125 Furthermore,



The CEA and the government

by early 1942 the impact of the government’s earlier decision to save on copper and manpower by not striking any new pennies was making itself felt in the shape of a frustrating shortage of 1d. coins. Although in mid1940 the 1.8 billion pennies in circulation in Britain – some 36 or three shillings-worth per capita – was deemed sufficient, eighteen months later banks were reported by the Financial Times to be ‘rationing’ the number they gave to any one customer. When halting the production of pennies, the Royal Mint had decided to maximise resources by issuing a greater number of threepenny coins; because each of these was only a quarter the weight of three pennies, it was hoped that this policy would effect a saving of more than 800 tons of copper, most if not all of which would otherwise have needed to be imported.126 Consequently, prices that could be paid for with threepenny coins, but without pennies, became comparatively more popular (hence the exhibitors’ preference for a 1s. 6d. seat over a 1s. 5d.). Threepenny coins had an additional advantage in that they were, from 1937, twelve-sided. Whilst their distinctive shape had initially drawn some sharp criticism – ‘I would not fritter breath / Upon that alien, new-fangled, thick / Intractable dodecagon’ – their easily recognisable feel made them a boon to those undertaking transactions in the blackout.127 The furore that attended the initial release of Gone With the Wind in 1940 is also indicative of popular and industry attitudes towards ticket prices.128 Many exhibitors baulked at rental terms that would have seen 70 per cent of takings remitted to MGM and, by contract, a minimum evening ticket price of 3s. 6d., and the CEA’s campaign against such terms meant that only a dozen or so bookings were made other than at the three West End venues at which the film premiered. Indeed, when the film was booked at the Essoldo in Newcastle – with seats available for either 3s. 6d. or 4s. 6d. – rival exhibitors ran a trailer advising patrons not to see the film until it was available at ‘normal prices’.129 Tom O’Brien, in his capacity as General Secretary of the National Association of Theatrical and Kinema Employees (NATKE), also chipped in, complaining that ‘a foreign wholesaler wants to wrest from a war-stricken people fighting for their very existence a 200 per cent to 600 per cent increase in prices of admission to see one of its film products’ before suggesting that the proposed 70 per cent rental terms posed a threat to the wages of his members.130 The national press waded in to the debate, with the Daily Herald’s P. L. Mannock insisting to his predominantly working-class constituency that ‘no film yet made is worth more than half-a-crown [2s. 6d.] to see’, and

81

82

Cinemas and cinemagoing in wartime Britain, 1939–45

Paul Holt in the Express, having reminded his readers that ‘you haven’t yet stopped grumbling that the war has killed the 6d. matinee seat’, asking, ‘Will you stop grumbling to pay 3s. 6d.?’131 In many cases, the answer was a resounding ‘Yes’, and in June 1940 one young woman confided to Mass-Observation that she ‘splashed three and six’ to see the film in what proved to be a ‘crowded’ cinema.132 Roaring trade was reported at many of the cinemas that booked the film, with the Gaiety in Manchester taking £20,000 pounds during the first twelve of a record-breaking twenty-three week run.133 In total, Gone With the Wind took more than £200,000 in Britain in the six months after its premiere.134 When in 1942 the film was finally given a general release, higher ticket prices remained in force. This does not appear to have put people off, as one Mass-Observation diarist noted: ‘Went to see Gone with the Wind in the evening … it is certainly an extraordinarily fine film and I did not begrudge the 4/- I paid for a seat.’135 In London, despite high prices, the film ran and ran; it was June 1944 before the Ritz, which had shown nothing else since July 1940, felt that the public’s appetite for the film had finally been sated. Gone With the Wind was a phenomenon – ‘the symbol of the film in wartime’136 – and so was not entirely representative of British cinema ticket pricing, yet it does suggest the limitations of approaching cinemagoing from a purely economic standpoint.137 British cinemagoers were prepared to juggle, and perhaps stretch, their personal finances in order to see the film – and in doing so demonstrated that in special circumstances they frankly didn’t give a damn about dearer ticket prices. Notwithstanding the special circumstances surrounding the exhibition of Gone With the Wind, the combination of increased admissions and higher seat prices created the impression that exhibitors were doing very well out of the war. ‘I wish that was true’, lamented the CEA’s W. J. Speakman.138 Industry overheads rose quickly, with costs estimated to have increased by some 17 per cent, or the equivalent of £2¼ million per annum, during the first six months of the war alone.139 Throughout the war members of the NATKE union made regular, insistent and often successful demands for war bonuses.140 In some districts, the war had a more direct impact on cinema finances, and in areas affected by air raids, for example, balance sheets were often left in an unhealthy state. Capital and Provincial News Theatres could claim that eight cinemas were closed by enemy action at some point during 1940–41; in total, venues were closed for 35 per cent of the year, with a near identical drop in takings.141



The CEA and the government

The Entertainments and Excess Profits taxes meant that, on the whole, it was the government rather than the exhibitors that enjoyed the benefits of higher priced tickets.142 Not everyone was convinced, though, and in June 1942, Tribune carried an article which claimed that in the wake of the budget ‘cinema owners will get a considerably increased income on the popular-priced seats’ and which proposed that changes to the Entertainments Tax simply ‘lin[ed] the pockets of the one section of our population who least needs it at the expense of those who carry already the heaviest burden’.143 Exhibitors felt that such an accusation was unfair, not least because even the Treasury acknowledged that across the industry as a whole ticket price increases were more the product of higher taxes than they were industry greed. In the year to November 1943, for example, the ‘average amount retained by the trade, per admission, increased over the year by less than 0.1d, or about 1 per cent … by far the larger part of the extra charges made to the public accrued to the Exchequer’.144 It was to counter claims of profiteering that some cinemas placed signs in their foyers and notices in local newspapers stating that higher prices were directly attributable to changes introduced in the budget.145 Yet for all that it welcomed the money generated by higher rates of Entertainments Tax, the government was acutely aware of the political implications of interfering in the cost of popular leisure pursuits. When in 1942 it was proposed that all tickets on which Entertainments Tax was due should also attract a surtax of 3d., the scheme was dropped when it became obvious that the introduction of a regressive flat tax – to be ‘applied equally to the Saturday night “bobsworth” at the cinema and the two guinea ringside seat at the boxing or a guinea seat at the grandstand of a racecourse’ – would prove to be ‘politically difficult’.146 Further, in June the same year, the Chancellor of the Exchequer was asked why ‘pleasureseekers’ in the cheapest seats would be exempted in the budget from the steep increases in Entertainments Tax and therefore from contributing their ‘fair share to the revenue of the country’. Forgoing the £750,000 per annum that would accrue from raising the taxes on the cheapest seats was clearly not too high a price to pay for keeping the occupants of these seats happy.147 Tax policy therefore provides another view of the state’s conception of and attitude towards the cinema, for whilst there was a general desire to maintain morale, there was also a determined attempt to ensure that spending on recreational activities contributed to, and not be allowed to

83

84

Cinemas and cinemagoing in wartime Britain, 1939–45

undermine, the financial foundations of the war effort. Balancing the needs of the state against the needs of the exhibition industry against the needs of the consumer was not an easy task, and one that turned upon the ­difficulties of accommodating both the concrete, financial requirements of the state and the industry and the more abstract questions of the role that leisure, and pleasure more generally, played in wartime.

Notes 1 See for example Anthony Aldgate’s assertion that ‘The story of British cinema in the Second World War is inextricably linked with that of the Ministry of Information.’ Anthony Aldgate and Jeffrey Richards, Britain Can Take It: British Cinema in the Second World War (London: I.B. Tauris, new edn, 2007), p. 4. 2 Daily Film Renter, 11 March 1940, p. 2. Different government departments were responsible for dealing with different elements of the cinema trade, and the overlaps and blind spots produced an inconsistent and sometimes contradictory films policy. For an overview of which ministries had which remits, see Margaret Dickinson and Sarah Street, Cinema and State: The Film Industry and the Government, 1927–84 (London: BFI, 1985), pp. 107–8. 3 On some of the factors that influenced regulation, see Peter Miskell, ‘Seduced by the silver screen: film addicts, critics and cinema regulation in Britain in the 1930s and 1940s’, Business History, 73:3 (2005). 4 ‘Legal department of the Association. Report by the solicitor’, in CEA Annual Report, 1941, p. 16. 5 Daily Film Renter, 1 January 1941, p. 35. 6 See, for example, Viscount Samuel’s claim that insufficient entertainments would ‘be a hindrance to the war effort … Unrelieved strain and stress is not the best way to secure the maximum of war production.’ 23 October 1941. Parliamentary Debates: House of Lords, 5th Series, vol. 120, col. 409. 7 Kinematograph Weekly, 3 July 1941, p. 11. 8 Public, exhibitor and critical reaction to MoI films is well documented, and was of great interest to the government. See, for example, TNA RG 23/2, ‘MoI films and the public’ (n.d., 1941?); James Chapman, The British at War: Cinema, State and Propaganda 1939–1945 (London: I.B. Tauris, 2008), pp. 103–8; Jeffrey Richards and Dorothy Sheridan, Mass-Observation at the Movies (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1987), pp. 424–58. 9 Several of my interviewees commented that they simply ignored government films when they came on, in a manner not dissimilar to the way in which many viewers pay minimal attention to the advertisements at the cinema or on commercial television channels. Betty Sklair, interview with author, 20 September 2011.



The CEA and the government

10 Details of the British Arc Lamp Carbon (War Emergency) Pool, which administered the ‘rationing’ of carbons after 1 February 1940, can be found in an advertisement in Kinematograph Weekly, 21 December 1939, p. 12. 11 For more on newsreel sharing, see Daily Film Renter, 5 April 1943, p. 3. Joseph Marks was paid 2s. 6d. a week to take newsreels between a cinema in Stony Stratford and the Palace in Wolverton, and was often greeted with cries of ‘Come on son, we want the news!’ Interview with author, 16 May 2011. 12 Denys Chamberlain, whose father ran a cinema in Bristol, recalled the ‘pretty rubbishy’ nature of film prints during wartime and the age of austerity: one man wrote to complain that ‘the whole film had been spoiled, the whole story had been spoiled because the film was in such a bad condition that it’s jumped and its speeches were curtailed and all the rest of it …’ Interview with author, 13 June 2011. 13 CEA Annual Report, 1940, p. 13. 14 The MoI is discussed in Ian McLaine, Ministry of Morale: Home Front Morale and the Ministry of Information in World War II (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1979), whilst its films policy is the subject of James Chapman’s The British at War. 15 W. R. Fuller, ‘The exhibitor’s part’, Sight and Sound, 37:10 (Spring 1941), p. 10. 16 12 March 1942. Parliamentary Debates: House of Commons, 5th Series, vol. 378, col. 1178. 17 CEA Annual Report, 1940, p. 4. 18 In Wales, far fewer localities permitted Sunday opening than did those in England. The 1932 Sunday Entertainments Act did not apply to Scotland. On Sunday opening in Scotland, see Trevor Griffiths, The Cinema and Cinemagoing in Scotland, 1896–1950 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2012), pp. 138–76. 19 Herbert Morrison, 1 April 1941. Parliamentary Debates: Commons, 5th Series, vol. 370, col. 963. 20 ‘A Sabbath Lover’, letter, Gloucestershire Echo, 20 September 1940, p. 5. 21 Anon., letter, quoted in Yorkshire Evening Post, 21 September 1940, p. 3. 22 TNA CAB 67/9/16: Ernest Bevin, ‘Entertainments on Sundays’, 4 February 1941. 23 Clive Field, ‘Puzzled People revisited: religious believing and belonging in wartime Britain, 1939–45’, Twentieth Century British History, 19:4 (2008), p. 469. 24 TNA: CAB 65/12/18: Cabinet Minutes, 31 March 1941; CAB 65/17/15: Meeting of ministers, 26 March 1941. 25 The Times, 2 April 1941, p. 2. 26 CEA Annual Report, 1943, p. 12. 27 Churchill quoted in Charles Barr, ‘“Much pleasure and relaxation in these hard times”: Churchill and cinema in the Second World War’, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, 31:4 (2011), p. 562.

85

86

Cinemas and cinemagoing in wartime Britain, 1939–45

28 Kinematograph Weekly, 4 September 1941, p. 4. 29 Clark quoted in Chapman, British at War, pp. 93–4. Clark also noted that as far as cinematic propaganda was concerned, there was ‘a saturation point – a point where people who pay their sixpences to be entertained will object if they hear one more gun go off’. Kinematograph Weekly, 29 February 1940, p. 19. 30 Kinematograph Weekly, 9 May 1940, p. 7. Recent requests had been made that slides be screened warning against careless talk, promoting the Dig for Victory campaign and asking patrons to report instances of over-charging in local shops. 31 Kinematograph Weekly, 25 July 1940, p. 12. 32 On the limited success of this strategy, see the letter by ‘Two Scottish Misses’ in Picturegoer, 15 November 1941, p. 9: ‘please give us more entertaining films and not so much propaganda’. 33 CEA letter to members, quoted in Daily Film Renter, 8 July 1940, pp. 1, 8. 34 TNA INF 1/196: Kenneth Clark, Memo to Regional Information Officers. No Date [1940]. 35 TNA INF 1/627: Draft note: ‘Objections to an Order for the compulsory screening of M.O.I. films’, 16 March 1942. This note, produced during a period of increased tension between the MoI and the CEA, was later redrafted to describe relations as being merely ‘good’. 36 TNA INF 1/196: Mr MacAdam to Sir Kenneth Clark, 27 February 1940. 37 Kinematograph Weekly, 12 September 1940, p. 6. 38 TNA INF 1/74: ‘Ministry of Information – Public Accounts Committee: section IV: Production, distribution and exhibition of films’, 23 May 1944, p. 2. 39 BFI Special Collections: Bernstein Papers: Box 78: Theatres 1940: Wandsworth Road: Ewart Hodgson to All Theatres, 9 July 1940. 40 TNA RG 23/2: ‘MoI Films and the public’, pp. 1–2. 41 Mass-Observation, Home Propaganda (Bulletin of the Advertising Service Guild, No. 2) (London: Curwen Press, 1941), p. 32. 42 William Poole, letter, Picturegoer, 2 May 1942, p. 9. For an opposing opinion in the same publication, see letter by Cyril Horner in Picturegoer, 22 February 1941, pp. 20–1. 43 Mass-Observation, Home Propaganda, p. 30. 44 Letter by Donald T. Taylor of Strand Films, in Kinematograph Weekly, 17 July 1941, p. 3. A year later, one particularly damning survey found that only 199 of the 393 cinemas visited had included an MOI film in their programme. Of the 194 cinemas that had not shown an MoI film, the ‘unfortunate fact’ was that 143 had been in possession of a copy. Kinematograph Weekly, 25 June 1942, p. 11. 45 31 July 1941. Parliamentary Debates: Commons, 5th Series, vol. 373, cols 1557–8. 46 TNA INF 1/249: MoI Planning Committee minutes, 17 and 18 June 1940.



The CEA and the government

47 H. P. E. Mears, letter, Kinematograph Weekly, 7 August 1941, p. 5. 48 Today’s Cinema, 5 August 1941, p. 2. 49 Quoted in Cinema, 6 August 1941, p. 3. 50 TNA INF 1/627: Draft note: ‘Objections to an Order for the compulsory screening of M.O.I. films’, 16 March 1942. 51 It is not difficult to find work that details contemporary criticism of the MoI, but a couple of representative examples are: Jo Fox, Film Propaganda in Britain and Nazi Germany: World War II in Cinema (Oxford: Berg, 2007), pp. 22–3; Norman Longmate, How We Lived Then: A History of Everyday Life during the Second World War (London: Pimlico, 2002), pp. 88–90. 52 Today’s Cinema, 5 August 1941, p. 2. See also the open letter to Bracken by the editor of the Cinema which asked if, having compelled the cinemas to show the films, the Minister also intended to compel the public to watch them. Cinema, 6 August 1941, p. 5. 53 See, for example, TNA INF 1/205: Letter from Russell Ferguson to Mr Mercier, 11 July 1940. Ferguson requested that investigators be sent into cinemas to ascertain audience reaction to government films: ‘I emphasise that reports should be as unbiased as possible, and quite outspoken … The reaction of an audience can be gauged by noting the degree of attention, the amount of restlessness, the number of cigarettes lit, and in general by “feeling” the response.’ Ferguson was keen that such investigators remain anonymous, and insisted that they should attend cinemas ‘in the ordinary way as paying members of the audience’. 54 McLaine, Ministry of Morale, pp. 84–6. 55 TNA INF 1/251: E. L. Mercier, ‘Five Minute Films’ Memo to Home Planning Committee, 13 November 1940. 56 Daily Film Renter, 9 September 1940, p. 1. 57 W. R. Fuller, ‘The exhibitor’s part’, Sight and Sound, 10:37 (Spring 1941), p. 11. 58 The MoI was estimated to have spent £313,100 on press and poster advertising between the start of the war and May 1941. This figure was exceeded by both the National Savings Committee (£834,100) and the Ministry of Food (£565,000). Mass-Observation, Home Propaganda, p. 6. Cripps is quoted in Nicholas Pronay, ‘War of words’, New Scientist, 59:861, 30 August 1973, p. 511. 59 The Ministry had hoped that the revenues generated by the theatrical release of its longer feature documentaries might ‘offset to a substantial extent’ the cost of producing and distributing its short films. TNA INF 1/627: Draft note: ‘Objections to an Order for the compulsory screening of M.O.I. films’, 16  March 1942. For details of how much theatrically released MoI films earned, see TNA 1/199: ‘Receipts from commercial distribution of films’ [n.d., April/May 1944?]. Target for Tonight, for example, grossed in excess of £73,000. 60 Kinematograph Weekly, 1 January 1942, p. 4. 61 CEA letter to members, quoted in Daily Film Renter, 8 July 1940, pp. 1, 8.

87

88

Cinemas and cinemagoing in wartime Britain, 1939–45

62 ‘Extracts from branch reports supplied by the secretaries: Bristol and west of England’, in CEA Annual Report, 1941, pp. 34–5. 63 CEA Annual Report, 1945, p. 4. Cinemas were made available to the War Office for free, usually on Sunday mornings. 64 Kinematograph Weekly, 22 January 1942, p. 11. 65 See, for example, claims made in late December 1941 that the MoI had been sending ‘snoopers’ into cinemas to check that its films were being shown as per the Ministry’s agreement with the CEA. The Ministry denied this accusation, and said that its concerns about the screening of its films were the result of members of the public writing in to complain that government shorts were not being included in programmes. Today’s Cinema, 30 December 1940, pp. 1, 9. 66 Cinema, 6 August 1941, p. 5. Emphasis and formatting in original. 67 Mass-Observation, Home Propaganda, p. 6. 68 Today’s Cinema, 25 May 1945, p. 6. 69 On the MoF’s publicity campaigns, see Richard Farmer, The Food Companions: Cinema and Consumption in Wartime Britain, 1939–45 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2011), pp. 19–70; on the Food Flashes, pp. 71–95. 70 Lord Woolton, diary entry, 30 July 1942. Woolton Papers, Box 2 – Diary September 1940–1942. Bodleian Library, Oxford. 71 Daily Film Renter, 13 May 1942, p. 4. 72 J. H. Hutchison, The Complete Kinemanager (London: Kinematograph Publications, 1937), pp. 240, 86. 73 Kinematograph Weekly, 31 August 1939, p. 30. 74 Portsmouth City Archives: Regent Ledgers: 1939. 75 Daily Film Renter, 13 May 1942, p. 4. 76 Kinematograph Weekly, 18 June 1942, p. 42; Confectionery Journal, 3 September 1942, p. 222. 77 Kinematograph Weekly, 20 August 1942, p. 5. 78 See, for example, Kinematograph Weekly, 4 June 1942, p. 3, where it was declared that rationing sounded the ‘[death] knell’ of cinema confectionery sales and that coupon exchange would ‘kill entirely’ auditorium sales. 79 Confectionery Journal, 10 September 1942, p. 254. 80 Guy Morgan, Red Roses Every Night: An Account of London Cinemas Under Fire (London: Quality Press, 1948), p. 88. 81 In April 1942, the duty paid on tobacco rose by 6½–7½d. per ounce, increasing the price of a packet of cigarettes by more than 30 per cent. Details in Daily Mirror, 15 April 1942, p. 1. In a satirical take on cinema management published in 1954, Edwin Bond advised against the sale of cigarettes as ‘the profit is negligible’. Monthly Film Bulletin, 23:3 (1954), p. 154. 82 Elizabeth Bowen, ‘Why I go to the cinema’, in Charles Davy (ed.), Footnotes to the Film (London: Lovat Dickson, 1938), p. 211. 83 Joan Hearn, interview with author, 15 June 2011. 84 Matthew Hilton, Smoking in British Popular Culture, 1800–2000 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000), p. 124.



The CEA and the government

85 Advertisement for ‘Scentinel’, Kinematograph Yearbook, 1947 (London: Kinematograph Publications, 1947), p. 199. 86 Longmate, How We Lived Then, pp. 266–8; Edward Smithies, The Black Economy in England since 1914 (Dublin: Gill & MacMillan, 1984), p.  78; Mark Roodhouse, Black Market Britain, 1939–1955 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), p. 57. 87 Derby Daily Telegraph, 20 March 1944, p. 4. 88 Dundee Courier, 8 January 1945, p. 2. Rogstad broke into a total of four cinemas, and also admitted to stealing chocolate from a YMCA canteen. 89 Kinematograph Weekly, 18 August 1949, p. 33. 90 Kinematograph Weekly, 26 February 1953, p. 29. 91 H. E. Browning and A. A. Sorrell, ‘Cinemas and cinemagoing in Great Britain’, Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, 117:2 (1954), pp. 162–3, 134. 92 Kinematograph Weekly, 17 December 1953, p. 90A. 93 R. S. Sayers, Financial Policy, 1939–45 (London: HMSO, 1956), pp. 505–12. 94 Profits were compared against a pre-war standard, and tax paid on anything in excess of this figure. In order to retain a financial incentive when the 100 per cent rate came into effect, some 20 per cent was to be refunded once the war was over. 95 Figure calculated from data presented in TNA CUST 153/14: Entertainments Duty – returns showing duty payments for week ended 6 November 1943. 96 Nicholas Hiley, ‘“Let’s go to the pictures”: the British cinema audience in the 1920s and 1930s’, Journal of Popular British Cinema, 2 (1999), pp. 40, 42. The decrease in ticket sales in the first year after the introduction of the tax might have been as much as 25 per cent. Duty on the cheapest tickets had once again been eliminated by the start of the war. 97 TNA CUST 153/9: ‘Brief history of Entertainments Duty’, n.d. (1950?), p. 9. 98 TNA CUST 118/405: Wilfred Eady to H. Wilson Smith, 20 July 1940. For Kingsley Wood’s concerns, see TNA CUST 118/405: H. Wilson Smith to Wilfred Eady, 31 July 1940 and Eady’s reply. 99 TNA CUST 118/405: Wilfred Eady to H. Wilson Smith, 20 July 1940. 100 Daily Express, 31 July 1940, p. 3. On circuit price rises, see Kinematograph Weekly, 22 August 1940, p. 3. The three largest chains (Odeon, GaumontBPC and ABC) operated a combined total of more than 1,000 venues, and were responsible for remitting approximately half of the Entertainments Tax collected at British cinemas. Stuart Hanson, From Silent Screen to MultiScreen: A History of Cinema Exhibition in Britain since 1896 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2007), p. 62; TNA CUST 118/405: Wilfred Eady to H. Wilson Smith, 20 July 1940. 101 TNA CUST 118/405: Wilfred Eady to H. Wilson Smith, 20 July 1940. 102 Kingsley Wood, 23 July 1940. Parliamentary Debates: Commons, 5th Series, vol. 363, col. 648. 103 28 July 1940. In William Shawn (ed.), London War Notes, 1939–1945 (London: Longman, 1971), p. 82.

89

90

Cinemas and cinemagoing in wartime Britain, 1939–45

104 In Paul Addison and Jeremy A. Crang (eds), Listening to Britain: Home Intelligence Reports on Britain’s Finest Hour – May to September 1940 (London: Bodley Head, 2010), p. 263. 105 Gertrude Rogers, letter, Picturegoer, 24 August 1940, p. 19. 106 Mass-Observation Archive: File Report 445: Len England, ‘Film questionnaire’, 8 October 1940, p. 1. The survey was conducted in August. 107 Kinematograph Weekly, 10 October 1940, p. 3. 108 Kinematograph Weekly, 8 August 1940, p. 4. 109 Derby Daily Telegraph, 8 October 1940, p. 6. 110 CEA Annual Report, 1941, p. 15. 111 TNA CUST 153/9: ‘Brief history of Entertainments Duty’ (n.d., 1950?), pp. 9–13. 112 TNA CUST 153/14: ‘Entertainments prices, etc., – November 1941–43 (Revised)’, 19 January 1944; Browning and Sorrel, ‘Cinemas and cinemagoing’, p. 155; TNA CUST 118/405: Wilfred Eady to H. Wilson Smith, 20 July 1940. 113 Paul Addison, The Road to 1945: British Politics and the Second World War (London: Pimlico, 1994), p. 130. 114 Browning and Sorrell, ‘Cinemas and cinemagoing’, p. 134. Gross takings in 1939 amounted to £41.7 million and in 1945 to £114.2 million. 115 Sayers, Financial Policy, pp. 131–2. 116 Kingsley Wood, 22 April 1942, quoted in TNA CUST 118/434: ‘Increases in Entertainments Duty in 1940 and 1942: statements by Chancellor of the Exchequer as to object’, p. 2. 117 TNA CUST 153/10: H. T., ‘1943’, 1 April 1943. 118 Sayers, Financial Policy, pp. 131–2. 119 Kinematograph Weekly, 4 June 1942, p. 14. 120 TNA CUST 153/14: ‘Entertainments Duty: Full Scale: Cinemas: Analysis of receipts (excluding sales of stamps by the Post Office) in the weeks ending 23 September and 16 December 1944’; TNA CUST 118/411: Note by Wilfred Eady, 31 January 1942. 121 Simon Rowson, ‘A statistical survey of the cinema industry in Great Britain in 1934’, Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, 99:1 (1936), p. 69; TNA CUST 153/14: ‘Entertainments Duty: Full Scale: Cinemas: Analysis of receipts (excluding sales of stamps by the Post Office) in the weeks ending 23 September and 16 December 1944’; TNA CUST 118/411: Note by Wilfred Eady, 31 January 1942. 122 Rowson, ‘Statistical survey’, p. 69. In total, tickets costing 1s. 9d. or more accounted for only 7 per cent of Rowson’s sample. 123 Rowson, ‘Statistical survey’, p. 69. 124 TNA CUST 153/14: ‘Entertainments Duty: Full Scale: Cinemas: Analysis of receipts (excluding sales of stamps by the Post Office) in the weeks ending 23 September and 16 December 1944’. 125 TNA CUST 118/411: Wilfred Eady to Sir Horace J. Wilson, 29 January



The CEA and the government

1942. Angus Calder records that during the early weeks of the war, whilst they were adjusting to blackout conditions, ‘conductors could barely distinguish silver coins from copper’. The People’s War: Britain 1939–1945 (London: Pimlico, 2008), p. 64. 126 The Times, 20 June 1940, p. 3; Financial Times, 12 February 1942, p. 3. It was felt that the shortage became all the more noticeable from January 1942 because National Health and Unemployment contributions increased by a penny a week, thus taking a greater number of pennies out of circulation. A great number of pennies were also thought to be residing in gas and electricity meters. 127 Anon., quoted in Manchester Guardian, 10 January 1940, p. 4. 128 Full details of the squabble between the CEA and MGM can be found in Allen Eyles, ‘When exhibitors saw Scarlett: the war over Gone With the Wind’, Picture House, 27 (2002). 129 Kinematograph Weekly, 1 August 1940, p. 8. 130 Kinematograph Weekly, 6 June 1940, p. 9. 131 Daily Herald, 26 April 1940, p. 9; Daily Express, 23 April 1940, p. 11. 132 MOA: Diarist 5294, 12 June 1940. 133 The film ran for so long at the Gaiety that the cinema was unable to show its quota of British films and was fined £50. Manchester Guardian, 25 October 1941, p. 9. 134 Kinematograph Weekly: 22 August 1940, p. 3; 17 October 1940, p. 12. 135 Edward Stebbing, diary entry, 24 September 1942. In Simon Garfield (ed.), Private Battles: How the War Almost Defeated Us (London: Ebury Press, 2006), p. 291. 136 Anon., ‘A filmgoer’s war diary’, in Morgan, Red Roses, p. 76. Emphasis in original. 137 For popular memories of Gone With the Wind, see Norman Longmate, How We Lived Then, pp. 410–11. 138 Kinematograph Weekly, 8 January 1942, p. 32. 139 Daily Film Renter, 22 February 1940, p. 1; TNA CUST 118/405: Entertainments Duty – pre-budget deputations, 1940 [n.d., February 1940?]. 140 TNA LAB 83/3185: W. R. Fuller, ‘National war bonus’, 13 June 1944. 141 Kinematograph Weekly, 8 January 1942, p. 19. 142 Associated British Cinemas, for example, amassed a net credit of some £700,000 in EPT during the war. Financial Times, 16 November 1946, p. 4. It was not only British exhibitors who felt the weight of the increased tax burden. Many American production companies found that their UK profits were taxed at very high rates, and it was estimated that of profits generated by Gone With the Wind in Britain as of October 1940, some 90 per cent remained in the UK, the vast majority of it with the government. Kinematograph Weekly, 17 October 1940, p. 12. 143 Tribune, 5 June 1942, p. 5. The trade’s not-entirely-positive reaction to the Tribune article can be found in Cinema, 17 June 1942, p. 27.

91

92

Cinemas and cinemagoing in wartime Britain, 1939–45

144 TNA CUST 153/14: ‘Entertainments prices, admissions, etc.’, 26 January 1944, p. 6. 145 BFI Special Collections: Bernstein Papers: Box 78: Theatres 1940: Wandsworth Road: Ewart Hodgson to All Theatres, 1 October 1940; Nottingham Evening Post, 5 October 1940, p. 1; Western Daily Press, 15 May 1942, p. 3. Many newspaper notices also mentioned the fact that exhibitors had permission to use up old tickets: ‘Patrons, therefore, need not be surprised if in return for 1s 2d or even more, the girl in the box-office hands out a ticket marked 1s.’ Dundee Evening Telegraph, 3 October 1940, p. 3. 146 TNA CUST 118/411: W. Eady to Horace J. Wilson, 29 January 1942. 147 4 June 1942. Parliamentary Debates: Commons, 5th series, vol. 380, col. 811.

Forlorn and bedraggled spectacles

3 Forlorn and bedraggled spectacles: cinemagoing in the blitz

S

hortly after 5.15 p.m. on Friday 9 July 1943 the Whitehall cinema in East Grinstead, Sussex, was hit by a 500 kg high-explosive bomb dropped from a Luftwaffe plane during a tip-and-run raid.1 The cinema was a little under half full at the time, and 184 people were watching Undercover Man (1942), a second feature starring William Boyd as Hopalong Cassidy. Shortly before the bomb hit, a notice appeared on the screen informing patrons that an air-raid warning had been sounded, and that anyone who wished to do so should leave the hall immediately and take refuge in nearby shelters. Hearing an explosion close by, some patrons decided that ‘things were getting a little hot’, got up from their seats and made for the exits.2 Others remained, determined to attempt to enjoy the rest of the programme. Moments later the auditorium was plunged into near total darkness as both the exit lights and the film projector went out simultaneously. ‘Suddenly’, reported a local newspaper, there was a terrific crash, and to use the words of one survivor, the whole building seemed to collapse like a pack of cards, trapping most of the audience … Many were buried under fallen masonry, and were killed instantly, others were pinned down and badly injured. A small number escaped with minor injuries.3

A report as to the nature of the injuries suffered by those killed in the incident makes for disturbing reading: The distribution of fatal wounds indicate that most of the casualties were injured as they sat in their seats by falling and flying debris. The majority of the casualties (71 per cent) had their only fatal injury in the head, while of fatal and serious injuries in the dead over 50 per cent were in the head. … There were, in addition, a few cases of gross injury to the trunk and partial or complete amputation of the limbs.4

94

Cinemas and cinemagoing in wartime Britain, 1939–45

The Whitehall’s roof had collapsed, and its weight was such that at least four bodies were forced through the floor of the auditorium and into the basement, where members of the catering staff were busy preparing jam tarts for sale in the cinema’s restaurant. In total, more than 80 people died; at least another 50 were seriously injured. Amongst the dead were one of the cinema’s usherettes and thirteen children. It was this last group that seemed to most upset the sensibilities of the British press, which (perhaps unwittingly) exaggerated the number of children killed as a proportion of the final death toll.5 As well as inflating the number of juvenile casualties, the press also confused the main feature playing at the Whitehall with that at the Radio Centre, East Grinstead’s other cinema. Thus instead of informing its readers that the unfortunate cinemagoers were awaiting the start of I Married a Witch (1942), the Daily Mirror told them that Random Harvest (1942) was about to begin. This was an easy enough mistake to make in the circumstances, but one that introduced a title that encapsulated the horror, unpredictability and weirdness of the event.6 There was a palpable sense of shock that unarmed civilians doing nothing more belligerent than watching a film should be on the receiving end of such an attack. Cinemas, it seemed to be implicitly suggested, were to be understood as being somehow neutral, as being physical and psychological refuges where patrons should, if only for a few brief hours, be able to find some sort of respite from the war. This was, of course, simply not a realistic possibility in many areas of Britain. Although German (and, indeed, British) aircrew sought out targets with military, industrial or logistical importance, bombs dropped from aeroplanes were notoriously difficult to control. Homes, churches and leisure facilities were hit regularly, especially in working-class areas where places of work and rest were crowded together cheek-by-jowl.7 Cinemas, therefore, were dragged unwillingly onto the front line, no more able to escape the brutal realities of the blitz than private or public houses, factories or offices, docks or shops. Soon after the East Grinstead raid, a local photographer described the scene that confronted him when he entered the remains of the Whitehall, noting that its thick, plush carpets were covered with a layer of dust, and that through the tangled maze of twisted girders and columns he was able to make out the stage and proscenium arch, ‘its one time fancy trimmings … now a forlorn and bedraggled spectacle’.8 As a description, this seems to capture some of the



Forlorn and bedraggled spectacles

horrors brought to bear on British cinemas by aerial bombardment, and some of the ways in which the cinema, so frequently described as a site of escape, proved itself unable to break free of the war’s orbit. Many cinemas suffered only superficial damage, but even this was enough to change the appearance of the pre-war dream palace, especially as materials essential for making-good were often in short supply and directed to projects deemed to be more immediate and worthwhile. Although the Whitehall was unusual in the number of casualties and fatalities sustained during the July 1943 raid, it was not alone in suffering air-raid damage. Indeed, coming as it did almost two years after the most intense period of the blitz concluded in May 1941, part of the shock associated with the destruction of this particular cinema seems to have arisen from the scarcity of near contemporaneous parallels: the bomb that hit the Whitehall was all the more shocking for its then unexpectedness. For although after June 1944 V-1 and V-2 rockets would threaten cinemas, and whilst between September 1940 and May 1941 a great many halls were damaged or destroyed and patrons injured or killed, during the summer of 1943 such incidents were far less frequent. It was perhaps for this reason, and also because East Grinstead’s relatively small population made the deaths disproportionately distressing, that the War Cabinet discussed the incident, and invited Herbert Morrison, the Home Secretary and Minister of Home Security, to send a message of condolence to the local council.9 The blitz, used here in its broadest sense to include all German air raids on Britain during the Second World War, had a notable impact upon British cinemas and cinemagoers after 1939. It should be remembered, though, that the blitz, whilst a trauma that seared itself into the British national consciousness, was not experienced similarly in all parts of Britain. London took it, as the title of the famous documentary informed viewers; Liverpool, Manchester, Glasgow, Coventry, Belfast, Hull, Portsmouth and a host of other cities took it, too. Yet many other urban areas emerged almost or completely unscathed. Thus S. G. Rayment, editor of Kinematograph Weekly, could write of the exhibition industry’s experience of the blitz in 1940, ‘taking the wider view … the undoubted hardships and misfortunes of cinemas in many hard-hit areas have been balanced in a great many others where very good business has been recorded’.10 So whilst at the national level it might have been the case that no more than ten per cent of cinemas were out of commission at any one time – a sizeable enough figure given the number of cinemas

95

96

Cinemas and cinemagoing in wartime Britain, 1939–45

in Britain at the start of the war – in some heavily raided areas this proportion was significantly higher.11 In West Ham, for example, only two of the borough’s thirty-five cinemas remained untouched by the blitz as of the end of December 1940.12 It is the case, then, that whilst many of the wartime changes experienced by the exhibition industry affected the whole of Britain, the blitz, although widespread, was a more localised phenomenon, even to the extent that within cities certain areas might be very badly affected whilst others might escape. Ladies and gentlemen, an air-raid warning has been sounded As discussed in Chapter 1, all British cinemas and other places of entertainment were closed at the outbreak of the war for fear of the damage that German air raids might cause. The official policy regarding the management of civilians during air raids was one of dispersal; the government was anxious that allowing large numbers of people to gather in small areas might increase the possibility of a single ‘incident’ resulting in mass casualties.13 Yet once the decision was taken to permit the reopening of the cinemas, a way had to be found to keep patrons safe should a raid occur whilst they were in the auditorium. Only after such provisions were in place were cinemas allowed to admit paying customers. For the first year of the war, when sirens were a regular feature of British life even if actual raids were not, patrons were informed of the sounding of an air-raid warning by dint of a spoken announcement made by the manager. This was, to start with, a two-part process. First, a speech outlining the possibility of a raid, and actions to be taken should one actually occur, was given approximately every 90 minutes, with the exact interval between announcements dependent upon the running time of the films in the programme.14 Second, when a raid warning was received, the film was halted, the stage lights went up and the manager took to the stage again to inform patrons that a raid was imminent and that those who wished to do so should leave the cinema and either go home or take refuge in one of the local shelters. A separate announcement was then given when the ‘All Clear’ had been sounded. In one cinema in a heavily raided area, the manager complained that alert sirens and All Clear notifications came in such close succession that patrons were unable to concentrate properly on a feature film; he proposed showing instead a programme of short films, ‘carefully timed to begin with





Forlorn and bedraggled spectacles

Air raid warning slide, as reproduced in Hope and Glory (1987)

the All Clear and end with the [air raid] siren’.15 Although this suggestion was undoubtedly facetious, it makes clear the frustrations felt by managers as a result of air raids interfering with their standard operating practices. Late in 1940, an amendment was made to ARP regulations that allowed cinemas to use visual rather than verbal warnings, provided that permission was obtained from the local police force (see Figure 5). This decision was welcomed by exhibitors both for the rest it gave their vocal chords and the relief it provided to patrons: reports had been received that in some areas the manager’s warning was greeted with ‘cat-calls and whistles’.16 Audiences were, for the most part, not particularly keen to have their entertainment interfered with.17 Mollie Panter-Downes told readers of the New Yorker that she thought that vocal announcements served only to bring to mind the possible destruction of the cinema, or, to quote her gleefully distasteful phrase, ‘qualmish visions of being the meat in the sandwich between the balcony and the floor’ should the cinema actually be hit. Many patrons, she added, found ‘their enjoyment of the entertainment … understandably diminished’.18 The use of slides was thought to be less disruptive from the point of view of the cinemas’ ability to entertain its patrons. Yet exhibitors had to make this new system work, and were obliged either to stop the film for the length of time that the warning was on-screen – which meant projectionists aligning the warning very closely with the previous manager’s speech – or else superimpose the warning over the top of the film, sometimes with the sound switched off.19 This latter technique, of course, risked upsetting

97

5

98

Cinemas and cinemagoing in wartime Britain, 1939–45

patrons who might miss vital lines of dialogue or even, as one Watford cinemagoer found out to her annoyance, the denouement of an entire film.20 However, the film could not be held in the projector whilst the alert was given because of the highly flammable nature of the film stock used in this period; fire was as great a danger as enemy bombs. Slides appear to have disrupted the film programme to a lesser degree than a spoken announcement, but they clearly – and intentionally – had the effect of ensuring that the raids continued to intrude into the programme, thus creating tension between a cinema’s physical position in the real world and its ability to transport patrons away from the concerns of the everyday. On occasion, the announcement that a raid was in progress was integrated into an evening’s entertainment. In the theatre, actors were able to respond to events as they occurred. One Mass-Observation diarist wrote that at a Glasgow venue the audience was informed of an air raid by the leading man, who approached his female counterpart in a romantically effusive manner, ‘but instead of saying, “I love you”, he said, “The siren has just sounded.” The house roared with laughter.’21 It was obviously impossible with a pre-recorded and mechanically reproduced entertainment to place the alert message into the mouths of the actors, but there are several reports of ‘amusing coincidences’ in the cinema, too. Early in September 1940 Picturegoer carried a letter about a screening of the naval adventure Convoy (1940): The film ran quite smoothly until it arrived at the scene where Clive Brook receives the message that ‘the Deutschland [a German battleship] is in sight’, then things began to happen; following this was a close-up of Clive Brook with startled expression, next the film was stopped and the manager came out to say: ‘An air raid warning has just been sounded’, and gave the necessary instructions. The film then continued with the next scene due, which was again a close-up of Clive Brook saying: ‘I’m going to engage the enemy.’ (Much laughter, applause and cheers from the audience.)22

Even though this particular story – which concludes with a second set of suspiciously opportune happenstances at the announcement of the All Clear – is perhaps too good to be true,23 similar statements, although not nearly so neatly or conveniently constructed, can also be found in contemporary diary entries and other sources.24 By seeking to recount stories that made light of the warnings, patrons demonstrated a willingness to incorporate the alerts into the evening’s entertainment, reducing the impact that the slides or oral announcements might have on their enjoyment of



Forlorn and bedraggled spectacles

the programme, but also familiarising the prelude to what might well be a terrifying ordeal. Even before the start of the main period of the blitz in September 1940, there was some question as to the efficacy of the warnings provided by the cinemas. It was felt that given the limited warning that the cinemas could provide – at most seven minutes, often considerably less, and with no guarantee of any warning at all – advising the public to leave might actually place them in greater danger than if they remained in their seats. In larger halls, it could take several minutes to get out of the cinema, meaning that patrons might still be on the streets, moving between cinemas and shelters, as the bombs started to fall. It was also feared that the length of time it took to leave the cinema might cause panic amongst civilians desperate to get to the shelters before the warning period was over: before the war, stampedes caused by fire, or even rumours of fire, had led to multiple deaths, and had precipitated the introduction of cinema safety regulations.25 Yet advising the audience to stay put created other problems, the most important of which was the possibility that patrons might be spooked by bombs falling nearby, or damage to the cinema: a crush resulting from an ‘unpleasant panic whilst the Show Goes On’ had the potential to bring about almost as many fatalities as a collapsing roof.26 There were a few tentative suggestions that if the issue of what to advise patrons to do in the event of an air raid could not be satisfactorily sorted out, then the cinemas might have to be closed down.27 Although such suggestions were never acted on, they do suggest the different directions that cinemas were being pulled in, as questions of recreation and safety, corporate responsibility and individual freedom, came into conflict. Finding themselves in an invidious position, and equally likely to be damned if they did or if they didn’t, Home Office officials decided that very little could be done, with one observing that the ‘slight additional risk’ posed by being caught in a cinema during a raid – or on the street, should they choose to leave upon the sounding of the siren – was the ‘price [that patrons] pay for having houses of entertainment open at all’.28 Cinemagoers who decided to stay put during raids were at first permitted to remain in the cinema and await the All Clear, even after the programme, which was often extended to include reserve films, had run its course and licensed trading hours had concluded. After spending a prolonged evening at the pictures, one south London woman rejoiced that ‘I never in my life had such a long and cheap show before – seven hours

99

100

Cinemas and cinemagoing in wartime Britain, 1939–45

and seven big ­pictures, all for a bob!’29 Trade papers abounded with tales of staff remaining on duty for several hours after their official shifts ended, serving patrons tea and biscuits whilst organists led community singalongs.30 Managers were quicker to praise their employees – ‘We should like to take off our hats to cinema staffs … for their splendid behaviour during air raids’ – than to reward them financially: ‘Our fellows would consider it an insult to offer them compensation for what they rightly think is war work’, said J. M. Cannon of the North Western branch of the Cinematograph Exhibitors’ Association, although it is not known whether this conclusion was reached following consultation with the staff in question.31 Cannon was correct to suggest that cinema employees appear to have taken longer hours in their stride, but when it became clear that the raids were set to be a nightly occurrence, concerns were voiced about the cumulative strain this would place on staff. Some cinemas knocked up temporary sleeping quarters for staff, so that rather than struggling to get to and from their homes they might snatch a few hours sleep in between the All Clear and the starting of a new shift. In London, the manager of one Granada theatre noted that ‘the moral [sic] of the staff is really good considering that they have to sleep here practically every night’.32 Some managers remained in their theatres for days or even weeks at a time; in extremis they installed their families, too.33 Quickly, though, the long hours became too much; cinemas would for the most part be permitted to remain open during a raid, but would no longer feel obliged to stay open beyond their normal opening times. Cinemagoers would be required to leave and find safety in alternative shelters. A process of elimination A solus situation is usually one very much sought after, but when, as in a certain south-east coast town, the solus is the result of a ‘ten little nigger boys’ process of elimination, it loses at least some of its charm. The enemy action which destroyed the last but one of the cinemas leaves a 500 seater as the first – and only – run house.34

The Rex, Coventry; the Ritz, Birkenhead; the Forum, Southampton; the New Adelphi, Liverpool; the Luxor, Hulme; the Hippodrome, Portsmouth; the Tivoli, Sheffield; the Plaza, Exeter; the Regent, Bristol; the Palladium, Plymouth (see Figure 6). These are but a few of the ­evocative names on the



Forlorn and bedraggled spectacles

The Palladium, Plymouth, 1941. A German air raid on the city caused extensive damage to the cinema.

roll call of cinemas destroyed or seriously damaged by German air raids. The geographical range of the affected theatres makes evident just how widespread was the destruction caused by enemy action. Whilst loss of life might have been lower than pre-war estimates had predicted, and lower than was expected even during the raids, the British exhibition industry did not get off lightly, as membership statistics for the CEA’s regional branches make clear. The CEA’s Annual Reports recorded year-on-year change, but

101

6

102

Cinemas and cinemagoing in wartime Britain, 1939–45

whereas before the war such statistics had always anticipated an increase, assumptions regarding numbers during 1940 and 1941 were reversed as decreases became the norm.35 In 1940 and 1941, a total of 892 cinemas were at some stage closed as a result of the war, with a large number of these forced to shut because of structural damage caused during air raids, or a decline in business resulting from either evacuation from high-risk areas or the population’s fear of venturing out during periods of heavy raiding. Whilst 428 of these cinemas were reopened by the end of December 1941, 464 were still inoperative at that time.36 Obviously, enemy action posed a greater risk to some areas than others, and London (especially the East End and the docks along the Thames), Portsmouth (an important naval base), Coventry (a vital industrial area) and Hull and Liverpool (crucial ports for the importation of food and war materiel) all suffered heavy raids, and heavy casualties.37 Kent, beneath the flight-path of German bombers as they made their way to and from London, was also badly affected: membership of the CEA in this area declined by almost 20 per cent, with cinemas in Margate, for example, suffering heavy damage.38 In early October 1940, it was estimated that as many as one in five cinemas in the London County Council area had closed, with the number standing at one in seven for the Greater London area.39 One raid on Manchester damaged a dozen c­ inemas (four so badly that they could not be reopened), whilst another on Southampton led to the closure of seven theatres.40 The heavy raid of the night of 14–15 November 1940 put five Coventry cinemas out of action. Whilst in each instance other cinemas were able to continue trading, and whilst many of the damaged cinemas would be patched up and reopened, the impact on local cinemagoing was extensive and widely felt. Cinemas were important geographical and cultural landmarks within particular communities, and made significant contributions to the creation of both local memory and a specific sense of place. In East Grinstead, the destruction of the Whitehall cut two ways. Besides the need to identify, bury and mourn the dead, there was also a palpable sense of loss regarding the cinema itself. For as a local newspaper columnist observed, the loss of the Whitehall Theatre is a very real one to the town, for it held an affectionate place in the hearts of all … It was the first cinema in the town and its luxurious setting, comfort and artistic fittings was the pride of local people … and we greatly deplore that it is no more.41



Forlorn and bedraggled spectacles

The damage done by the blitz thus necessitated the renegotiation of the relationship between cinemas and those that used them, and encouraged patrons to examine anew the position and function of these buildings within their immediate built environments. Bombs that fell on cinemas did not simply destroy buildings, for cinemas were repositories of personal and community memory, sites replete with thoughts of friendship, courtship, family and childhood adventure. Steve King remembered feeling as a child that ‘the world has come to an end’ after the National in Hull was destroyed in 1941, and also that the decision to rename a then empty cinema the National helped to establish a distinction between those who had known the old cinema, those who had suffered its loss, and those who knew only its successor: ‘anybody born after 1941 would only know the National as the National, which was the old Rialto’.42 Fatalities remained comparatively rare, especially when thought about as a proportion of the total number of tickets sold. The exhibition industry, though, believed itself to be unfairly maligned by reports suggesting that cinemas were dangerous places in which to see out a raid. Of course, casualties were not unheard of, and in the wake of ten deaths caused by the bombing of a local cinema, it is easy to understand one Mass-Observation diarist’s admission that her enthusiasm for the pictures had ‘evaporated’.43 But what the exhibition industry was particularly concerned about was what it viewed as a campaign of scaremongering by the national media, which afforded ‘undue prominence’ to the news that a picture house had been bombed: ‘if a dozen buildings are struck in a raid, you will find that the only one specified is the cinema’. Shops or banks, insisted Kinematograph Weekly, were not singled out for attention in the same way.44 Exhibitors were perhaps a little one-eyed in this assertion, for the destruction of schools, hospitals and churches were, if anything, of greater interest to Fleet Street, doubtless because they allowed the German war effort to be presented as a godless campaign against the sick and the innocent.45 However, for all their emotive appeal, these other types of building did not house commercial enterprises, so stories concerning their destruction would not affect profitability. Whilst many reports lauded patrons and staff for reacting calmly when confronted with the frightening reality of a bomb’s impact on a cinema, exhibitors still felt that the inference was that their halls were likely targets,46 and in Liverpool there was talk of bringing a suit of gross misrepresentation against a local newspaper after it carried what exhibitors felt to be unfair reports of their responses to air raids.47

103

104

Cinemas and cinemagoing in wartime Britain, 1939–45

This was, though, the price that the cinemas had to pay for remaining open in the evening; they were one of the few public spaces where people could continue to gather in large numbers whilst the raids were taking place. The J. F. Emery circuit, which controlled some thirty cinemas in the Midlands and Lancashire, devised a ‘propaganda scheme’ that it hoped would counter what it saw as ‘exaggerated reports of damage to [its] halls’. The campaign saw the circuit’s houses distribute leaflets (printed on salvaged paper, naturally), screen slides and post advertisements in foyers in an attempt ‘to “talk confidence”, stop rumour-mongering, and encourage the interest of patrons in the theatre and its functions’. The leaflets insisted, amongst other things, that ‘The enemy wants you to miss your pleasure and become despondent. Don’t help him. Go to your local cinema.’ In one very heavily raided area, the campaign coincided with a 43 per cent increase in box-office receipts as compared to the previous six-week period. Much of this increase might be attributed to there being fewer heavy raids during the latter period, and in most instances the success or otherwise of the campaign was determined by the severity of raids whilst the campaign was running. As a whole, the results of the campaign were, according to the chain, ‘not … in any sense sensational’ but were said to have provided an ‘antidote to defeatism’.48 The government’s insistence upon geographical anonymity – for several weeks, in most cases – when it came to reporting air raids was also likely to have contributed to feelings of uncertainty. Whilst news about raids on London was able to make use of the capital’s name, most towns and cities were anonymised in the hope that this might prevent the enemy from assessing a raid’s success. Thus East Grinstead – even in its own local paper, whose readers might well be expected to have recognised the picture of the bomb-damaged High Street – could be referred to only as a ‘SouthEast country town’ in the immediate aftermath of the raid.49 In some instances, geographical ambiguity was equated with a lack of recognition: some blitzed towns and cities became understandably bitter about the fact that they had, like London, suffered and survived, but were not given their dues.50 For the exhibition industry, the lack of specificity might have had a different impact; without precise information about which cinema had been hit in which town, the risks posed by a trip to the pictures became far more pervasive. Of course, naming the cities in which cinemas had been damaged or destroyed would not alleviate grief, nor would it necessarily obviate the fears of local residents, but it might have served to localise and



Forlorn and bedraggled spectacles

concentrate the horror of being inside an auditorium when a bomb hit. When no cinemas were named, all were potential victims. In order to counter concerns about safety, and in the hope of generating some positive publicity, many exhibitors advertised the safety of their cinemas. At the Scala in Bath, the roof was camouflaged ‘as a safeguard against future attacks’, a tactic that prompted increased ticket sales when deployed at a number of other venues.51 Opinion was divided as to the desirability of camouflaging cinema roofs, for whilst it was felt that their vast expanses might offer a tempting target to enemy bombers engaged in daylight raids, there were concerns that camouflaging a building risked making it look more like a military installation and therefore exposed it to greater risk. Indeed, it was for this reason that the union flags traditionally flown by Granada cinemas were lowered.52 One north London exhibitor took a different tack, and produced publicity stating that ‘This building has a modern resilient steel frame – Steel can take it!’53 For all that exhibitors were understandably concerned that reports concerning patron safety would damage ticket sales, it appears that many Britons quickly ‘learned to regard their local cinema as a better shelter than their homes’ – or, at least, no less safe than their homes – and this might help to explain why it was that despite a dramatic initial fall in takings, many cinemas were able to keep trading.54 ‘This current period of Nazi frightfulness’ Quite apart from the material damage caused by German bombs, the period of the blitz proved to be one of very great difficulty for many British exhibitors. The widespread nature of the aerial assault meant that between September and December 1940 takings were down in many parts of the country, and the evacuation of civilians from badly affected areas had a tendency to depress trade even at those cinemas that suffered no physical harm. Writing in January 1941, W. J. Speakman, chairman of the CEA’s north-western branch, reported that during the initial period of ‘Nazi frightfulness’ admissions fell to just 15 per cent of what might be expected under normal conditions.55 Another industry commentator wrote that ‘The box-office, the fountain-head of our income, has temporarily dried up.’56 The declining number of operational cinemas might account for some of the decline in admissions, but the falling off in audience numbers was so severe that it cannot be understood solely as a consequence of these

105

106

Cinemas and cinemagoing in wartime Britain, 1939–45

closures. Rather, there was a general decrease in patronage that affected a great many cinemas in districts where raids were a possibility (that is, where alerts were sounded even if no bombs fell), and almost every cinema in heavily raided areas. However, just as the effect of the blitz was not uniform at the national level, nor was it uniform within specific cities. Those cinemas closest to military, commercial or industrial targets were more likely to be hit by bombs, and in Portsmouth, for example, venues to the north of the city were further away from the naval docks and so were better positioned to ride out the storm, although they still experienced a notable drop in ticket sales.57 Other factors should also be born in mind, though. City centre halls, often super-cinemas in prestigious locations, in many instances suffered a disproportionately large drop in attendance, not because they were more likely to be hit, but because fewer patrons wanted to travel long distances to watch films, fearful that they would have difficulty getting home.58 This was no idle worry; in London, local transport systems were very frequently disrupted by damage to roads and overhead wires, and long delays and lengthy detours resulted as roads were made impassable by fallen masonry, collapsed sewers and unexploded bombs.59 Indeed, London came increasingly to resemble the collection of villages described at the start of The Bells Go Down (1943).60 Consequently, trade at many West End cinemas declined, with one manager glumly informing a reporter in early September 1940 that if he could drum up another customer, ‘we will have a bridge four inside’.61 The following month, the Leicester Square Theatre was badly damaged and (temporarily) forced to close, bringing the war right into the heart of the London’s West End leisure quarter. At the Empire, another prestigious Leicester Square venue, air raids and associated transportation problems resulted in a precipitous decline in attendance figures. On 12 September 1940, just days after the first heavy raids on the capital, only 601 tickets were purchased by patrons wishing to watch Busman’s Honeymoon (1940), and this in an auditorium that sat in excess of 3,300 people.62 Business was still slow two months later when a Mass-Observation diarist visited the Empire to watch I Love You Again (1940), and found that whereas ‘before the blitz it was always a job to get in without a considerable waiting period’ in mid-December 1940 he and his companion constituted half of the audience in the circle when they entered the theatre early in the afternoon, with a similarly small number



Forlorn and bedraggled spectacles

sat in the stalls. Although business picked up slightly as the afternoon progressed – continuous performance meant that patrons could enter the theatre at any stage during a programme – by the time that the diarist left, the circle was still sparsely populated, with only about twenty people in attendance.63 Despite falling numbers, the Empire was able to keep trading. Other exhibitors decided to cut their losses, and many cinemas were temporarily closed because of lack of trade. In London, both the vast Gaumont State in Kilburn and the Trocadero in Elephant and Castle, were closed for several weeks in October, and later reopened, initially at least, only for weekend performances.64 The Astoria on Charing Cross Road and the nearby Gaumont News Theatre were also both closed for short periods. Even though decreased ticket sales meant that many Granada cinemas were temporarily being run at a loss, a decision was taken to keep them all open, for fear that closure might induce concern or despondency.65 Ticket sales in Greater London were not helped by the requirement that as of 11 September 1940 cinemas were to close at 9 p.m., and at 7 p.m. as of 21 October. Whilst this decision allowed both patrons and staff to get home before the heaviest bombing occurred, it had a very significant impact on cinema attendance, as many working people – the group from which the largest number of regular patrons were drawn – found it difficult to get from their place of employment to the cinema in time for the start of the last performance, especially as the CEA recommended that ‘where practicable the big picture shall begin the last programme so that audiences may leave earlier if they desire’.66 Box-office takings from the Granada, Wandsworth Road – which would be hit on 12 November 1940 by a bomb that killed 10 patrons and injured 35 more67 – allow for an appreciation of the impact that earlier closing, when combined with the threat, and reality, of air raids, had on patron numbers. In the final full week before 9 p.m. closing was introduced, the cinema took £171 14s 5d. after 6 p.m.; in the first full week after, only £28 19s 6½d., and this despite the attraction of what manager F. C. Knott considered to be ‘a jolly good programme’ and the reduction of competition following the closure of four nearby cinemas through bomb damage or lack of custom.68 Indeed, the decline in evening takings at the Granada Wandsworth Road was in the region of 85 per cent, a figure that equates with the drop in patronage in other badly affected areas as described by the CEA.

107

108

Cinemas and cinemagoing in wartime Britain, 1939–45

Of course, some of the trade lost during the early evening might well have been redistributed earlier in the day, but the language used by Knott to describe business in this period – ‘very poor’, ‘poor’, ‘wont bear thinking about’ – makes it all too clear that, overall, ticket sales declined to a worrying extent.69 However, Knott made the obvious point that earlier closing was really only a symptom of the main problem, and noted that whilst in principle the idea of remaining open until 10 p.m. would allow for better business, ‘this would only materialise in the absence of air raids’. Knott informed head office that a more certain way to increase ticket sales was to open earlier, although he had ‘no illusions that … we should by this do a great deal of business, unless patrons would, or circumstances permitted them to accustom themselves to the change in times’.70 London cinemas were soon granted permission to open at 10.30 a.m. on weekdays, and for extended periods on Sundays. As the worst of the blitz passed, there was a gradual extension of evening hours, and by spring 1941, 10 p.m. closing had been reintroduced in many areas. Elsewhere in the country, many towns and cities introduced what amounted to curfews, as licensed venues and public transport operations were both required to close earlier in the evening than had previously been the case. It was hoped that this would allow – or, effectively, force – both patrons and staff to get home before the most intensive raids started. Most managers acknowledged the sense of earlier closing – especially where, as in Bristol, patrons stayed away from evening shows in such numbers that daytime screenings came to account for 90 per cent of daily takings71 – but there were complaints that cinemas were being asked to make concessions not demanded of other leisure facilities. Pubs and dance halls were allowed to open until ten or even eleven o’clock at night, it was noted, so why not cinemas? The effects of air raids were not felt uniformly throughout the day. The first warning sirens were often sounded at dusk or in the evening, and in the early weeks of the blitz many cinemagoers, eager to watch films but desiring to minimise the chances of being caught away from home, chose to attend matinee and early evening screenings. In Manchester, where ticket sales nosedived in the earliest days of the blitz, a subsequent small increase in ticket sales was accounted for by increased attendance at afternoon shows.72 At the Empire, Leicester Square, where cheaper-priced matinee tickets had traditionally accounted for a significant proportion of the cinema’s income, afternoon performances became even more



Forlorn and bedraggled spectacles

i­ mportant.73 May 1941 brought two developments that encouraged people to leave their homes and return to the pictures. First, the worst period of the blitz came to an end: longer hours of daylight made German raids less frequent. Second, Double Summer Time came into effect again, ensuring that in most parts of the United Kingdom the blackout did not come into effect until well after 10.00 p.m.74 Yet despite the difficulties that attended a trip to the pictures, and the dangers that awaited those who actually made it there, ticket sales, after a sharp falling off, soon began to rally. By the start of 1941, it was estimated that in heavily raided areas patronage had returned to approximately ­two-thirds of what might have been expected under pre-blitz conditions, ‘an astonishingly good recovery’, according to an industry spokesman.75 As the South Wales and Monmouthshire branch of the CEA put it, ‘it is gratifying to note that shortly after the experience of a “blitz” the public quickly revert to their former habits’.76 The audience response The destruction of the Whitehall left the residents of East Grinstead with only one cinema. The Radio Centre – larger and more modern than its erstwhile competitor – was left in a monopolistic position, and so on many levels it was unfortunate for its patrons that one of the first films it screened after the East Grinstead raid was Unpublished Story (1942), a ‘vivid … and very real’ recreation of the London blitz.77 On Sunday 18 July 1943, residents of East Grinstead wanting to spend an afternoon at the pictures were brought face to face with a fictionalised narrative closely aligned with events that some locals had only recently experienced firsthand. Although very clearly the product of the hard work of Two Cities’ art department, Unpublished Story’s blitz was constructed and presented as real; the set was dressed with ‘genuine bomb debris’ and raid sequences were accompanied by ‘genuine sound records of overhead planes, the whistle of bombs and the roar of their explosions and the whine of ack-ack [i.e. anti-aircraft] shells’.78 Films like Unpublished Story could, of course, only ever hope to approximate the horrors of an air raid, but we should be careful not to assume that a lack of absolute realism meant that they were unable to provoke a reaction in the viewer. As British cinemagoers attempted to adjust to life and entertainment under blitz conditions, London cinemagoer Ronald Driver

109

110

Cinemas and cinemagoing in wartime Britain, 1939–45

noted that he had recently attended a screening at which ‘a siren denoting a jail break [within the film] set the audience running for the exit’.79 A couple of months later, Driver had an even more unnerving experience whilst watching Convoy: I entered the cinema after obtaining my ticket, during an alert, there were planes roaring overhead and gunfire. As I opened the door I was hailed by an explosion and then a piercing scream. Now how was I to know that this scream was actually a shell fired from the Deutschland and not a bomb? I had a bit of a turn, can you blame me?80

Indeed, the idea that British cinema patrons might have difficulty distinguishing between images of conflict and conflict itself was the basis of a cartoon in the London Evening News on 11 May 1943, where an immaculately dressed manager looked out over a seemingly empty auditorium towards a screen on which a humorously overcrowded battle scene was being projected: ‘Actually we’re full up’, he tells a visitor, ‘This war picture is so realistic the audience are all under the seats’ (see Figure 7). However, we should be equally wary of assuming that the screening of ostensibly realistic war films would be certain to distress wartime cinemagoers, for viewers have always been able to distinguish between the fantasies conjured by filmmakers – no matter how great the desire for ­verisimilitude – and life as experienced outside the auditorium. War can, of course, be a cinematic spectacle or an attraction in its own right, and cinemagoers are capable of dissociating themselves from real-world events as recreated by films to the point that they can enjoy them – no matter how authentic – as entertainment.81 And yet the inter-related nature of factual and fictional events meant that in many instances feature films were used as a jumping-off point to discuss real-world concerns. A couple of months after the start of the blitz, a London woman wrote to Picturegoer to discuss what had happened during a recent performance of Gone With the Wind (1939). The film’s representation of the shelling of Atlanta was followed by ‘a terrific burst of gun-fire from outside [the cinema] that we could all hear’: ‘A loud titter passed through the audience, and the woman next to me said audibly “Cor, Scarlett, you ought to hear our new naval gun!” That started the fun, and soon happy whispers denoted the telling of bomb stories and the like.’82 For so many patrons to turn aside from this prestigious and expensive film to discuss their own experiences suggests both the immediacy of these experiences, and the role that films were capable of playing in letting wartime



Forlorn and bedraggled spectacles

111

‘Actually we’re full up. This war-picture is so realistic the audience are all under the seats.’ Joseph Lee in London Evening News, 11 May 1943.

7

Britons negotiate the meaning of recent events and their position within their immediate community. And just as audiences have more than one way of understanding and interacting with notions of realism when watching films about war, so the realities of watching films whilst the war raged – sometimes with

112

Cinemas and cinemagoing in wartime Britain, 1939–45

­ncomfortable and terrifying proximity – need not be understood as u uniform. The experience of cinemagoing in the blitz should therefore be understood as a continuum, where at one extreme patrons carried on blithely unconcerned by the sound and percussive shockwaves of both enemy bombs and anti-aircraft guns, and at the other, people refused to set foot in a cinema at all. Of course, it is likely that the majority of cinemagoers positioned themselves somewhere between these two extremes, and thus entertained equivocal feelings about the ways in which their desire for entertainment conflicted with their desire for physical safety. The tensions between these two desires led sometimes to an irritable response to the sirens. When Irene Craven went to watch Gone With the Wind, she remembers that when an alert was announced, the main feeling in the cinema was not fear, but rather frustration. Trying to focus on the film whilst the siren wailed was not easy, however, and she recalled: ‘nobody went [out of the cinema], they just thought “for God’s sake, shut up”’.83 The tendency of those who were most scared of bombing to stay away  – and we should remember here the sharp decline in attendance noted in many parts of the country – lends the reminiscences of those who continued to attend a perhaps unrepresentatively brave and insouciant air. Yet there is ample evidence to suggest that even those Britons who continued to attend the cinema during the air raids were not impervious to the dangers going on around them: ‘there was always a sigh of relief when we were notified of the All Clear’.84 Moreover, during the early weeks of the blitz in September 1940, in heavily bombed areas such as south London, the number of people who left the cinema once the alert had been sounded could amount to a fairly large proportion of the audience. At the Granada, Wandsworth Road, some alert warnings led to as many as one in eight leaving the auditorium, and although the number who left varied from night to night, women accompanied by children seem to have most frequently decided discretion to be the better part of valour.85 In deciding whether or not to stay, audience members appear to have responded to a host of geographical and temporal factors. In areas that had suffered recent damage, as opposed to those where alerts had been sounded but no bombs had fallen, patrons appear to have been more inclined to leave the auditorium. Further, as the weeks passed and the blitz wore on, fewer and fewer cinemagoers abandoned their seats. Having survived the early onslaught, and having adapted to even these most trying of circumstances, many Britons adopted a mood of ‘sensible fatalism’ – if one could



Forlorn and bedraggled spectacles

be killed at home or even in a shelter, why not continue to pursue what few entertainments and pleasures were still available?86 From the earliest days of the blitz in the autumn of 1940, there was an attempt to impose upon the continued popularity of cinemagoing a particular, British agenda. The wording of some of the slides that appeared on the screen to notify patrons of the sounding of the alert helped to more explicitly link conduct in the cinema to a supposedly atavistic national experience. One such slide, seen at a London cinema before the start of the blitz proper, is mentioned in Hell Came to London, Basil Woon’s recollections of the first weeks of the blitz: ‘Walk, do not run, to the exits. Do not panic. Remember, you are British!’87 In his book, Woon ­recognises – and  even mocks – the phrase’s essential absurdity, yet is unwilling to dismiss it entirely. Indeed, despite – or perhaps because of – its inherent ridiculousness, the phrase sat comfortably with Woon’s own agenda, for he makes clear in the foreword to Hell Came to London that he was seeking to refute the claim made by American journalist Ralph Ingersoll that such was the devastating effect of the blitz that ‘Hitler almost took London – and didn’t know it.’88 ‘Neither’, insisted Woon, laconically, ‘did London.’89 Thus to Woon, the humour of the cinema slide’s almost Blimpish overtones is reinforced by its essential redundancy. Here, the importance of the cinema is founded not simply on its ability to raise or maintain morale, but on the way in which it wordlessly expressed the strength and indestructability of that morale: to continue to frequent the cinema was to act out a script written in Britain rather than Germany. The cinema, in this sense, became a site of resistance. To maintain a semblance of normality in such harrowing and unpredictable circumstances was to defy the enemy, whereas, to quote The Times, ‘to allow the enemy to deprive us of the enjoyment of great drama, even temporarily, is a measure of defeat’.90 The cinema as a concrete space, as a place where British society was physically if transiently manifested, was therefore as able as the cinema as a cultural medium to contribute to what Angus Calder has called ‘the Myth of the Blitz’, that is, the stories that Britain told itself as it struggled to find a way to comprehend and respond to the awfulness of prolonged periods of aerial bombardment.91 And whilst films such as Britain Can Take It! (1940) advanced the idea that night after night of air raids would be unable to break the British spirit, so cinemagoing allowed ordinary Britons to make an active contribution to the formation and promotion of a national agenda rather than act as passive recipients of it.

113

114

Cinemas and cinemagoing in wartime Britain, 1939–45

In this way, normal, everyday activities were ascribed a degree of political significance that they might otherwise have lacked; in blitzed areas, keeping calm and carrying on was not just a phlegmatic or fatalistic expression, but was instead a demonstration of courage in the face of persistent enemy action. Thus we find a Mass-Observation diarist writing of a trip to the pictures in Epsom: The previous night Epsom had had some bombs, but the [cinema] was full, and when the announcement was made of an air-raid warning, only two people got up and went out, one a girl with a tin hat who probably had to be on duty and the other a women with a tiny baby who ought not to have been there. [A friend] came with us. I said, ‘Look at all the panic-stricken population creeping about the streets!’ ‘Look bad, don’t they’, she grinned.92

A few months later, another Mass-Observer visited the Warner cinema in Leicester Square to watch Bette Davis in All This, and Heaven Too (1940): ‘The Blitz began in the middle of it. A bomb fell somewhere near and the building rocked … No one moved, there was scarcely even a murmur.’93 Even on those occasions when a cinema was actually damaged whilst in use, there were opportunities for British cinemagoers to demonstrate the sangfroid that so many believed to be expected of them. The CineTechnician ran an article on the impact of the blitz that included the tale of a cinema which during the screening of a murder mystery had been damaged by a bomb and set on fire: ‘the audience at first refused to leave, and on the manager’s earnest appeals only finally consented when he agreed to tell them “who done it”’.94 Elsewhere, a story – which exhibitors  insisted was true – did the rounds concerning two children who  returned home  to their worried mother after a heavy raid: ‘Well, mummy, the cinema we  were in was bombed, so we went over to the Plaza.’95 We can, of course, question the veracity of such stories, but they are indicative of the ways in which an everyday activity such as cinemagoing contributed to the construction and promulgation of a specific national myth. Cinemagoers took their lead from cinema staff, who were expected to keep their calm in the face of stressful situations. One Norwich resident recorded that an alarm, accompanied by gunfire, had caused ‘a few isolated groups of panic’ in the auditorium. Before these had a chance to spread, the attendants took charge and settled the audience, demonstrating themselves to be a ‘hybrid of policeman and wet-nurse’.96 In London, the manager of one cinema, fearing that his customers were becoming jittery as a result of



Forlorn and bedraggled spectacles

three nearby explosions, shouted ‘Keep your seats – the danger is passed.’ Patrons sat down and continued with the film.97 However, the bravery of British cinemagoers seems to have been, in part, based on fear: the fear of being seen to let the side down, the fear of losing face in the presence of one’s peers. When a Picture Show columnist went to watch My Two Husbands (1940), an alert sounded and the manager gave his warning and advised that anyone wishing to leave should do so immediately. The columnist wrote, We then became aware that heads were twisting about all over the place. Everybody, it seemed, was looking at everybody else to see if anyone was leaving. In the end not a soul moved. So the lights went down again, and the film went on.98

In wartime cinemas, when the manager took to the stage or the warning was flashed on the screen, individual cinemagoers seem to have become aware of the collective, corporate identity of the audience of which they were a part. As patrons looked around, curious to see if anyone else was leaving – waiting, perhaps, for someone else to legitimise their fear, to provide tacit permission for them to leave the auditorium – they took note of others doing the same. At once observing and observed, cinemagoers were unwilling to concede fear in the face of their fellow audience members, but also gained reassurance from their common stubbornness. As an American journalist noted of the British during the blitz, ‘One could panic in his heart, but two together could not show it, nor a hundred in a group. They neutralize one another … They have laid manifold restraints upon themselves in their mutual intercourse.’99 Doodlebug coda Although the worst period of the blitz ended in the late spring of 1941, German air raids on the United Kingdom continued for much of the remainder of the war. Whilst such raids had considerable nuisance value, and could, on occasion, result in extensive damage and widespread casualties, the fear that the sounding of the alert struck into the hearts of British civilians seems to have largely dissipated by the onset of winter in 1943. Yet when London was the target of the ‘little blitz’ between January and March 1944 – ‘It’s quite like old times again’, said Churchill – many of the capital’s residents found themselves unable to cope with the renewed

115

116

Cinemas and cinemagoing in wartime Britain, 1939–45

threat: having lived through what the American magazine Time described as ‘years of shortages, dislocations and exasperations’, few Londoners were able to recreate the ‘mood of grim exaltation’ that had characterised the winter of 1940–41.100 Yet the strain caused by the little blitz set the tone for events later in the year, when, between June and October, thousands of flying bombs – also known as pilotless bombs, buzz bombs, doodlebugs or V-1s – arrived in the south east of England. The first of these bombs arrived just days after D-Day, and the severe impact that they had upon British morale might be seen to have arisen from the contrast between the hope for a speedy final victory and the recognition that further suffering would need to be endured before the war would end.101 Lacking pilots, the bombs were in some quarters initially dismissed as a fascinating but not unduly concerning novelty; the lack of precision targeting was seen as a weakness.102 Thus in the early days of the raids London cinemagoers reacted with interest, and on occasion even with wearied amusement, but not necessarily with any great degree of panic, to the alert slides that flashed across the screen.103 However, the indiscriminate and inhuman nature of the weapon was swiftly recognised as being, in Evelyn Waugh’s phrase, ‘as impersonal as a plague’, and cinemagoers reacted as they had done during the early weeks of the blitz in September 1940 – by staying away in droves.104 Yet to read the exhibition trade press, one would be hard-pressed to discover that anything was amiss. Although the press had reported on the flying bombs since their first appearance, precise details were comparatively scarce; such was the fear that detailed reports might permit V-1 crews to hone their targeting techniques, the government insisted that the blanket term ‘Southern England’ be used to describe the location of the affected areas. So although there was the occasional euphemistic reference to, for example, ‘prevailing circumstances’, it was not until 6 July, following a speech in the House of Commons by the Prime Minister, that the draconian reporting restrictions were eased and London could be named as the main target.105 ‘Now it can be told!’, wrote Tatler in Daily Film Renter on 10 July by way of prelude to a summary of the impact that the flying bombs had on the film industry.106 Newsreels about the flying bombs sought to revive the popular resilience of the earlier period of bombardment, with Pathe, for example, insisting on 13 July that ‘London’s wartime calendar of experience may be set back four years, but the people adjust themselves to the frontline peril and carry on.’



Forlorn and bedraggled spectacles

Cinemagoers in ‘Southern England’, though, seem to have interpreted, or at least acted upon, these reports in a different way, for the decline in trade in those areas affected by flying bombs suggests that it was the indiscriminate and brutal nature of the destruction that struck a chord with viewers, not appeals to their residual blitz spirit. Because of the limited range of the flying bombs, most of which were targeted at London, the impact on the British exhibition industry as a whole was limited. In the capital, however, the decline in patronage was noticeable. At the Granada cinemas, the flying bombs were said to have had a more deleterious effect on box-office takings than had the Luftwaffe during late 1940 and early 1941, and whilst cinemagoers became ‘acclimatised’ to piloted air raids, they proved less able to come to terms with the threat posed by the unmanned doodlebugs.107 Elsewhere, the Metropolitan Police, which insisted that children’s matinee’s be suspended whilst the flying bombs continued to pose a threat, noted that not only were fewer cinema tickets being sold, but also that ‘more people leave when the “Alert” is sounded than used to be the case’.108 Estimates differ as to how great an effect the flying bombs had, but J. Arthur Rank blamed them for a slump in business in ‘“Southern England”’ (and the quote marks used in the headline reporting Rank’s comments wordlessly informed readers of the precise cause of this decline), whilst in London one commentator noted that ticket sales at cinemas and theatres had fallen by as much as 45 per cent.109 In short, one industry insider felt moved to state that the impact on box-office takings had been ‘pretty catastrophic’.110 Those Britons who continued to buy tickets to the pictures found that their ability to concentrate on the film was compromised by the sound of the flying bombs passing overhead, and one cinemagoer remembers the distraction of ‘listening to the film with one ear and for the V-1’s engine to cut out with the other’,111 whilst another later recalled, ‘I used to slide down a bit in my seat, put my hands over my ears and wait for the engine to cut out. … Then would come the explosion and I would carry on watching the film.’112 Central to such memories is the aural component of the flying bomb threat, and it seems that the sound of the doodlebug, so distinctive, so menacing, so immediate, underpinned much of the special terror it brought to the south-east corner of Britain. Indeed, Vivienne Phillips recalls watching Dorothy Lamour (‘in a sarong of course’) in Beyond the Blue Horizon (1942) when the engine of a flying bomb cut

117

118

Cinemas and cinemagoing in wartime Britain, 1939–45

out overhead: she ducked down between the seats until the sound of an ­explosion – thankfully distant – was heard, at which point she regained her seat. Her relief at her own escape was compounded by her frustration at not knowing how Lamour, tied to a stake and threatened with violence, had been rescued.113 So great was the strain caused by the flying bombs that even after the most intense period of attack was over, they continued to play on British  nerves. The short Crown film V. 1 (1944) was released towards the end of November 1944, with the Manchester Guardian praising its ‘fittingly objective’ commentary, and suggesting that such was the spirit shown by V. 1’s Londoners, that ‘London has never seemed more indestructible.’114 This indestructibility was perhaps easier to ascertain from the safety of Lancashire than it was in the capital, however, for Londoners who watched the film reacted in a way that suggested that the flying bombs had made them all too painfully aware of their own mortality: when a robot [i.e. flying bomb] was shown groaning and popping into the foreground and there was suddenly that familiar cut-off of the engines and that dreadful silence before the explosion, you could have heard a pin drop in the theatre. People shut their eyes and grabbed the arms of their seats, trying to overcome an absurd, almost uncontrollable urge to crawl under them.115

Much of this terror arose from a powerfully evocative and visceral soundtrack, ‘recorded with a disturbing perfection’, that reminded cinemagoers of the ‘grunt and grindings of the monster as it approaches, the sudden nerve-wracking silence, and the crash of the explosion’.116 Additionally, a feeling prevailed that the mental and physical wounds inflicted by the flying bombs were too fresh, and too personal, to be suitable for inclusion in mainstream feature films. When in mid-September 1944 the Daily Mirror reported that the sounds of a doodlebug raid were to be included the Rita Hayworth vehicle Tonight and Every Night (1945) – ‘Hollywood has taken over the buzz-bombs – in Technicolor!’ – not everyone was eager to see the outcome:117 Needless to say, we know quite enough about these missiles, we ought to by now any way, without having them relayed for us on the silver screen, in glorious Technicolor, and without having to watch a background of beauties wriggling around between crashes. We don’t mind at all seeing them after the war in documentary form and made by an English film studio by people who



Forlorn and bedraggled spectacles

really know what it’s all about, but not just now, please. In the few hours of respite we do get we don’t want to see Doodle raids just for pleasure.118

The national specificity at the heart of the experience of the blitz of 1940–41, both inside and outside of the cinema, was still relevant to British cinemagoers as they dealt with the aftermath of the V-1 attacks. Yet the defiant and occasionally eulogistic tone evident in Woon’s writing had by the time of the doodlebug raids been replaced with a tetchy weariness borne out of the shortages, sacrifices and exhaustion that characterised life in an era of total war. The nightmarish horror of the V-1s was so raw, and the scars inflicted still so livid, that the use of buzz-bombs in a foreign-produced entertainment was more than some Britons were prepared to tolerate. And if the memory of the war, and of those who had perished or suffered in it, was to be cherished, then so were those precious periods of leisure where the war became but one of a number of experiences competing for psychological and physical attention. The war and the cinema needed to be kept separate so that each could remain pure, unsullied, meaningful. Yet this also encapsulates the awkward relationship between the cinema and the reality of the war, for no matter how many Britons might have wished it so, the war was never entirely absent from the cinema: newsreels, government propaganda films and, on occasion, both American and British features all introduced martial themes into the auditorium, even when the guns and sirens were silent on the streets outside. Further, the cinema might have held out the promise of escape, but this promise was not in any sense novel, even if the desire to absent oneself, for whatever reason and to whatever extent, was heightened by the war. As bombs, doodlebugs and rockets rained down on the towns and cities of Britain, cinemagoing became a potentially hazardous activity: a night at the pictures was no longer an activity that could simply be taken for granted. Indeed, the physical dislocation that is so often posited as the most evident consequence of the blitz was accompanied by significant cultural and social dislocation, in that it brought about a temporary inability to engage in and enjoy those leisure pursuits that had previously made a telling contribution to understandings of how a specific geographical or social locale functioned, and how one might live within it. The subsequent return of many patrons to the cinema was therefore important because it afforded ordinary Britons the opportunity to re-engage with the world, to reassert

119

120

Cinemas and cinemagoing in wartime Britain, 1939–45

their identities, to return to a known and manageable mental space and in so doing limit the extent and the effect of the blitz. The swift resumption of strong ticket sales, however, also speaks of the appeal of the cinema, which remained fundamentally unchanged. Even in a period of trauma and crisis, the cinema was able to continue to do what it had always done: entertain and thrill patrons by offering them fantasy, spectacle and the prospect of emotional engagement in comfortable extra-domestic settings. Even though box-office revenues declined markedly during the height of the blitz between September 1940 and May 1941 and again during the V-1 raids in 1944, Britons soon amended their cinemagoing routines in order to continue to watch films within the limits established by changing circumstances: ‘You cannot keep Londoners away from the cinemas for long’, noted A. Jympson Harman of the London Evening News with no small degree of pride.119 This was a sentiment echoed by Sam Eckman Jr. of MGM – who during celebrations marking Gone With the Wind’s first anniversary in the West End, claimed, ‘It takes more than a Nazi blitz to prevent Londoners from enjoying the greatest screen attraction of all time.’ (The film was an attraction in itself, of course, but the fact that for most of its run it had been screened at the Ritz, an underground venue, no doubt contributed to its appeal.)120 Cinemagoers proved to be adaptable, determined and insistent about getting their fix. As one woman said of Rebecca (1940), ‘No bombing is going to stop me seeing that picture’.121 Notes 1 Details of the raid can be found in TNA HO 199/262 and TNA HO 192/1042. 2 Robert Jack quoted in Sunday Express, 11 July 1943, p. 7. 3 East Grinstead Observer, 17 July 1943, p. 1. 4 TNA HO 199/262: ‘Incident at Whitehall cinema, East Grinstead, 9.7.43’, 14 July 1943. 5 The Daily Express, for example, reported that one-third of the fatalities were children. 12 July 1943, p. 3. The number of child deaths was restricted by their location within the cinema: youthful pockets could only stretch to ten-penny tickets, meaning that most children sat towards the front of the auditorium, where the damage caused by the bomb was slightest. 6 Daily Mirror, 10 July 1943, p. 1. The press reported in a similar manner the September 1940 bombing of a Brighton cinema during a screening of the unfortunately titled It Could Happen to You (1939). As with the destruction



Forlorn and bedraggled spectacles

of the Whitehall, reports of the Brighton raid flagged up the gender and age of the patrons, with one report beginning, ‘Three hundred women and children sat in a Brighton cinema …’ Daily Herald, 16 September 1940, p. 5. See also Guy Morgan’s statement that the first major blitz on London took place on a Saturday afternoon ‘when the cinemas were full, mainly of women and children’. Red Roses Every Night: An Account of London Cinemas Under Fire (London: Quality Press, 1948), p. 27. 7 Although The Lion Has Wings (1939) claimed that ‘bombing now is exact and mathematical’, neither German nor British bombing raids could lay claim to any great degree of accuracy. In the first two years of the war almost 75 per cent of German bombs dropped on Britain fell in open country, whilst a British report found that only 20 per cent of British bombs landed within five miles of their intended target. Karl Hecks, Bombing 1939–45: The Air Offensive against Land Targets in World War Two (London: Robert Hale, 1990), pp. 124–5. American bombers were no more accurate, and The Way to the Stars’ (1945) joke about a USAAF raid on ‘enemy-occupied cows’ speaks to the difficulties associated with ‘precision’ bombing in this period. 8 East Grinstead Observer, 17 July 1943, p. 4. 9 TNA CAB 65/35/7: Conclusions of War Cabinet meeting held on 12 July 1943, pp. 144–5. 10 S. G. Rayment, ‘Facing up to it’, in Kinematograph Yearbook, 1941 (London: Kinematograph Publications, 1941), p. 7. 11 British Film Industry (London: Political and Economic Planning, 1952), pp. 80–1. It should be noted that damage caused by air raids was not the sole cause of cinema closure in this period: evacuation of civilian populations and, on occasion, requisition of cinemas also led to the shutting of some theatres. 12 Juliet Gardiner, The Blitz: The British Under Attack (London: Harper Press, 2010), p. 134. 13 On the terminology adopted to describe air raids and their fall out, see John Strachey’s fictionalised account of his own experience as an ARP warden, Post D: Some Experiences of an Air-raid Warden (London: Victor Gollancz, 1941), pp. 20–1. 14 The speech given by the managers of Granada cinemas is reprinted in Morgan, Red Roses, pp. 20–1. 15 Kinematograph Weekly, 5 September 1940, p. 4. 16 CEA Annual Report, 1940, p. 2. The Ministry of Home Security granted this concession at the national level, but some cities – Bristol, for instance – had permitted the use of slides before this time. 17 In some cinemas in the early days of the blitz proper, patrons could be more forgiving. On 8 September 1940, for instance, patrons in the Tooting  Granada, ‘anticipating the reasons for [the manager’s] appearance, received him with a round of applause. The usual announcement was received with derisive laughter.’ London Evening News, 9 September 1940, p. 3.

121

122

Cinemas and cinemagoing in wartime Britain, 1939–45

18 Mollie Panter-Downes, 30 August 1940. In William Shawn (ed.), London War Notes (London: Longman, 1972), p. 93. 19 Daily Film Renter, 4 December 1940, pp. 1, 9. 20 Mass-Observation Archive: Diarist 5240, 5 September 1940. 21 Pam Ashford, diary entry, 20 September 1940. In Simon Garfield (ed.), We Are at War: The Remarkable Diaries of Five Ordinary People in Extraordinary Times (London: Ebury Press, 2005), p. 370. 22 Ruby Campbell, letter, Picturegoer, 14 September 1940, p. 19. 23 Mark Glancy advises caution in the use of letters published in fan magazines like Picturegoer, suggesting that historians need to acknowledge that such letters might have been ‘edited, or chosen for inclusion because they offer views that are extreme or in service to the paper’s editorial policy’. Hollywood and the Americanization of Britain: From the 1920s to the Present (London and New York: I.B. Tauris, 2014), p. 8. 24 See: MOA: Diarist 5240, 5 February 1941, who wrote that at a screening of Three Silent Men (1940) the warning slide ‘was superimposed, and fitted fair and square on the blackboard on the film strip’ or, Vivienne Phillips’s recollection of the audience’s laughter as the alert slide coincided with the appearance of John Dunne’s poem at the start of For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943). Letter to author, 20 May 2011. 25 On the dangers inherent in the early period of film exhibition, and attempts to control them, see David R. Williams, ‘The Cinematograph Act of 1909: an introduction to the impetus behind the legislation and some early effects’, Film History, 9:4 (1997). The provisions of the 1909 Act were still in force during the war, and were superseded only in 1952. 26 TNA HO 199/268: Memo by Mr Cotter, 31 July 1940. 27 TNA HO 199/268: Memo by Mr Cotter, 2 August 1940. 28 TNA HO 199/268: Memo by R. H. Parker, 31 July 1940. 29 Quoted in Helen Jones, British Civilians in the Front Line: Air Raids, Productivity and Wartime Culture, 1939–45 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2006), p. 81. 30 See, for example, Kinematograph Weekly, 29 August 1940, p. 4. On one occasion, staff at the Granada, Greenford, entertained patrons for six hours after the programme had finished, going so far as to organise an impromptu jitterbug competition. Middlesex County Times, 31 August 1940, p. 1. 31 Kinematograph Weekly, 19 September 1940, p. 5. 32 BFI Special Collections: Bernstein Papers: Box 78 – Wandsworth Road (1940): Letter from F. C. Knott to Cecil G. Bernstein, 29 September 1940. 33 Morgan, Red Roses, p. 33. 34 Kinematograph Weekly, 25 September 1941, p. 6. 35 During 1940, for example, only one Birmingham cinema suffered any fatalities. See Kinematograph Weekly, 9 January 1941, p. 5. CEA Annual Report, 1940, pp. 11–12; CEA Annual Report, 1941, pp. 12–13. 36 A. L. Carter, ‘Film exhibition and cinema technique’, Kinematograph Yearbook,



Forlorn and bedraggled spectacles

1942 (London: Kinematograph Publications, 1942), p. 185. It is difficult to assess with any certainty how many cinemas were out of action at any one time. 37 The impact of the war on Portsmouth’s cinemas, in particular the Regent, has been discussed by Sue Harper, ‘Fragmentation and crisis: 1940s admissions figures at the Regent cinema, Portsmouth, UK’, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, 26:3 (2006). 38 CEA Annual Report, 1940, p. 11; T. A. Thompson, ‘Front-line Folkestone’, Picture House, 8 (1986), p. 14. 39 Cinema, 2 October 1940, p. 3. 40 Kinematograph Weekly: 9 January 1941, p. 9; 30 January 1941, p. 8. 41 East Grinstead Observer, 14 August 1943, p. 4. 42 Steve King, interview with author, 31 January 2011. 43 MOA: Diarist 5420, 28 October 1940. It should be noted that this diarist’s enthusiasm for the cinema soon returned. 44 Kinematograph Weekly, 12 December 1940, p. 4. An example of the type of article that provoked concern can be found in Daily Express, 27 November 1940, p. 1. 45 The reporting of the bombing of schools, and the official response to such reports, is discussed in Gardiner, The Blitz, p. 164. 46 See, for example, Daily Mirror, 4 December 1940, p. 12. 47 Cinema, 16 October 1940, p. 3. 48 Kinematograph Weekly, 9 January 1941, p. 31. See also Cinema, 16 October 1940, p. 9. Formatting in original. 49 In most instances such anonymity was maintained for a period of four weeks, although in some exceptional circumstances – for instance Coventry after the raids of 14–15 November 1940 – towns were named sooner. For lists of which towns were given which titles, see TNA INF 1/845. 50 For more on this phenomenon, see Angus Calder, The Myth of the Blitz (London: Pimlico, 1992), pp. 128–9. 51 Kinematograph Weekly, 19 August 1943, p. 12; Cinema: Construction and Equipment Section, 2 October 1940, p. 16. 52 Morgan, Red Roses, p. 35. 53 Kinematograph Weekly, 26 June 1941, p. 27. 54 London Evening News, 26 September 1940, p. 2. 55 Kinematograph Weekly, 9 January 1941, p. 31. 56 Today’s Cinema, 13 September 1940, p. 2. 57 See Harper, ‘Fragmentation and crisis’, p. 363. 58 Dorrie Crow of Leeds noted that problems with transport were one of the factors that ‘took the gilt off the gingerbread’ and led to her frequenting local rather than city centre cinemas. Letter in Picturegoer, 5 October 1940, p. 33. 59 See Charles Graves, London Transport at War (Harpenden, Herts.: Oldcastle Books, 1989). 60 For more on this phenomenon, see Kinematograph Weekly, 12 September 1940, p. 4.

123

124

Cinemas and cinemagoing in wartime Britain, 1939–45

61 London Evening Standard, 10 September 1940, p. 8. 62 Total tickets sales for week ending Friday 13 September amounted to 3,673. Allen Eyles, ‘Hits and misses at the Empire’, Picture House, 13 (Summer 1989), p. 26. 63 MOA: Diarist 5132, 13 December 1940. The total number of tickets sold for week ending 13 December 1940 at the Empire was 12,066. The fact that I Love You Again was playing for a second week might have reduced ticket sales: the previous week it had attracted 18,144 patrons. 64 See Daily Film Renter, 30 October 1940, p. 1. 65 Morgan, Red Roses, p. 36. 66 CEA statement quoted in News Chronicle, 11 September 1940, p. 1. 67 For further details, see Morgan, Red Roses, pp. 41–2. Repairs were nearing completion when the cinema was hit by another bomb in May 1941 – the cinema remained closed for the rest of the war. 68 BFI Special Collections: Bernstein Papers: Box 78 – Wandsworth Road (1940): Letters from F. C. Knott to Cecil G. Bernstein, 22 October and 22 September 1940. The statistics detail evening (i.e. after 6 p.m.) takings from 1 September to 19 October 1940. 69 BFI Special Collections: Bernstein Papers: Box 78 – Wandsworth Road (1940): Letters from F. C. Knott to Cecil G. Bernstein, 15, 22 and 29 September 1940. 70 BFI Special Collections: Bernstein Papers: Box 78 – Wandsworth Road (1940): Letter from F. C. Knott to Cecil G. Bernstein, 22 October 1940. 71 Today’s Cinema, 24 September 1940, p. 1. 72 Kinematograph Weekly, 19 September 1940, p. 5. 73 Eyles, ‘Hits and misses at the Empire’, pp. 26, 36. A similar growth in afternoon ticket sales was reported by ABPC in September 1940. See Today’s Cinema, 17 September 1940, pp. 1, 4. 74 The Daily Express reported that cinemas were full on the first evening of Double Summer Time, but rather sniffily observed that many people took advantage of the longer evening by walking about ‘aimlessly, with nothing better to do than peer at bomb damage’. 5 May 1941, p. 1. 75 Kinematograph Weekly, 9 January 1941, p. 31. 76 Anon., ‘South Wales and Monmouthshire’, in CEA Annual Report, 1940, p. 55. 77 Daily Mirror, 5 June 1942, p. 7. 78 Kinematograph Weekly, 28 August 1940, p. 18. 79 Ronald Driver, letter, Picturegoer, 21 September 1940, p. 19. 80 Ronald Driver, letter, Picturegoer, 28 December 1940, p. 20. 81 On the aesthetics of war as spectacle see, for example: John Hodgkins, ‘Hearts and minds and bodies: reconsidering the cinematic language of The Battle of the Somme’, Film & History, 38:1 (2008), esp. pp. 16–8; James Chapman, War and Film (London: Reaktion Books, 2008), pp. 17–102, 171–244. 82 D. Macrae, letter, Picturegoer, 21 December 1940, p. 21.



Forlorn and bedraggled spectacles

83 Irene Craven, interview with author, 17 September 2010. 84 Ninette Finch, email to author, 4 April 2011. 85 BFI Special Collections: Bernstein Papers: Box 78 – Wandsworth Road (1940): Letter from F. C. Knott to Sidney and Cecil G. Bernstein, 9 September 1940. See also John Boorman’s Hope and Glory (1987). 86 Angus Calder, The People’s War: Britain 1939–1945 (London: Pimlico, 2008), p. 177. 87 Basil Woon, Hell Came to London: A Reportage of the Blitz during 14 days (London: Peter Davies, 1941), p. 91. 88 Ralph Ingersoll, Report on England (London: John Lane The Bodley Head, 1941), p. 8. 89 Woon, Hell Came to London, p. viii. When quoting Ingersoll, Woon omitted the word ‘almost’. 90 The Times, 7 September 1939, p. 7. This article discusses the theatre, but its conclusions are equally applicable to the cinema. 91 Calder, Myth of the Blitz. 92 Tilly Rice, diary entry, 1 October 1940. Garfield (ed.), We Are at War, p. 379. 93 Maggie Joy Blunt, diary entry, 12 January 1941. Simon Garfield (ed.), Private Battles: How the War Almost Defeated Us (London: Ebury Press, 2006), pp. 47–8. 94 Cine-Technician, 7:29 (January–February 1941), p. 15. 95 London Evening News, 26 September 1940, p. 2. 96 John S. Bulwer, letter, Picturegoer, 5 October 1940, p. 33. 97 BFI Special Collections: Bernstein Papers: Box 78 – Wandsworth Road (1940): Letter from F. C. Knott to Sidney and Cecil G. Bernstein, 15 September 1940. 98 Picture Show, 28 September 1940, p. 9. 99 Eric Sevareid, Not So Wild a Dream (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1946), p. 173. 100 Time, 6 March 1944, p. 40. 101 Chief Constables were given special control powers to restrict entertainments in certain, mostly coastal, areas in the wake of D-Day, in anticipation of German retaliation. See TNA HO 186/1435. 102 See, for example, Edward Stebbing, M-O diary entry, 16 June 1944, in Garfield (ed.), Private Battles, pp. 431–2. 103 See, for example, Jane Gordon, Married to Charles (London: William Heinemann, 1950), p. 234; or Vere Hodgson, Few Eggs and No Oranges: A Diary Showing How Unimportant People in London and Birmingham Lived through the War Years 1940–1945 (London: Dennis Dobson, 1976), pp. 388–9. 104 Evelyn Waugh quoted in Calder, People’s War, p. 560. See also Mollie PanterDownes on the ‘illogical, Wellsian creepiness’ of the V-1s. Letter to the New Yorker, 18 June 1944. In Shawn (ed.), London War Notes, p. 330. 105 Daily Film Renter, 5 July 1944, p. 4; Churchill insisted that with his speech ‘the

125

126

Cinemas and cinemagoing in wartime Britain, 1939–45

phrase “Southern England” passes out of currency’. 6 July 1944. Parliamentary Debates: House of Commons, 5th Series, vol. 401, col. 1328. 106 Daily Film Renter, 10 July 1944, p. 4. 107 Morgan, Red Roses, pp. 81–3. Morgan notes that the later V-2 rockets, for which no warning could be given, did not greatly affect people’s cinemagoing habits. 108 TNA MEPO 2/6418: Superintendent ‘F’ (Hammersmith), ‘Attendances at cinemas’, 24 June 1944. 109 Kinematograph Weekly, 21 September 1944, p. 14; TNA HO 186/2083: Memo by Mr C. J. Petheram, 4 July 1944. Home Office statistics compare attendances at central London cinemas and theatres on 12 and 26 June 1944. 110 Daily Film Renter, 10 July 1944, p. 4. 111 Vivienne Phillips, letter to author, 20 May 2011. 112 Quoted in Norman Longmate, The Doodlebugs: The Story of the Flying Bombs (London: Hutchinson, 1981), pp. 156–7. 113 Vivienne Phillips, letter to author, 20 May 2011. Only when the film was shown on television some years later were the mechanics of the escape revealed. 114 Manchester Guardian, 24 November 1944, p. 6. 115 Mollie Panter Downes, letter to the New Yorker, 3 December 1944. In Shawn (ed.), London War Notes, p. 351. 116 The Times, 24 November 1944, p. 6. See also Daily Film Renter, 23 November 1944, p. 20: ‘the dread drone of the death-dealing robot’. 117 Daily Mirror, 20 September 1944, p. 4. 118 J. Samuels, letter, in Picturegoer, 20 January 1945, p. 14. 119 London Evening News, 26 September 1940, p. 2. 120 Kinematograph Weekly, 27 February 1941, p. 8; Allen Eyles ‘When exhibitors saw Scarlett: the war over Gone With the Wind’, Picture House, 27 (2002), p. 29. 121 Cinema, 25 September 1940, p. 6.

On the appearance and disappearance of staff

4 On the appearance and disappearance of staff

A

cinema is not a building in which films simply happen; it is a building in which films are made to happen, a site where experience is created and consumed as a result of human action and human desire. A cinema is a vital, vibrant space, one given life and purpose by the people to be found therein. The human in the cinema has most often been understood in terms of the audience, that amalgamation of individuals, couples, friends and families that coalesce and disperse according to the subtle rhythms of the changing programme. But the cinema is also a site of employment, a workplace where legions of front-of-house and behind-the-scenes staff labour day after day to ensure that the show goes on. The audience is coming to occupy its rightful, central position in the history of the film; cinema employees less so. This is, perhaps, unsurprising: the number of people who visit a cinema to watch a film has always far outstripped the number of workers needed to run a cinema; the emotional, physical and social pleasures experienced by patrons during a screening attract more attention than do the people who make such experiences possible. It would be wrong, though, to gloss over the issue of cinema staffing. As Bertolt Brecht noted in ‘Questions from a worker who reads’, Even in fabled Atlantis The night the ocean engulfed it, The drowning still bawled for their slaves.1

To focus on that which is consumed, or those who consumed it, is to risk marginalising the role of those who contributed to the production of an experience that was central to many millions of people every day. This was especially true during a period such as the Second World War when debates about the most efficacious use of manpower contributed in

128

Cinemas and cinemagoing in wartime Britain, 1939–45

no small measure to how the war was understood, and when the practical direction of manpower contributed in no small measure to how the war was experienced. The Ministry of Labour became as dominant a player on the Home Front as the service ministries were on the various fighting fronts, and the government’s desire to place workers where it was felt they would make the most telling contribution to the war effort often left the industries from which they were taken understaffed. Guns were deemed more important than trouser turn-ups, tanks more important than ice cream. But where did the cinema, at once a luxury and an important element of everyday life and leisure, fit into this scheme? Without workers, the cinema could not provide entertainment and relaxation to the tens of millions of people who purchased tickets each week. But how many of the 75,000 workers employed by the exhibition industry in 1939 were needed, and of what age, and how skilled?2 For cinema managers, this was a thorny problem, and staffing was the most persistent and the most difficult issue that the exhibition sector had to deal with during the war. The industry did not want to be considered unpatriotic, but neither was it prepared to simply let its most valuable staff leave without fighting to keep them. As well as striving to keep technically trained employees such as projectionists, the exhibition sector was concerned about losing other workers, not least because in many municipalities local licencing committees only allowed cinemas to trade if they employed a certain number of staff. In Middlesex, for example, cinemas were required to employ one attendant for every 150 patrons.3 In peacetime, such regulations were not particularly onerous. Wages were comparatively low, and it was not unusual for a super-cinema to have a staff of twenty or more. In wartime, with the labour market distorted by government direction, it became harder – and more expensive – to retain staff. And in a period marked by a greatly increased turnover of employees, it was much more difficult to recruit and train new employees. Interaction with staff capable of providing a high standard of service contributed to the atmosphere of a venue and so helped shape a patron’s experience of a cinema. But, as Ideal Kinema recognised, for staff to be able to make this contribution, they needed to be recognisable as staff: ‘The business of securing suitable staff, and having secured them to dress them in a manner becoming the recognised fitness of appearance upon which a cinema prides itself, does constitute a real anxiety.’4 As far as exhibitors were concerned, both the appearance and potential disappearance of staff



On the appearance and disappearance of staff

constituted problems that posed considerable difficulties to British cinemas during the war. Soldiers, civilians, tramps and generals In A Canterbury Tale (1944), a sinister figure known as the Glue Man attacks women in the Kentish village of Chillingbourne, pouring glue in their hair in an attempt to stop them associating with the soldiers stationed in the area. Alison Smith (Sheila Sim), assaulted on her first night in Chillingbourne, seeks to uncover the identity of the Glue Man, whom she – and the other victims – remember as having been dressed in military uniform. When Alison suggests that the assailant might be a civilian in a serviceman’s clothes, Fee Baker (Betty Jardine), who has also been attacked, quickly responds, ‘And what makes a civilian a soldier? A uniform.’ The idea that costume helps to construct identity is evident at many points in A Canterbury Tale. Of the other women attacked by the Glue Man – whose identity is confirmed for the audience, if not the investigators, by a knowing shot of a military greatcoat in a cupboard – one is a bus conductor, one operates railway signals and one is a postwoman. All three women wear uniforms, their clothing demonstrating their right to perform jobs that before the war had frequently been done by men. Clothes are important. If identity is performed, then dress assists in carrying off a particular role. This is especially true of uniforms, a mode of clothing intended to send out a range of signals. As Jennifer Craik has observed, uniforms are ‘communicative statements’ that send out messages the importance of which far exceeds the importance that the clothes have as physical objects.5 Further, the uniform draws attention to the wearer, differentiating them from those wearing non-uniformed clothing, whilst simultaneously undermining claims to individuality by positioning the wearer as part of a collective. Indeed, authority seems frequently to be vested in the uniform as much as in the wearer. As Fee understood, a civilian is transformed into a soldier in the eyes of those observing them through the donning of the necessary garb. In the cinema, staff uniforms served two purposes, one practical, the other ornamental. The 1909 Cinematograph Act had provided local authorities with a far greater degree of control over the issuing of cinema licences, and in many cases it was stipulated that not only were staff to be on hand to assist with evacuation should it be necessary, but also that they

129

130

Cinemas and cinemagoing in wartime Britain, 1939–45

be attired so that they might easily be recognised by patrons in the event of an emergency. As importantly, uniforms also contributed to the identity of the exhibition sector as a whole: Among the many factors which make for the attractiveness of the modern cinema, a well-dressed staff, both male and female, is as important as a welldecorated and artistically lit interior. This was increasingly recognised during the years before the outbreak of the war, when harmoniously coloured materials, faultlessly tailored, played their part in the general ensemble.6

Exhibitors were, though, warned against excessive flamboyance: uniforms that were ‘too gaudy’ were ‘not only unserviceable’ but also created ‘an air of cheapness and garishness in the theatre that is not advantageous to business’.7 The advent of clothes rationing in June 1941 made it far more difficult for exhibitors to provide uniforms for their staff. Under the terms of the scheme, employees were expected to use their own coupons, although not necessarily their own money, to purchase work clothes.8 For staff, this was not a welcome development; a commissionaire’s uniform, which might consist of suit, cap, boots, overcoat and mackintosh, could account for 40 per cent of his annual coupon allocation if the coat was lined and the suit was worn with a waistcoat.9 The Board of Trade (BoT) encouraged disgruntled employees to look on the bright side by pointing out that ‘the wearing of uniform effects a saving in requirements for ordinary clothing’.10 Looking to make light of the grumbling that accompanied the start of the clothes rationing scheme, MGM placed an advertisement in the trade press that presented a cartoon of Leo the lion, the company’s mascot, wearing only a pair of underpants, on which were printed the names of successful and forthcoming films. ‘Leo doesn’t need 66 coupons’, ran the tagline, ‘he covers himself with glory!’11 When the BoT announced that it was to introduce a system whereby ‘essential uniforms’ might be obtained without the surrender of the full number of clothing coupons, both the Cinematograph Exhibitors’ Association and the National Association of Theatrical and Kinema Employees requested that cinema employees be included in the scheme. Both were rebuffed, and the CEA was notified that ‘in view of the urgent necessity for economy in clothing and footwear the Board of Trade is not prepared to agree that the uniforms worn by cinema attendants are essential in wartime’.12



On the appearance and disappearance of staff

In instances where uniforms were integral to local licensing laws, the CEA advised members to notify the relevant authorities that in future staff might be provided with no more than a cap or a hat, and a brassard or armlet, clothes that the BoT regarded as ‘sufficient badges of authority’.13 To many exhibitors this was a deeply unsatisfactory outcome; one complained that ‘to give members of staff an armband was not sufficient to provide identification in the dark’ and declared that it was ‘in the general interests that the staff should be properly uniformed’.14 What’s more, it was feared that caps and armbands would most likely fail as signifiers of authority at the very moments when they were most needed to act as such: Should panic occur and a crowd assemble near a doorway in an attempt to find an exit from the building, an armlet would not be seen, or a cap might be accidentally knocked off in the hurry of the moment, and one person’s command to those to do this or that is no more authoritative than another’s.15

The BoT would not be budged, and insisted that a cinema might replace its staff’s uniforms with ‘utility overalls’ which were available, it informed exhibitors, ‘in a small range of colours at three coupons each’.16 These suggestions, and others like them, met with considerable reluctance. In July 1943 a Manchester exhibitor stated bitterly that his doorman ‘look[ed] like a tramp’ and that another employee was forced to wear a second-hand uniform (the purchase of which did not require coupons) ‘with enough gold braid on it for an Italian general’. The Board of Trade, cinema managers claimed, was ‘not particularly concerned if the attendants are in rags’.17 Exhibitors came in for a share of the blame, too: I was astounded the other day while standing in the smart foyer of a large London circuit theatre to notice that the trousers of a young attendant nearby were frayed and ‘whiskery’ at the bottoms of the legs. The rest of the outfit seemed on fairly good condition and a little attention by a competent needlewoman would have made the nether garments presentable in a very short time … Men patrons would probably not notice a ragged trouser leg, but I’ll bet most of the women patrons would spot it, and register mental disapproval of the management of this house.18

Remarks like these attest to the importance of staff uniform in the construction of the idea of cinemagoing. For all their practicality, staff uniforms helped to conjure a sense of glamour, and so contributed to the cinema’s ability to control the senses. Discussing his youthful trips to the cinema in the 1930s, Bernard Goodsall recalled that ‘The anticipation of

131

132

Cinemas and cinemagoing in wartime Britain, 1939–45

the feast to come started as you approached the cinema, the lights, the uniformed commissionaire and it didn’t matter what was on the screen.’ Here, the cinema’s ability to reach out beyond the immediate confines of the place of exhibition was predicated on a range of visual pleasures that allowed the venue to project its difference from the ‘drab surroundings’ of the everyday, pleasures that stood apart from but complemented those of the film itself.19 So important were smart uniforms to high-end venues that a daily inspection parade was a feature of most such cinemas. Staff members were assembled shortly before opening so that the manager was able ensure that stockings were straight and buttons clean, even though exhibitors were warned that employees would most likely ‘resent a minute inspection on military lines’.20 Smaller, less prestigious cinemas had more limited budgets and so tended towards humbler uniforms, and the supers almost always decked out members of staff in more arresting clothes (see Figure 8). Doris Senior, who worked as an usherette at the Odeon in Leicester, recalled that her uniform was a ‘Deep red and white. White … round the cuff but then a collar and a deep red dress.’21 In all cases, employees were expected to impress patrons not simply by their attentiveness – through the provision of service which approximated that ‘which is part of the pattern of the rich

8

Staff of the Odeon cinema, Isleworth, c. 1935.



On the appearance and disappearance of staff

man’s everyday life’22 – but also by the attractiveness of their appearance. To this end, cinema managers wore evening dress to impress on patrons both their own status and that of their theatre, although this practice pretty much died out during the war.23 It would be incorrect to suggest that physical beauty was all that mattered to those hiring staff, but it was certainly a consideration. As George Quittenbourne, a manager for Portsmouth Town Cinemas during the 1940s, admitted, usherettes did not require any particular skills, ‘as long as they were attractive’.24 Eva Balogh has argued that the usherette was presented to the public in an intentionally sexualised manner in order to invest British auditoriums with a touch of Hollywood glamour.25 The widespread use of uniforms institutionalised this process by enclosing the eroticised body – predominantly female, but occasionally male26 – within a visually recognisable symbol of a specific corporate culture. Winifred Horrabin, who reviewed films for the left-leaning Tribune, described a tendency to essentialise the fundamental appeal of the usherette as a ‘pair of baggy breeches covering a jaunty behind’.27 As uniforms became more difficult to procure, there is anecdotal evidence to suggest that a physiognomic element was introduced into recruitment procedures; the most attractive candidates became those who might be able to fill the clothes vacated by their immediate predecessor.28 Whereas previously it was possible for cinemas to tailor uniforms to ensure a decent fit, a policy that accentuated the glamour of the uniform by highlighting the physical characteristics of individual staff members, the growing scarcity of uniforms and the increasingly venerable nature of those that remained, meant that many a wartime usherette or commissionaire had to make do with what were obviously hand-me-downs. As Norma Phillips well understood, this mattered: ‘there is nothing so detrimental to a cinema as the sight of cinema and theatre doormen, dressed in badly-fitting, ill-cut uniforms’.29 In a period when hundreds of thousands of Britons were still employed as domestic servants, and where countless others worked in factories, docks, railways or offices – relatively low-paid jobs where they might expect to be addressed by their last name, if at all – one of the luxuries offered by the cinema was that patrons might expect to be treated courteously by a uniformed commissionaire who might hold open the door with an actual or implied ‘Sir’ or ‘Madam’. Although courteous service was not dependent upon an attendant wearing a smart uniform, it was underscored by it; it seems likely that for many working-class cinemagoers there was

133

134

Cinemas and cinemagoing in wartime Britain, 1939–45

pleasure to be had in being served by someone in uniform, as opposed to serving someone whilst in uniform. The role that uniforms played in the construction of the cinema as an experiential environment was relatively subtle; the role that clothes played in constructing cinema as an entertainment was much more obvious. Costume is one of the key pleasures of the film,30 and its importance to cinemagoers is evident in the sustained popularity of historical films and melodramas that make overt use of clothing as spectacle. Such spectacle was appealing in absolute and comparative terms, exciting for its own sake and for the sartorial contrast it offered to the more limited and mundane clothes available to the average British cinemagoer. Yet, in Britain during the Second World War, there were concerns that the same scheme that forced workers in the exhibition industry to pay for uniforms out of their annual clothing allocation would be extended to the production sector; that costume design for In Which We Serve (1942) or Madonna of the Seven Moons (1944) would ultimately be decided by the number of spare coupons that Noel Coward or Phyllis Calvert could scrape together to bring with them to the first day of shooting.31 The BoT moved swiftly to allay the producers’ fears, and announced in July 1941 that bona fide producers would be granted additional coupons in order to dress actors in a suitable manner. Costume design in wartime cinema might be understood to have been especially significant, for governmental interference in the usual running of the clothing industry – what Mass-Observation dubbed the ‘conscription of fashion’32 – meant that not only were clothes rationed, but also that they were materially different to garments produced prewar. In order to ensure the most efficient use of fabric and labour, the government introduced the utility clothing scheme, which introduced standardised designs across a range of fabrics and clothing types. Because utility clothing was subject to both price and quality control, the scheme brought longer-lasting and better-cut clothes within the reach of a larger proportion of society, meaning that, coupons permitting, many poorer Britons had access to a higher standard of clothing during the war than they had before 1939. The Board of Trade also introduced a series of Civilian Clothing (Restrictions) Orders that sought to save material by, for example, prescribing a maximum length for shorts, socks, shirts and skirts (‘one feels awfully cold about the knees’),33 and limiting the number of pockets, pleats, seams and buttons.34



On the appearance and disappearance of staff

Even though the war years were, from a sartorial perspective, not nearly so colourless and shabby as popular memory might have it – the name ‘utility’ did not help, as was recognised contemporaneously35 – the move towards increasing standardisation resulted in what Antonia Lant has described as the ‘subtle uniforming of the nation’.36 This process, however, did not eliminate an interest in fashion (at either the personal or national level), and women in particular were urged both to restrict consumption of clothes and cosmetics and continue to regard ‘beauty as duty’.37 Against the backdrop of state-controlled clothing design, and also bearing in mind the high proportion of Britons in uniform, the unrationed, unrestricted and often impractical costumes visible in the cinema came to offer both visual pleasure and a measure of psychological release. Whilst it is clear that there were a range of different responses to onscreen costumes – one woman observed that to take pleasure from ‘expensive clothes and jewels seems in bad taste … so unlike the world as it exists today’38 – the contrast that clothes rationing and austerity design drew between the costumes and lifestyles available to actors and those in the auditorium was a clear one, as contributors to J. P. Mayer’s British Cinemas and Their Audiences made clear: When I’ve been to a film (especially one in Technicolor) I always walk home feeling disgusted with the drab town I live in, the paint-work of doors etc. seem awfully dull and dresses look plain after seeing the glorious scenery and stylish clothes in the film.39 Do films make me dissatisfied? Definitely they do! I find myself comparing my home, my clothes, even my husband.40

Comments such as these make it clear that although cinema had the power to transport, it also had the power to make cinemagoers acutely aware of their surroundings. It was this very awareness that had the capacity to alarm exhibitors. For if patrons compared their own wardrobes to those of the stars and found them lacking, how harshly might they judge the increasingly tired looking uniforms worn by cinema employees? Where uniform had been a sign of prestige and a symbol of stability, speaking of an industry that was confident of its status and its position within British society, the difficulties associated with maintaining pre-war dress standards meant that uniforms, by making visible some of the myriad difficulties faced by exhibitors in wartime, became associated with instability and improvisation.

135

136

Cinemas and cinemagoing in wartime Britain, 1939–45

Labour pains In August 1944, Derrick Edenborough, a cinema manager recently deployed to a new theatre, wrote to Kinematograph Weekly to boast of his staff. As well as outlining their courageous response to recent V-1 rocket attacks, he noted the shift in demographics brought about by the war: The page, a young fellow of 68 years of age, who answers to the sobriquet ‘Enoch’, is a lively and dashing fellow, and most willing to oblige at all times. Then comes ‘Mick’, a dashing young lad of 69, most popular with the girls and very handy with the vacuum. The next on the juvenile list is a young fellow called ‘Alf ’, whose brass is the pride of his life, and he’s a regular devil on the ticket string. He is a mere 69. The foreman, a callow youth of 69, is renowned for his ability at dashing up and down the stairs and chasing the usherettes around (figuratively). Finally, we have two very young boilermen, aged 75 and 80 respectively. These two young fellows are always playing practical jokes on each other, and are frequently to be seen playing leapfrog on the car park, when the foreman is absent.

Although his letter is very clearly playful in tone, Edenborough (‘aged 35, feels like 75’) makes clear the impact that the government’s direction of the workforce – which saw Britons liable to be moved into the services or war work – had on British cinemas.41 Indeed, the bruising battles that the exhibition industry had with the Ministry of Labour, which under Ernest Bevin, its most famous wartime minister, became ‘more important … than the Exchequer itself’,42 posed a very real threat to the cinema’s ability to remain operational. The rapid growth in ticket sales during the war, and especially after 1942, might be explained in part through the increase in disposable income that resulted from the combination of price control and the almost full employment arising from the movement of workers into essential industries;43 yet the same direction of labour that had the power to swell box-office takings also threatened to leave these same box offices under- or entirely unstaffed. Both the CEA and the government understood that the nation’s need to produce – tanks, planes, guns; servicemen and -women – was counterbalanced by the population’s desire to consume. There was a general consensus, expressed volubly and repeatedly by exhibitors and in more measured tones by the government, that the war could be best prosecuted by a people who were provided with the time and amenities to take a degree of leisure.



On the appearance and disappearance of staff

Yet, the demands that the entertainments industries might be allowed to place upon the manpower budget remained a bone of contention, not least when it came to the question of whether cinema staff should be entitled to ‘reserved’ status; that is, whether they should be exempt from conscription based on the contribution they might make to the war by way of their occupation. By the end of 1941, the Bristol and West of England Branch of the CEA insisted that the time was approaching when the government would ‘have to decide whether our work is of sufficient National importance to justify our remaining open, or whether the need for manpower is greater’.44 It was the status of projectionists, also known as operators, that most concerned the cinema industry. Usherettes, commissionaires, cleaners, handymen, chocolate girls and box-office staff might be replaced, even if unsatisfactorily (or geriatrically), but projectionists were arguably the most highly skilled, and therefore the most important, members of a cinema’s staff. Without the projectionists, the show, quite literally, could not go on. So the passing of the National Service (Armed Forces) Act on 3 September 1939, which made possible the conscription of any man between the ages of eighteen and forty-one, promised to undermine the exhibition sector. At the outbreak of the war, the ‘supply of male operators … already presented problems in a number of districts’.45 The conscription of projectionists would only exacerbate these problems – in March 1940, approximately 85 per cent of first and second operators (that is, those who were qualified to take sole responsibility for the use and maintenance of the projection box) were liable for conscription.46 Furthermore, the supply of replacement projectionists was far from guaranteed; second and third operators tended to be younger, and so were more likely to be called to the colours sooner. The CEA advocated a two-pronged approach to the operator issue, seeking both to protect existing projectionists from the call-up by lobbying for them to be granted reserved status, and also urging the immediate introduction of training schemes that would ensure a sufficient supply of qualified projectionists. However, given the length of time it took to master the skills needed to take charge of a projection room, and the belief that men would be more prone to conscription than women, the CEA swiftly came to the conclusion that the more widespread employment of female projectionists would be a wartime ‘necessity’.47 Trade papers also quickly grasped the implications of the National Service Act: the armed forces were ‘taking a pretty large percentage of the young men from the p ­ rojection

137

138

Cinemas and cinemagoing in wartime Britain, 1939–45

rooms, and it won’t be long before the rustle of skirts is heard in the bioscope boxes’.48 Female projectionists are discussed below, but it is worth mentioning here that one of the reasons exhibitors fought so hard and for so long to keep hold of their operators was the belief that women were less well suited to work in the projection room than were men. Indeed, Tom O’Brien, General Secretary of NATKE, suggested that neither the union nor the CEA wanted to have ‘women operators installed in the boxes [i.e. projection rooms], if it can be avoided’.49 In January 1940, NATKE, with the support of the CEA, wrote to the Ministry of Labour to request that projectionists over the age of 25 be placed on the schedule of reserved occupations: ‘Cinema operators are key men in the industry, and without them it would be impossible to run cinema performances. Upon these men depends the employment of other male and female members of staff.’50 This initial approach was rejected, in part, the union believed, on the basis of semantics: … much of the difficulty had been caused by the operators themselves having … styled themselves as projectionists … [whereas] the work of the operator was not only that of projection but … to maintain the electrical, engineering and projection and sound equipment of the theatre.51

In May, however, with the projectionists having restyled themselves ‘cinema operators and maintenance mechanics’, and the Ministry of Labour now fully appraised of the full scope of their duties, it was announced that first and second operators over the age of 25 would be placed on the schedule of reserved occupations. This news came as a huge relief to the industry, and at the end of the year the CEA’s General Council was happy to bask in the praise of its rank and file members.52 The reservation of first and second projectionists not only secured the immediate future of British cinemas, it also pleased the exhibition sector because of the implicit statement it made about the important position that the industry was considered to occupy in wartime. Having been placed on the reserved list, many male projectionists sought to demonstrate the importance of their contribution to the war effort not simply in terms of the continuing contribution that they made to the cinema, but also to British society more widely. Sonya Rose has observed of the Second World War that it was a period in which for men to be ‘judged as good citizens, they needed to be able to demonstrate their virtue by being visibly in the military’.53 Clearly, this was difficult for men in civvies, and



On the appearance and disappearance of staff

although it appears that those distributing white feathers during the Second World War were less militant than those handing them out in the First, projectionists of military age might be understood to have felt a desire to ‘prove’ their masculinity – most importantly by fire-watching and firefighting. From January 1941, all places of business had to ensure that a sufficient number of suitably qualified staff were on hand to watch for fires caused by incendiary bombs. Cinemas were also obliged to train a proportion of employees so that they might be certified as firefighters. It made sense to train permanent staff in these duties, especially in firefighting. This most often meant operators because they were reserved, because the inflammability of film stock meant that they had often received basic instruction in firefighting methods already, and because in some districts licensing authorities refused to accept that women might be able to perform firefighting duties.54 The increased cultural prominence of firemen during the war, especially during the blitz and witnessed in films such as The Bells Go Down and Fires Were Started (both 1943), meant that the bravery of those involved in firefighting duties became better known, and that firemen became a more recognised masculine trope.55 (It might also be suggested that exhibitors were similarly keen to point to the demonstrably ‘masculine’ role played by their reserved staff, wary of the potential backlash that might attend their continued employment of a group of fit young men who, critics might imply, were unwilling or unable to demonstrate their value to the community as men.) Obviously projectionists were not full-time firemen, and not all cinema firewatchers and firefighters were male, but their involvement in this activity aligned them with wartime gender norms. With the operator question resolved, for the time being at least, the industry turned its mind to another group of workers: managers. The length of time it took to attain control of a picture house meant that many managers tended to be over 40, and therefore exempt from conscription, but there were still a significant number who might expect to receive their call-up papers. The Leeds branch of the CEA advanced the idea that managers with ten years’ experience should be reserved on the grounds that ‘if the opening of cinemas was necessary, the conduct and operation of them was equally important’.56 Some managers, though, were not prepared to wait on the Ministry of Labour’s (ultimately negative) reply to the question of manager reservation, and resorted to underhand measures to avoid registration. The London Court of Projectionists reported that within days of operators being placed on the schedule of reserved occupations, some

139

140

Cinemas and cinemagoing in wartime Britain, 1939–45

managers in the capital were seeking to reclassify themselves as projectionists. This was, exhibitors were warned in no uncertain terms, a criminal offence and ‘would be rigorously combatted by [NATKE] and the CEA’.57 Throughout 1941, the Ministry of Labour’s ‘extractions’ were greeted by cinema managers ‘with an enthusiasm similar to that extended to the dental profession’.58 As the war bit, and with the demand for manpower growing ever more insistent, the exhibition sector found the Ministry casting its eyes ever more jealously at the cinema projectionists. In April 1941, the news that the age of reservation for operators might be increased from 25 to 35 sent exhibitors into a spin, and brought with it claims that as many as 2,000 more operators might soon face de-reservation. Such a change, it was believed, might bring about the closure of hundreds of cinemas, and the CEA asked whether the calling-up of such a small number of men – ‘a mere drop in the ocean of the Forces’ – was ‘of such paramount importance that it should be the means of depriving millions of people of their means of mental relaxation?’59 Deputations to the Ministry of Labour by both workers’ and employers’ organisations harped on this theme, but also sought to utilise some of the credit gained through the industry’s close associations with other government departments: We have been assured by numbers of Government spokesmen that the cinema makes an essential national contribution to the war effort in the maintenance of public morale. We must, therefore, ask you [that] unless you intend as a settled policy to close a considerable number of cinemas in this country, to reinstate first and second projectionists at the age of 25 … We show regularly in every programme propaganda films of the Ministry of Information … The closing of any large number of cinemas would also affect the very substantial contribution we make to the national exchequer by way of Entertainments Tax.

This letter, written by W. R. Fuller of the CEA, finished in a slightly menacing tone: ‘You would quickly experience the effect in industrial output if a considerable number of workers were deprived of cinema entertainment.’60 However, although such arguments stayed the government’s hand whilst the operator question was more fully scrutinised, the Ministry of Labour announced that as of 1 September 1941, second projectionists would be de-reserved as originally planned. First projectionists would remain reserved from the age of 25. Whilst the de-reservation of second operators did not in fact cut the anticipated swathe through the industry,



On the appearance and disappearance of staff

141

there were noticeable consequences: the loss of qualified second operators resulted in the introduction of more inexperienced staff, something that had the potential to ‘wreck a reputation for high projection standards’.61 Projectionists were, as far as the public was concerned, a largely anonymous and unsung body, but their skills were widely appreciated. As conscription reduced the number of experienced operators, cinemagoers found it harder and harder to ignore the attendant changes in their entertainment. By 1944, the situation had reached something of a nadir, and one angry patron wrote to Picturegoer to complain that the standard of projection in British cinemas ‘is surely worse today than it has ever been since the picture theatre’s earliest days. Almost every error that an operator can produce by inattention, carelessness or ignorance can now often be witnessed during a single visit to a cinema.’62 Indeed, the problems resulting from the conscription of experienced staff and the hasty training of replacements became so recognisable a phenomenon in the later years of the war that Punch could print a cartoon poking fun at the situation (see Figure 9).

Maurice McLaughlin in Punch, 8 March 1944.

9

142

Cinemas and cinemagoing in wartime Britain, 1939–45

Wartime conditions led to the loss of both male and female staff. Even before female conscription was introduced in December 1941 by the National Service (No. 2) Act, exhibitors were finding it difficult to retain usherettes in the face of the higher wages on offer in other industries. Although the question of whether cinema usherettes were to be granted reserved status was raised in the House of Commons, there was little concerted attempt to get a blanket exemption from the call-up for this group of workers.63 Instead, cinema managers were offered the chance to demonstrate the indispensability of female staff members on a case-by-case basis, and were encouraged to employ women who were above conscription age to combat the ‘grave shortage’ of younger usherettes.64 Consequently, older employees became far more common, a fact that did not always impress cinemagoers such as the Daily Film Renter’s Tatler, who observed of a trip to a West End cinema in 1943 that The only attendant for the whole of the circle seemed to be an old thing with white hair, who not only had to stand at the head of the stairs and take tickets, but also direct patrons to their seats as well. You’ll admit that’s a pretty onerous job for any usherette, but this motherly old body was getting into a real fluster, and eventually left myself as well as a number of other patrons stranded in pitch darkness to find seats as best we could. Well, if that’s what things are like now, goodness knows what the conditions will be before we’re though.65

In response to similar criticism in Picturegoer, one ‘Usherette-TurnedOperator’ listed the types of women that were still available to work in most cinemas: ‘Grade 4 [and therefore unsuitable for work in essential industry], 50/60 years old, or married women with full-time jobs at home.’ Although not blind to the limitations that age, ability and family commitments imposed on such staff, this correspondent insisted not only that they worked hard for their 28/- a week (‘poor compensation’), but also that ‘Half a “cinematic loaf” is better than none.’66 The novelty of the older usherette was the basis for a lengthy comic sequence in Old Mother Riley’s Circus (1941). When Mother Riley (Arthur Lucan), the charlady at the Pavilion cinema, is asked to stand in for an absent usherette, she jumps at the chance. However, despite her enthusiasm for her ‘saucy’ new uniform, and her almost boundless energy, Mother Riley does not excel in her new role and spends more time antagonising than assisting patrons (see Figure 10). Whilst the sequence is clearly played



On the appearance and disappearance of staff

Mother Riley (Arthur Lucan), complete with ‘saucy’ uniform, assists  a patron in Old Mother Riley’s Circus (1941).

for laughs – and an inventive script and a healthy dose of slapstick keep them coming at regular intervals – the basic joke is that Mother Riley is essentially unsuited to her new job by dint of her age, her appearance and her lack of gracefulness. Mother Riley presents an interesting contrast to Margaret Lockwood’s Jenny Sunley, who in The Stars Look Down (1940) functions as an usherette very much in the traditional mould, with a uniform that complements her youthful physique, and whose glamorousness is set in stark relief to the mining town where the film is set. Whilst Mother Riley was summarily dismissed for upsetting the customers, most memorably for placing a gas mask over the face of a sleeping patron and thereby transforming snores into raspberries, most exhibitors were extremely reluctant to fire staff because of the difficulties associated with securing replacements. Within organisations previously noted for their rigidly hierarchical structure, insubordination became increasingly common, and in some instances staff members simply refused to return to work after being admonished by managers.67 There appears to have been a

143

10

144

Cinemas and cinemagoing in wartime Britain, 1939–45

notable decline in the quality of service. Before the war, J. H. Hutchison had advocated a low-tolerance approach to poor staff behaviour: ‘If several similar complaints are made about the same attendant the manager is advised to make a change. No matter how efficient an employee may be, that will be more than discounted by a tendency to rudeness.’68 Yet in the years after 1939, Hutchison advised patrons against airing their complaints as ‘neither the manager nor the staff care a tinker’s cuss … because there are plenty of jobs … Now, no shrewd proprietor would sacrifice one employee for a whole batch of patrons.’69 This did not stop patrons grumbling, though, and Picturegoer carried letters by readers describing their experiences with ‘very offhand’ usherettes who responded to requests to be quiet during screenings with ‘back-chat’ such as, ‘You should take a dearer seat in the circle, then you wouldn’t be able to hear our conversation.’70 By 1946, the quality of service had declined to such an extent that Hutchison informed the readers of Cinema and Theatre Construction that ‘We shall have to start at the beginning again with our staffs, and slowly and carefully bring them back to the standard of courtesy and discipline that was once our pride.’71 Although both the CEA and NATKE were eager to promote the cinema, and cinema employees, as doing work of vital national importance, and to present a united front to the government wherever possible, this did not mean that relations between management and labour were untroubled. The exhibition sector had remained fragmented well into the 1930s, with a large number of businesses operating only a few cinemas each. This had made trade union organisation relatively difficult, and as late as 1937 only one agreement between the CEA and NATKE regarding wages and conditions was in place, albeit covering the large number of cinemas in London. By 1941, however, some 90 per cent of British cinemas were covered by local CEA–NATKE agreements.72 The CEA General Council’s recognition of NATKE in 1938 had paved the way for more wide-reaching agreements, but there seems little doubt that the war made the union more assertive and the Association more willing to negotiate. With employers increasingly aware of the difficulties of retaining staff, let alone replacing them, they were more prepared to come to terms with labour. In addition to the regional agreements, a series of annual national war bonuses was negotiated: by 1944, the bonus for the lowest-paid employees, those whose weekly wages were £1 per week or less, amounted to 45 per cent, with bonuses of 42½ per cent for those earning between £1 and £2, 38½



On the appearance and disappearance of staff

per cent for those on between £2 and £3, and 29 per cent for those taking home in excess of £3.73 Yet if employees took advantage of wartime conditions to advance their common interests, employers found it harder to maintain a united front in the face of the labour shortage. With projectionists an increasingly scarce commodity, exhibitors were urged not to break ranks and ‘poach’ staff from rival enterprises. Appeals to loyalty could only do so much – not least, as the chairman of the Scottish branch of the CEA believed, because loyalty between rival exhibitors was almost as rare as an unemployed ­projectionist74 – and the pages of the wartime trade press abound with stories of operators and apprentices being enticed from one cinema to another.75 Had the cinema been formally classified as an essential industry, then it would have been difficult for projectionists and other cinema employees to leave a job without gaining approval from the Ministry of Labour. But it hadn’t, so exhibitors found that money was the only way to bind employees to their posts. As well as looking to hire older employees, cinema managers also looked to engage those whose youth exempted them from conscription. This, though, brought other problems. The Cinematograph Act, 1909, proscribed the presence of patrons under the age of 16 from the auditorium unless accompanied by an adult guardian, when ‘A’ – that is, adult – films were being screened. The Home Office insisted that this ruling should also include usherettes, especially in wartime when due to the risks associated with air raids ‘a competent staff [was] more than ever necessary’.76 The Act also required that the projection box be under the control of an operator who was over eighteen years of age, with the proviso that this would not prevent the operator leaving the projector in the charge of a competent assistant for short periods, provided that this assistant’s age exceeded sixteen years. A CEA request that this stipulation might be relaxed so that boys as young as fourteen might be recruited as they left school – a plan that the Association asserted would ‘secure a good deal of labour to carry us along if the war proves to be a long one’77 – was ignored, and the Home Office suggested that it was thinking of increasing the minimum age of a chief projectionist to twenty-one, and the minimum age of all other cinema employees to eighteen.78 Some managers sought to supplement their staff complement by requesting a police presence at their cinemas ‘for the purpose of regulating queues’.79 After the Trocadero in London’s Elephant and Castle district

145

146

Cinemas and cinemagoing in wartime Britain, 1939–45

successfully lobbied in 1944 for a constable to be employed on special duties at the venue during peak cinemagoing hours, Percy Fryer, the manager of Stepney’s Troxy, made a similar application. Perhaps because of his willingness to foot the bill for such a service, which would amount to 3s. 6d. an hour,80 Fryer’s approach was judged as a request for additional manpower rather than as a legitimate request for assistance with crowd control: this application may be the result of the difficulty the cinemas are experiencing in obtaining suitable persons for employment as Commissionaires outside the premises as a result of calls for National Service … the engaging of a PC on Special Duty would be an easy way of obtaining a uniformed man to perform certain duties normally carried out by a Commissionaire and so release an employee for other duties.

Furthermore, it was felt that the constable whose beat passed the Troxy could ‘more than adequately deal with rowdyism [in the vicinity of the cinema]’,81 and, consequently, the application was rejected. Fryer’s application, however, brought the Trocadero under increased scrutiny, and when it was found that this was the only cinema in the district at which a police officer was regularly employed on special duties, the arrangement was swiftly discontinued.82 Given that few, if any, British cinemas had to permanently cease trading because of a lack of staff, it seems that the demands made by the Ministry of Labour were finely judged. Following, it is tempting to suggest that the almost millenarian tone that the trade press adopted to the question of cinema staffing was unfounded, or at least a gross overreaction. However, during the war the state invested itself with unprecedented powers to control labour, patterns of consumption, and industrial production and organisation; these powers had the potential to transform the exhibition sector. If other industries could be rationalised or concentrated, why not the cinema? If other consumer goods could be rationed, why not cinemagoing? In the wake of the de-reservation of second projectionists in late 1941, rumours abounded that British cinemas would have to, or would be forced to, merge, and that a plan was being developed that sought to ration leisure expenditure. The plan would have given Britons a fixed number of points to spend each month on a range of leisure activities and once these points had been exhausted, an individual’s spending on entertainment would have to cease.83 Although the plan never came close to being i­mplemented, it was not considered to be particularly far-fetched by wartime exhibitors;



On the appearance and disappearance of staff

after all, a hugely complicated scheme introducing the points rationing of certain foods had come into effect in December 1941. It is, therefore, unsurprising that many a CEA branch kept a close eye on the development of the scheme, and no doubt welcomed the Home Secretary’s eventual refusal to introduce it.84 Labour remained the single most important threat to the exhibition industry during the war. Each new pronouncement from the Ministry of Labour was pored over by exhibitors seeking to understand how it might affect their business; each employee lost represented another step in the direction of the ‘irreducible minimum’, the skeleton staff without which a cinema could not hope to remain operational.85 Projectionettes and lady manageresses The appointment of Miss E. B. Barton, a 19-year old girl, as the house manager of the Arcade, Camberley, suggests that this Odeon associated cinema may soon have an all-female staff, for the theatre already possesses the first doorwoman.86

Although it would be inaccurate to suggest that the Second World War was the first time that women entered technical or executive positions in the British cinema exhibition sector, there was a notable increase in the number of female managers and projectionists (sometimes dubbed ‘projectionettes’, ‘operettes’ or ‘projectionistes’) between 1939 and 1945. Of course, women had played an integral role in the cinema industry since its earliest days, and David R. Williams has observed that female operators had been known as early as 1902 and that female managers were not unheard of in the years before 1914.87 What’s more, because during the Great War no cinema employees were granted reserved status and vast numbers of male operators volunteered or were called up, the number of female projectionists grew, and there was a parallel increase in the number of women managers. However, there was a general consensus in the exhibition sector that such a trend was only a temporary phenomenon, and that as soon as the men returned from the war, women would leave the projection box or manager’s chair and return if not to their families, then at least to jobs that were thought to be more suited to a woman. After 1918, therefore, the higher echelons of the exhibition industry reverted to being, as they had been before the war, almost exclusively male

147

148

Cinemas and cinemagoing in wartime Britain, 1939–45

preserves, and those women who did work in the sector – many of whom proved the equal of their male counterparts – found themselves dependent on ‘the help of a father or some other well-disposed person to get them [their position] in the first place’.88 As in the United States, where the discourse surrounding the issue of cinema management was overwhelmingly gendered, Britain’s cinemas were run by men, even though a great number of the skills needed to successfully run a cinema resembled ‘those of the accomplished housewife: expertise in “feminine” concerns like housekeeping, interior decoration and gracious social interaction’.89 Such an idea is perhaps given further credence by the fact that the cinema was often thought of as a feminine space, with audience surveys from the 1930s and 1940s suggesting that women constituted a larger proportion of the audience than men.90 It is curious, then, that whilst in some parts of the United Kingdom women were thought to be perfectly able to run a cinema, in others they were prevented from doing so by local licensing laws.91 As late as 1943, magistrates in Fakenham, Norfolk, refused a woman permission to take charge of a local hall on the grounds that a Home Office circular of June 1930 ‘did not appear to contemplate other than a male manager’.92 This line of argument infuriated the Daily Film Renter’s Tatler, who railed against the lack of a nationwide ruling permitting the appointment of women managers. Yet even whilst passionately arguing that women be allowed to take on ‘the major job’, Tatler betrayed his continued vision of the manager’s office as a male space: ‘much as any exhibitor would like to retain the services of his manager, it just isn’t possible and he’s got to fill in with a woman – whether he likes it or not’.93 As historians such as Penny Summerfield have made clear, the need for women to work in positions and industries not usually associated with female labour meant that the war ‘was a period when assumptions about and perceptions of gender roles and boundaries were profoundly disturbed’.94 Women were given – and took – the opportunity to demonstrate skills across a range of jobs to which they had previously been denied access. Although the discourses that helped structure notions of industrial and workplace propriety were no less gendered at the end of the war than they had been at the beginning, the simple fact of a female presence in management positions and as trained projectionists challenged the notion that women should be exempted from such work on the grounds of gender alone.



On the appearance and disappearance of staff

Quite what it was that female managers were thought to lack was never made entirely clear, although there was vague and half-hearted talk about women not possessing sufficient authority to inspire the confidence of the audience during an air raid or other emergency.95 The reasons why women were unlikely to make good projectionists were more widely discussed, however, and tended to focus on three issues: dress, strength and technical competency. As Fee Baker understood, clothes were symbols of identity, no less so for gender than for a particular profession. It seems that many men found it difficult to distinguish a woman from the clothes she wore, on the grounds that wearing appropriately feminine clothing was one of the things that made a woman a woman. And because women’s clothing was more likely to be ‘flimsy’ and ‘inflammable’ – and as such constitute a danger within the confines of the projection room – women were considered to be poorly suited to work as operators.96 As in other industries, for example shipbuilding, such observations ‘tended to confirm already held prejudices rather than advance any new thinking on the subject of female employment’.97 Not for the first time, necessity proved to be the mother of invention, and women taken on as projectionists were soon encouraged to wear closely fitting tunics or coats, and trousers.98 Such garments were less likely to get caught in the projector’s mechanism, but were also adopted because in some venues the projection booth could only be reached via external stairs and projectionettes in skirts or dresses might hurt box-office takings by unintentionally providing patrons with ‘something better than the Censor would never pass – outside and [for] free’.99 If most men could reconcile themselves, more or less easily and more or less happily, to the idea of women adopting a different dress code in order to work in the projection box, a good number found it far harder to overcome their entrenched prejudices against the perceived physical and intellectual shortcomings of women. Questions were asked about a woman’s ability to lift and manipulate a 2,000-ft. reel of film, then in common usage.100 There was also a tendency in some quarters to simply laugh away the idea of the female projectionist. This was certainly the case in late 1939 when the first plans to train projectionettes were greeted by Onlooker of Today’s Cinema with the dismissive suggestion that some applicants saw ‘the operating box [as] a neat way of getting closer to the stars’.101 This statement was surely intended as a joke, but the assumptions that underpinned it – namely, that women were flighty and unserious and did not understand what a projectionist did let alone how

149

150

Cinemas and cinemagoing in wartime Britain, 1939–45

they did it – informed many of the arguments made against the training of women.102 Whilst it was recognised that new projectionists would be needed to replace those who would inevitably be lost to the forces, many men remained unconvinced that women had the technical wherewithal to do the job to the required standard. As the Projectionist’s Bulletin asserted, ‘We have yet to reconcile ourselves to the idea that modern sound projection work is within the sphere of women generally’ and that any plan to train female operators would likely result in ‘abject failure’.103 In places such as Glasgow, female operators were required to undergo additional testing by the municipal Master of Works to demonstrate their technical proficiency, a hurdle that male operators were not required to clear.104 Technical concerns notwithstanding, some exhibitors asked whether it would even be worthwhile training female projectionists, even if a suitable supply of the ‘male type of woman’ who might succeed in the position could miraculously be conjured out of the ether.105 Because women received little if any education in mechanical or electrical subjects, they would have only a poor level of technical knowledge when they first entered the projection booth – ‘the number … who know what to do when a fuse blows is small’, observed R. Howard Cricks.106 This meant that ‘It would take them years to reach first-class proficiency in such a field, and by that time (it is dearly to be hoped), the clouds will have lifted, and the young men will be back at their machines.’107 Nevertheless, ‘revolutionary’ proposals to train female projectionists were put into effect from relatively early on in the war.108 Such schemes were made possible by an agreement between the CEA and NATKE at the end of November 1939 describing the employment of women in technical positions as ‘an emergency measure to meet the contingencies resultant upon War’ and which stipulated that No woman operator is to be employed where suitable and efficient male operators are available … No woman operator will work at rates and conditions less favourable than present rates [for men] … Projectionists who have vacated their jobs by reason of military service or other forms of national service shall, upon application, be reinstated to their former positions without undue delays. Notwithstanding anything in the agreement, the person selected to be in charge of an operating box shall be a qualified male operator.109



On the appearance and disappearance of staff

151

The terms of the agreement make evident the anticipated need for female projectionists, but no less significant is the union’s concern about dilution. Women were not to be treated on a par with men because they were looked upon as equals, but rather because if they were not, their employment had the potential to undercut the wages, status and employment prospects of their male counterparts. With the agreement in place, exhibitors were free to start training women. Odeon cinemas had, by April 1940, instituted a ‘comprehensive scheme’ for the training of female projectionists, and planned to give tuition to between 250 and 300 women, a number that constituted approximately one-quarter of the total number of projection staff needed by the circuit (see Figure 11).110 ABC claimed to have lost some 500 male projectionists of various ranks to the call-up, and trained 200 female replacements.111 In Bristol, the local branch of the CEA placed advertisements (see Figure 14) in both the Western Daily Press and the Bristol Evening Post which read, ‘Wanted. A Number of WOMEN, not under 18, for TRAINING as CINEMA OPERATORS for BRISTOL and WEST OF ENGLAND.



Female projectionists, seen here in ‘flimsy’ and ‘inflammable’  clothing, at the Odeon cinema, Exeter, in 1941.

11

152

Cinemas and cinemagoing in wartime Britain, 1939–45

Good prospects. Wages paid during training. Apply, in writing, giving age, etc.’112 Replies were received from more than 100 women, and of these some twenty were placed at various cinemas to see if they ‘liked the work and were likely to be suitable’.113 When it emerged that Bristol’s trainee projectionettes were to be paid 25s. a week, some male projectionists reacted coolly.114 In 1937, J.  H.  Hutchison had proposed a similar wage for a competent third – implicitly male – projectionist working in a ‘Class B’ hall, and in Grimsby, the CEA–NATKE agreement signed in February 1940 dictated that trainee projectionists started at a wage of 15s. a week, with this amount increasing by 2s. 6d. per week at half yearly intervals until the two-year probation period was concluded.115 The idea that a woman could be paid the same amount whilst learning evidently stuck in the craw.116 Women had long been paid less than men, a disparity that would continue during the war despite the occasional lip-service paid to the principle of equal pay for equal work,117 so the idea that female novices should be so handsomely remunerated was not welcomed by male projectionists. In June 1941, an anonymous engineer employed by one of the major circuits contributed an article to the Ideal Kinema supplement of Kinematograph Weekly that discussed the training of women projectionists. His assessment makes for instructive reading: The first elimination of recruits was almost automatic. We escorted them deliberately through the theatre, pausing awhile to watch the screen and sense the atmosphere, and then bluntly out into the cold and up the iron stairs into the box, with the monitor blasting at much louder than usual. That procedure weeded out the ‘film fan’ type. The others stood at the back of the box, with strict instructions to be neither seen nor heard, for a solid hour, through three or four changeovers. Those with headaches soon faded away. Those who were left were invited to come back next morning.118

The patronising tone continued during the more technical parts of the training programme: ‘most of them were scared by the arcs’; ‘we thought it best not to be too precise, which might only confuse them’; during firewatching – one of the duties of those in the projection box – ‘two of them in pairs [were] accepted as equal to one man’. Women were said to have learnt by ‘simple imitation’, and ‘in the Trade … we have, with a smile, likened their learning to “monkey” play’. By this, he meant that they ‘did just what they were shown’ without ever asking why. Indeed, even those parts of the job where women were thought to have demonstrated the



On the appearance and disappearance of staff

greatest degree of competence – handling and joining the film, lacing up the projector – were thought as being the least technically demanding, and perhaps the most ‘craft’-based and so conformed to stereotypical views of a woman’s skill.119 Even women who proved themselves capable were looked upon askance by some men working in the industry. A proposal in north-west England to establish a training programme for female projectionists was abandoned not on the grounds that women were not technically minded, but rather because ‘females are more fickle than males’. As such, it would be all but impossible to ‘keep them at the theatres where they were wanted’, not least because there were other employers – both in the exhibition sector and outside it – that would be prepared to offer higher wages or improved conditions.120 La donna è mobile, indeed. Despite these criticisms, a decent number of women proved t­ hemselves capable of mastering the projection equipment. In Birmingham, where local licensing regulations were amended in autumn 1941 to allow women  to take up positions as first and second operators if suitably qualified, the local branch of the CEA set up a demanding t­raining programme for  prospective projectionettes. After undertaking two weeks schooling  and a preliminary exam, women spent two or three months gaining practical experience in a cinema projection room before returning to school for a fortnight’s advanced training. At this point, the women were assessed by the Electrical Advisor and Surveyor to the city’s justices and subsequently had to gain permission from the Chief Officer of the Fire Brigade to work in Birmingham. Only after this could they take up their posts. The first group was ‘passed out 100 per cent proficient’, and by early 1942 nearly 30 women were enrolled at the training school, with four already qualified to take up an appointment as a first or second operator.121 Given the frequency with which many Britons visited the cinema, and the centrality of the institution within the British urban and cultural landscapes, it is unsurprising that the projectionette was the subject of public interest. Although the operator was a less familiar figure to British cinemagoers than the usherette, the commissionaire or the manager, the presence of women in the projection box excited comment: novelty was, then as now, inherently interesting, but there was also a feeling that the war was bringing about extraordinary changes to everyday industrial and social practices. These changes needed to be documented so that the toll

153

154

Cinemas and cinemagoing in wartime Britain, 1939–45

the war was taking, and the sacrifices it demanded of the British population, could be fully appreciated. So it was that the Daily Mirror carried a story in March 1940 about the projectionists at the Gaiety Theatre, Manchester: Two girls have thrown up careers as mannequins to become Britain’s first women cinema operators … Miss [Gwen] Barlow told the Daily Mirror last night: ‘I have earned a living as a show-girl, as a mannequin and as a hat and gown designer, but I think I shall like work in the projection room better than anything else I have done.’122

The emphasis on the women’s previous employment – Miss Barlow was joined behind the projector by Ina McLean Gemmell who gave up a ‘promising career as a mannequin and a modeller’ – stressed that these were women were not of the ‘male type’. Interest in the projectionette does not seem to have been dulled by the increasing frequency with which women could be found working as operators. During the second half of 1943, the BBC’s At Home Today, a topical magazine programme carried by the Home Service, featured contributions from two different female projectionists, Jeannie Smith of the Odeon in Aberdeen, and Ellen Perry of Bristol, who might well have graduated from the CEA training scheme run in that city.123 Although in her talk Ellen Perry made no mention of her gender, Jeannie Smith is much more open about the way in which she swapped the world of the usherette for that of the projectionist, and also about how the opportunity to make this switch came about as the result of the shortage of male operators. Both women were careful to explain some of the technical aspects of the their jobs, stressing the mechanical skill needed and the attention to detail required, but Smith also noted that for eighteen of her forty-eight working hours each week, she had ‘full responsibility’ for the projectors. The trade press, however, was wary of exhibitors who advertised the presence of women in the projection box too enthusiastically. For whilst welcome publicity was generated by stories like that of Joan Robinson who in three weeks went from usherette to chief electrician of the Odeon Leicester Square,124 such reports risked undermining the CEA’s attempts to ‘impress upon Government departments the responsibilities and difficulties of a projectionist’s and electrician’s job’. Suggesting that an operator could be trained in a matter of weeks made a mockery of the whole argument that projectionists should be reserved because theirs was highly



On the appearance and disappearance of staff

skilled work that took years to master. ‘Publicity’, warned Kinematograph Weekly, ‘has sometimes the dangerous quality of being two-edged’.125 Neither the competence demonstrated by the increased numbers of female operators, nor greater public awareness of the work that these women were doing on behalf of the nation’s cinemagoers, was enough to ensure their continued presence in British projection boxes. The end of the war did not mean the end of the projectionette, but the return of conscripted men meant that many women were obliged to give up their jobs.126 The lengthy process of demobilisation, and the unwillingness of some pre-war projectionists to return to their previous employment, meant that opportunities remained for female operators. However, even though women had proved themselves during the emergency, they still remained something of a novelty, and newspaper articles can be found discussing the phenomenon of the female projectionist well into the 1950s.127 Such pieces also stress the importance to the exhibition industry of both the projectionist, be they female or male, and cinema employees more generally. The tens of thousands of people who worked in British cinemas helped the show go on: all palaces have staff, dream palaces no less so. But cinema employees also created the show, and were an integral part of the cinemagoing experience. Without them, no matter how strong the public’s demand for entertainment, no matter how many astounding and bewitching films were produced, there could have been no cinema. Brecht asked, Who built Thebes of the seven gates? In the books you will find the names of kings. Did the kings haul up lumps of rock?

Who built the cinema? Notes 1 Translation in Reinhold Grimm (ed.), Bertolt Brecht: Poetry and Prose (New York: Continuum, 2003), p. 63. 2 W. R. Fuller, ‘The exhibitor’s part’, Sight and Sound, 37:10 (Spring 1941), p. 10. 3 Kinematograph Weekly, 26 October 1944, p. 5. From late 1944, Middlesex County Council amended this regulation: one attendant was required per 250 patrons in newer cinemas, and one for every 200 in older, less fire-resistant venues. 4 Ideal Kinema, 4 December 1941, p. i.

155

156

Cinemas and cinemagoing in wartime Britain, 1939–45

5 Jennifer Craik, ‘The cultural politics of the uniform’, Fashion Theory, 7:2 (2003), p. 128. 6 Ideal Kinema, 15 January 1942, p. v. 7 J. H. Hutchison, The Complete Kinemanager (London: Kinematograph Publications, 1937), p. 88. 8 Many CEA–NATKE agreements made it explicitly clear that ‘any uniforms and special dresses shall be supplied and paid for by the management’. See TNA LAB 83/3330: ‘Memorandum of agreement between the Grimsby and District section of the CEA and the NATKE’ – 28 February 1940, clause 14. 9 Cinema, 4 June 1941, p. 3. 10 Letter from the Board of Trade to Tom O’Brien of NATKE, quoted in Kinematograph Weekly, 10 July 1941, p. 5. 11 MGM advertisement in Today’s Cinema, 11 June 1941, p. 1. Initially, each British adult was permitted 66 coupons per fifteen-month period, although this number was later reduced. 12 Kinematograph Weekly, 20 November 1941, p. 11. 13 Cinema, 8 November 1944, p. 30. 14 Corry W. Fennel, speaking at a meeting of the Manchester CEA. Kinematograph Weekly, 1 July 1943, p. 11. 15 Ideal Kinema, 15 January 1942, p. v. 16 Kinematograph Weekly, 29 July 1943, p. 14. 17 Cinema, 7 July 1943, p. 23. 18 Kinematograph Weekly, 25 June 1942, p. 52. 19 Bernard Goodsall, quoted in Annette Kuhn, An Everyday Magic: Cinema and Cultural Memory (London: I.B. Tauris, 2002), p. 220. 20 Hutchison, Complete Kinemanager, p. 91. A ‘grotesque touch’ was added to these inspections in the early weeks of the war, when staff lined up in their gas masks. Guy Morgan, Red Roses Every Night: An Account of London Cinemas under Fire (London: Quality Press, 1948), p. 24. 21 Doris Senior, interview with author. 25 May 2011. Emphasis added. 22 Sidney L. Bernstein, ‘Walk up! Walk up! – Please’, in Charles Davy (ed.), Footnotes to the Film (London: Lovat Dickson, 1937), p. 230. 23 By early 1941, many managers were exempting themselves from what R. Davies Benyon saw as the ‘medieval buffoonery of changing into a dinner jacket suit or evening dress for a few hours every night’. The retention of ‘ordinary dress’ for the evening came about as the result of a number of factors: earlier closing during the first months of the war meant that changing clothes became less worthwhile; the number of dangerous or dirty jobs that a manager might have to undertake (e.g. fire-watching) made formalwear impracticable; and clothing shortages made it difficult to replace old or worn suits. Kinematograph Weekly, 9 January 1941, p. 38. 24 George Quittenbourne, quoted in Eva Balogh, ‘Mediating desire: usherettes and cinema spectatorship’, forthcoming in Participations. I am grateful to Eva Balogh for sharing her research with me.



On the appearance and disappearance of staff

25 Balogh, ‘Mediating desire’. 26 The male ushers at the Roxy cinema in New York in the 1920s were famous for their smart attire, their good looks, their military discipline and their irreproachable courtesy. It seems impossible to believe that British cinemas were unable to rustle up some similarly attractive men. For more on the male usher, see James I. Deutsch, ‘The rise and fall of the houses of ushers: teenage ticket-takers in the twenties theaters’, Journal of Popular Culture, 13:4 (1980). 27 Tribune, 11 October 1940, p. 14. This quote is taken from an article in which Horrabin seeks to establish the usherette as a valiant figure in the time of the blitz and so challenge sexualised stereotyping of female cinema employees. 28 Ideal Kinema, 4 December 1941, p. i. 29 Cinema and Theatre Construction, August 1946 (12:3), p. 58. 30 In recent years, the contribution that costume design makes to film has been analysed in works such as: Sarah Street, Costume and Cinema: Dress Codes in Popular Film (London: Wallflower, 2001); Stella Bruzzi, Undressing Cinema: Clothing and Identity in the Movies (London: Taylor & Francis, 2003); Tamar Jeffers McDonald, Hollywood Catwalk: Exploring Costume and Transformation in American Film (London: I.B. Tauris 2010). On costume design in a specifically British context, see, for example, Pam Cook, Fashioning the Nation: Costume and Identity on British Cinema (London: BFI, 1996); Sue Harper, Women in British Cinema: Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know (London: Continuum, 2000), pp. 213–22. 31 ‘Maybe a proportion of pictures can be presented in everyday clothes, but in none of them can the most economical of directors cater for the new order of things.’ Kinematograph Weekly, 5 June 1941, p. 4. 32 Quoted in Christopher Sladen, The Conscription of Fashion: Utility Cloth, Clothing and Footwear, 1941–1952 (Aldershot: Scolar Press, 1995), p. 47. 33 Maggie Joy Blunt, diary entry, 4 March 1942. In Simon Garfield (ed.), Private Battles: How the War Almost Defeated Us (London: Ebury, 2007), p. 223. 34 For details of utility clothing, the clothes rationing scheme and popular attitudes to both, see Ina Zweiniger-Bargielowska, Austerity in Britain: Rationing, Controls, and Consumption, 1939–1955 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), pp. 87–95. 35 On the discussion of the utility “brand”, see Sladen, Conscription of Fashion, p. 49. 36 Antonia Lant, ‘Prologue: mobile femininity’, in Christine Gledhill and Gillian Swanson (eds), Nationalising Femininity: Culture, Sexuality and British Cinema in the Second World War (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1996), p. 21. 37 On the ambivalent position of fashion in wartime Britain see: Pat Kirkham, ‘Fashion, femininity and “frivolous” consumption in World-War-Two Britain’, in Judy Attfield (ed.), Utility Reassessed: The Role of Ethics in the Practice of Design (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1999); Antonia Lant, Blackout: Reinventing Women for Wartime British Cinema (Princeton, NJ:

157

158

Cinemas and cinemagoing in wartime Britain, 1939–45

Princeton University Press, 1991), pp. 59–113; Peter McNeil, ‘“Put your best face forward”: the impact of the Second World War on British dress’, Journal of Design History, 6:4 (1993). 38 Female, 34, cited in J. P. Mayer, British Cinemas and their Audiences: Sociological Studies (London: Dennis Dobson, 1948), p. 230. 39 Female, 19, in Mayer, British Cinemas and their Audiences, p. 42. 40 Female, 26, in Mayer, British Cinemas and their Audiences, p. 53. 41 Kinematograph Weekly, 17 August 1944, p. 35. Granada’s oldest doorman was the eighty-five year old Sam Wilmott, who worked at the chain’s Greenwich cinema. Morgan, Red Roses, p. 63. 42 Angus Calder, The People’s War: Britain 1939–1945 (London: Pimlico, 2008), p. 102. 43 The number of registered, insured, unemployed Britons declined from 1.27 million in June 1939 to 103,000 in June 1945, and had fallen as low as 60,000 in June 1943. When indexed against 1938 figures, the rise in average pre-tax wages in manufacturing industries, for example, outstripped the increase in the cost of living by approximately 10 per cent by 1940, with the gap increasing in subsequent years. H. M. D. Parker, Manpower: A Study of War-time Policy and Administration (London: HMSO, 1957), pp. 483, 500, 503. 44 CEA Annual Report, 1941, p. 34. 45 W. R. Fuller, to all CEA branches, quoted in Daily Film Renter, 7 September 1939, pp. 1–2. 46 Kinematograph Weekly, 7 March 1940, p. 3. 47 W. R. Fuller, to all CEA branches, quoted in Daily Film Renter, 7 September 1939, pp. 1–2. 48 Today’s Cinema, 1 November 1939, p. 5. 49 Today’s Cinema, 13 December 1939, p. 3. 50 Tom O’Brien to Ministry of Labour, quoted in Daily Film Renter, 10 January 1940, pp. 1, 8. 51 Daily Film Renter, 24 January 1940, pp. 1, 7. 52 CEA Annual Report, 1940, p. 2. 53 Sonya Rose, Which People’s War? National Identity and Citizenship in Wartime Britain, 1939–1945 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), p. 196. 54 Kinematograph Yearbook, 1942 (London: Kinematograph Publications, 1942), p. 189. 55 Linsey Robb ‘“The front line”: firefighting in British culture, 1939–1945’, Contemporary British History, 29:2 (2015). 56 Kinematograph Weekly, 27 June 1940, p. 7. 57 Kinematograph Weekly, 9 May 1940, p. 3. 58 CEA Annual Report, 1941, p. 5. 59 S. K. Lewis, CEA President, quoted in Cinema, 28 May 1941, p. 14. 60 TNA HO 45/20876: W. R. Fuller to William Beveridge, 4 March 1941. As well as making reference to its friends in high places, the CEA also attempted



On the appearance and disappearance of staff

to get them to speak on its behalf. For instance, the Home Office was approached to provide ‘assistance … by way of representation’ in reference to the cinema safety legislation that required appropriately trained staff to be in charge of the projection equipment. Whilst the Home Office politely declined the request to intervene (‘this is a matter … for the Ministry of Labour and I am afraid we cannot help you’) the CEA offered its ‘sincere appreciation’ to the Board of Trade for the assistance it offered during the reservation debates. TNA HO 45/20876: W. R. Fuller to S. W. Harris, 20 March 1941 and reply, 21 March 1941; CEA Annual Report, 1941, p. 2. 61 Kinematograph Weekly, 28 August 1941, p. 20. 62 Peter N. Cavendish, letter, Picturegoer, 28 October 1944, p. 9. See also Daily Film Renter, 9 September 1943, p. 7. Cavendish’s letter struck a chord with the editor of the letters page and was given a prize of 10s. 6d. It also clearly irked a number of projectionists, who wrote to Picturegoer to contest his assertion. See 9 December 1944, p. 9. 63 20 March 1941. Parliamentary Debates: House of Commons, vol. 370, cols 265–6. It was stated during the debate that ‘Natural ability is all that is needed’ to succeed in the role, a fact that counted against it being deemed skilled enough work to justify reservation. 64 Today’s Cinema, 22 April 1941, p. 1. 65 Daily Film Renter, 5 April 1943, p. 4. 66 ‘Usherette-Turned-Operator’, Yorkshire, in Picturegoer, 9 December 1944, p. 14. Emphasis in original. 67 Daily Film Renter, 9 September 1943, p. 7. See also Kinematograph Weekly, 25 November 1943, p. 48: ‘Another manager told me that he never knows from day to day how many staff he will have around the house when it opens. How can we maintain service under such conditions?’ 68 Hutchison, Complete Kinemanager, p. 163. 69 J. H. Hutchinson, letter, Picturegoer, 28 November 1942, p. 15. 70 J. C. Housden and Josie P. Lederer, letters, Picturegoer, 9 January 1943, p. 9. 71 J. H. Hutchison ‘The manager’s problems’, Cinema and Theatre Construction, June 1946 (12:1), p. 56. 72 TUC Library: NATKE General: What the NATKE Does for You – Incorporating the Annual Report, 1941, pp. 6–7. An example of a CEA–NATKE agreement, covering cinemas in Grimsby and dated 28 February 1940, is held in TNA LAB 83/3330. 73 TNA LAB 83/3185: ‘National war bonus – cinema employees’, 13 June 1944. 74 Kinematograph Weekly, 29 May 1941, p. 7. 75 See for example, Today’s Cinema, 24 September 1943, pp. 1, 7. 76 TNA HO 45/20876: [Home Office] to the Clerk of the Kent County Council, 15 October 1941. 77 TNA HO 45/20876: W. R. Fuller to E. A. Cohen, 16 September 1941. 78 TNA HO 45/20876: G. S. Porter to W. Field, 9 October 1941. 79 TNA MEPO 2/6296: DAC3 to Supts. E, G, H, J and K, 21 February 1944.

159

160

Cinemas and cinemagoing in wartime Britain, 1939–45

80 TNA MEPO 2/6296: ‘Application for special services of Police’, 7 February 1944. 81 TNA MEPO 2/6296: Inspector H to S. D. Inspector, 7 February 1944. 82 TNA MEPO 2/6296: DAC4 to ACA, 21 February 1944. 83 Sunday Graphic, 18 January 1942, p. 5. 84 Kinematograph Weekly, 29 January 1942, p. 8. 85 Kinematograph Weekly, 25 September 1941, p. 6. 86 Kinematograph Weekly, 29 August 1940, p. 5. 87 David R. Williams, ‘Ladies of the lamp: the employment of women in the British film trade during World War 1’, Film History, 9:1 (1997), pp. 119, 117. 88 Audrey Field, Picture Palace: A Social History of the Cinema (London: Gentry Books, 1974), p. 124. 89 Ina Rae Hark, ‘The “theater man” and “the girl in the box office”: gender in the discourse of motion picture theatre management’, Film History, 6:2 (1994), p. 180. 90 TNA: BT 64/4747: Louis Moss and Kathleen Box (Wartime Social Survey), ‘The cinema audience’, pp. 3–4. 91 Birmingham, for example, had a number of cinemas run by women in October 1940, and Miss Mabel Harris had by 1943 managed the Salford Palace for fourteen years. Kinematograph Weekly, 24 October 1940, p. 10; Daily Film Renter, 21 January 1943, p. 1. 92 Daily Express, 13 January 1943, p. 3. The same story mentions that the Hull Watch Committee had refused the appointment of a female manager at one of that city’s halls in October 1942. See also Kinematograph Weekly, 3 October 1940, p. 3 on police objections to a woman manager in Scarborough. 93 Daily Film Renter, 13 January 1943, p. 4. 94 Penny Summerfield, ‘“The girl that makes the thing that drills the hole that holds the spring…”: discourses of women and work in the Second World War’, in Gledhill and Swanson (eds), Nationalising Femininity, p. 35. 95 Kinematograph Weekly, 13 June 1940, p. 3. 96 HO 45/20876: Letter from ‘LNBO’ (Home Office) to E. A. Cohen (Board of Trade), 19 August 1943. 97 Hugh Murphy, ‘“From the crinoline to the boilersuit”: women workers in British shipbuilding during the Second World War’, Contemporary British History, 13:4 (1999), p. 89. 98 When a reporter went to interview Kathleen Lawson at the Burnley Odeon about her transition from usherette to trainee projectionist, she was discovered ‘looking very business-like in blue jumper and slacks’. Burnley Express, 13 January 1940, p. 14. 99 Ideal Kinema, 8 May 1941, p. vi. 100 Ideal Kinema, 14 September 1939, p. viii. 101 Today’s Cinema, 1 December 1939, p. 2. 102 R. Howard Crick advised against attempting to transform usherettes into operators: ‘For the projectionist, the mentality that appreciates the luxurious



On the appearance and disappearance of staff

surroundings and smart uniform of the house staffs is unwanted.’ Ideal Kinema, 7 December 1939, p. ix. 103 Projectionist’s Bulletin, May 1940 (no. 2), pp. 12–13. 104 Daily Film Renter, 22 April 1940, pp. 1, 6. Glasgow magistrates also insisted that women be suitably clothed in ‘an overall of serge or other woolen or non-inflammable material’. Again, this regulation – known as Condition 9 – applied specifically to women. 105 S. J. Penn, letter, Projectionist, November 1945, p. 2. 106 Ideal Kinema, 14 September 1939, p. viii. 107 Cinema: Construction and Equipment Section, 3 April 1940, p. 21. 108 Daily Film Renter, 16 November 1939, p. 4. 109 Today’s Cinema, 1 December 1939, p. 1. 110 Daily Film Renter, 18 April 1940, p. 1. 111 Today’s Cinema, 30 May 1941, pp. 1, 5. 112 Bristol Evening Post, 26 April 1940, p. 2; Western Daily Press, 29 April 1940, p. 4. Formatting in original. 113 Kinematograph Weekly, 23 May 1940, p. 3. 114 In London, two female trainee projectionists working at the Granada Wandsworth Road were each paid £1 15s. per week. BFI Special Collections: Bernstein Papers: Box 78: Theatres 1940: Wandsworth Road: F. C. Knott to J. W. Barber, 26 October 1940; W. M. Pope to F. C. Knott, 25 October 1940. In total, Granada trained 208 ‘operettes’, of whom only 10 per cent made it through the training and into the projection box. Morgan, Red Roses, pp. 61–2. 115 Hutchison, Complete Kinemanager, p. 79; TNA LAB 83/3330: ‘Memorandum of agreement between the Grimsby and District section of the Cinematograph Exhibitors’ Association and the National Association of Theatrical and Kine Employees – 28 February 1940’, clause 18A. 116 Projectionist’s Bulletin, May 1940 (no. 2), pp. 12–13. Emphasis in original. 117 Calder, People’s War, pp. 402–3. 118 Ideal Kinema, 12 June 1941, p. v. 119 The notion that a woman’s ability to master certain aspects of the projectionist’s role was due to their natural skill for work in which nimble fingers were needed is mentioned in, for example, Ideal Kinema, 7 December 1939, p. ix; Projectionist, June 1946, p. 1; Morgan, Red Roses, p. 62. 120 Kinematograph Weekly, 19 February 1942, p. 21. 121 Kinematograph Weekly, 13 November 1941, p. 28; 22 January 1942, p. 23. Towards the end of the war, the Birmingham and West Midlands branch of the CEA proposed a similar training scheme for returning ex-servicemen, disabled servicemen and male school-leavers. Details of this scheme can be found in Today’s Cinema, 15 May 1945, p. 17. 122 Daily Mirror, 6 March 1940, p. 4. 123 BBC Written Archive Centre: At Home Today, 14 July 1943, 9.55–10.15 a.m. (Ellen Perry); 1 November 1943, 1.40–2.00 p.m. (Jeannie Smith).

161

162

Cinemas and cinemagoing in wartime Britain, 1939–45

124 Daily Mirror, 21 January 1942, p. 5. 125 Kinematograph Weekly, 29 January 1942, p. 4. 126 Female operators had less job security during the war than did their male counterparts, in that they were more likely to be dismissed in the event of unforeseen economic circumstances. At the Granada Wandsworth Road, for instance, the onset of the blitz depressed trade and brought about the dismissal of two female projectionists. BFI Special Collections: Bernstein Papers: Box 78: Theatres 1940: Wandsworth Road: W. M. Pope to F. C. Knott, 25 October 1940; F. C. Knott to J. W. Barber, 26 October 1940. 127 See, for example, North Wales Pioneer, 24 February 1955, p. 5, which carries a story on Jean Whitehead’s role as projectionist at the Odeon, Llandudno.

Showmanship in wartime

5 Showmanship in wartime

A

s they attempted to induce the public to part with their money at the box office, British exhibitors made use of numerous techniques in order to sell their cinemas. True, the most important thing that a cinema projected was films, but exhibitors were equally keen to project an image of cinemagoing as a cultural practice that was as visible outside the auditorium – both in other parts of the cinema and outside the building – as it was inside. The name given to this type of projection was showmanship. Clearly, the advertising of films, both on billboards and in newspapers and via publicity stunts, was a crucial component of such showmanship, but there was much more besides. Given that the experiential pleasures afforded by cinemagoing played a central role in encouraging patrons to return to a particular cinema, the creation of a physical environment conducive to the enjoyment of a film was as important to exhibitors as straight publicity. For whilst it was true that the films on offer – and the ways in which they were advertised – had a great deal to do with getting people into a hall, their experience once there was felt to determine their chances of a return visit. Showmanship not only had the potential to attract patrons, but was also able to transform them into those most sought after of all customers, regulars. When discussing in The Complete Kinemanager why it was that individual cinemagoers chose to visit a particular cinema, J. H. Hutchison quoted the following statistics: Because the programmes were consistently good: Because the cinema was close by and it was handy: Because they ‘liked’ the cinema:

62 per cent 14 per cent 24 per cent

Of this last group, Hutchison noted that ‘Most of them when pressed for further details said that they liked the atmosphere.’ And what helped

164

Cinemas and cinemagoing in wartime Britain, 1939–45

create this atmosphere? According to Hutchison, décor and cleanliness: ‘Nothing is more likely to deflect public sympathy than dirt or untidiness.’1 Recently, Annette Kuhn’s work on cinemagoing in the 1930s has found that personal memories of cinemagoing are more likely to be tied up with cinemas than they are with films, with some 91 per cent of respondents mentioning the appeal and comfort of the venue as opposed to a little over 25 per cent mentioning the attraction of the films screened therein.2 Other work on memory reclamation has produced similar conclusions.3 Exhibitors were therefore bound to promote both their cinema and the films it showed. For the cost of a ticket, patrons were entitled to make use of a cinema both as a building in which films could be watched and a space in which the multi-faceted experience of cinemagoing could be enjoyed. For the cost of a ticket, people enjoyed both film and cinema, with the pleasures afforded by one complementing and heightening the other – ‘Location, architecture, interior design, and finally the cinematic apparatus itself: all are part of a piece.’4 However, almost all of those things that had before 1939 helped to transform exhibitors into showmen,5 and cinemas into sites of showmanship, were subject to wartime pressures: restrictions were imposed on the content, size and number of film posters; monetary limitations were placed on the amount of maintenance that could be carried out; materials that might be used for refurnishing cinema interiors became so scarce as to be practically unobtainable. As one commentator put it, ‘one might reasonably form the conclusion that … wartime obstacles have proved too much for managements and that there is plenty of excuse for a deterioration in the level of smartness to which we have grown accustomed in our places of entertainment’.6 The ways in which the exhibition sector attempted to overcome these obstacles helped define the nature of wartime cinema culture, and as such did much to determine the experience of cinemagoing between 1939 and 1945. Talking up The Stars Look Down The British exhibition industry was particularly publicity-minded in the years immediately before the Second World War. Managers were eager to advertise, and conscious of the need to do so. Competition for patrons, a release pattern that meant that each venue in a locality screened a d ­ ifferent



Showmanship in wartime

film in a given week, and the regularity with which programmes changed, meant that advertising was a ‘fundamental’ component of the cinema manager’s job.7 It seems likely that almost all cinemas paid to advertise, even if only by pasting posters on exterior walls or by listing their programmes in the local newspaper. And whilst it is only possible to estimate the amount spent by all cinemas on promotional activities, from the evidence that survives it is not difficult to make the (likely conservative) case for an annual advertising budget across the exhibition sector which ran to several million pounds. At the Regent in Portsmouth, it was not uncommon in the months before the war for £20 or so to be spent each week on advertising – a figure equating to approximately 40 per cent of the money paid out in wages to staff – whilst the Playhouse in Edinburgh regularly expended a similar sum.8 In circuit houses, where advertising budgets were set centrally, there were frequent calls for a loosening of the purse strings, and the manager of the 2,000-seat Granada Wandsworth Road, for example, complained that the £20 he was allocated each week for publicity was ‘insufficient for a theatre of this size’.9 Despite, or perhaps because of, such penny-pinching, the Granada cinemas regularly made use of one-off advertising stunts to gain attention and so complement the chain’s more conventional forms of advertising (posters, stills, trailers and newspaper advertisements). Indeed, Granada’s head office in Golden Square was so convinced of the value of these stunts that it ran a regular competition in which the manager who devised the week’s most original and effective promotional technique was given a cash prize. Thus we find Mr Hewlett of the Granada Walthamstow rewarded in May 1940 for his ‘amusing and highly popular’ boosting of For Freedom (1940): cockles were given away for free in the cinema foyer in reference to a speech in which Winston Churchill had claimed that the rescue of British prisoners from the Altmark would ‘warm the cockles of British hearts’. Hundreds of people were said to have visited the stall, which for the cost of just 12 shillings ‘attracted the attention of everybody and caused great amusement’.10 Linking promotional material to topical events was neither unusual nor counterproductive, at least in the early stages of the war. Far from putting off cinemagoers, referring to recent events simply illustrated the fact that the cinemas existed in the same world as their patrons, and in so doing neatly demonstrated their integral position within wartime life and culture. Alan Burton and Steve Chibnall have observed that street stunts

165

166

Cinemas and cinemagoing in wartime Britain, 1939–45

and gimmicks had ‘long been part of the general arsenal of film publicity’,11 promotional activities that harked back to the days of the fairground barker and which increased the cultural visibility of the cinema by bringing it to the attention of people outside the cinema building itself. Although Burton and Chibnall are also correct to assert that the vast majority of cinema advertising was relatively mundane, the contrast between the ‘painstaking administration’ that oversaw the careful placement of posters on hoardings or advertisements in local newspapers and the ‘flamboyance and inspiration’ that underpinned one-off activities should not obscure the fact that these different approaches were two sides of the same coin.12 We might turn to the promotion of The Stars Look Down in the early months of 1940 to investigate some of the different advertising strategies that cinemas used to promote particular films. Carol Reed’s film, adapted from A. J. Cronin’s bestselling novel about life in a northern pit town, was hailed by many newspaper critics for its unflinching portrayal of the uncertainties and hardships of the mining industry; it might have been ‘grim going’, but it still delivered an appreciable emotional and intellectual punch.13 Yet even as they praised the film, some critics realised that the very elements of The Stars Look Down that they had themselves found so impressive were likely to be anathema to much of the cinemagoing public. Thus, Paul Holt of the Daily Express, in an otherwise laudatory review, asked, ‘Will you go to see a film like this? Will you go to see a film in which the hero, Michael Redgrave, wears a high collar, narrow tie, too-small coat, talks with a northern accent, and looks miserable the whole way through?’14 Such rhetoric clearly anticipated that in many cases the answer to these questions would be ‘no’. Similarly equivocal was Ivor Brown in the Illustrated London News, who, having made mention of the excellent notices that the film had received, hedged his bets somewhat by opining only that it ‘should’ generate good receipts.15 A further problem was posed by the film’s conclusion, which sees a group of miners, who have been trapped underground as a result of their boss’s greed and negligence, die before they can be rescued. No matter how affecting it was, nor how appropriate an ending it provided to the film, this was not a standard narrative strategy. The Stars Look Down, then, was clearly going to be a difficult film to put across, and this is one of the reasons why it is of such interest: the film’s merits were not necessarily those that would allow it to sell itself, meaning that a wide range of alternative promotional strategies were used to boost it.



Showmanship in wartime

One of the men who took up the challenge of persuading the public to see The Stars Look Down was Oscar Deutsch, who not only put the film in his Odeon cinemas, but who also reportedly intervened to ensure that talk of changing the climax to one more likely to appeal to the ‘happy-ending brigade’ came to naught.16 In its first week at the Odeon Leicester Square, and offering hope to anyone desiring to prove the nay-sayers wrong, almost 28,000 tickets were sold for The Stars Look Down, and business was so good that the film was held over for a further three weeks before being replaced by Hollywood Cavalcade (1939). Odeon took the relatively unusual step of presenting The Stars Look Down in the provinces concurrently with its West End run, probably in an attempt to capitalise on the good press the film had received. Even though the film’s production predated the conflict and its narrative had no martial content, The Stars Look Down’s status as an artistically important British production provided additional cachet at this relatively early stage of the war. Only The Lion Has Wings (1939) matched its impact, and that for more obviously propagandistic reasons.17 As such, it was thought that a greater sense of national awareness – and a greater willingness to part with money for a British ‘cause’ – made the film worth promoting. However, if the war offers context for the decision to publicise The Stars Look Down so vigorously, it is largely absent from the promotional campaigns that accompanied its release; advertising for the film was dominated by a range of more conventional techniques. Posters were available in a variety of shapes and sizes, and at costs to suit different pockets: full-colour, vertically oriented six-sheets, often used to decorate cinema frontages, could be bought for just 2/6; 12-sheets cost 5/-; whilst the giant 48-sheets (240" × 120") were, at 15/- each, said to be perfect for a film for which it was worth making ‘more than the ordinary effort’. Exhibitors could also buy banners, advertising slides, a trailer (from British Personality Trailers of Wardour Street) and publicity stills.18 J. H. Hutchison thought this last form of advertising to be especially important, noting that the public ‘never cease to be interested in still photographs … they cannot fail to attract’,19 and would no doubt have been concerned by the Display of Photographs (Cinematograph Film Industry) Order of early 1942. This Board of Trade Order prohibited the use for advertising purposes of photographic stills printed after the end of January 1942, and this meant that for the remainder of the war many stars were preserved as if in aspic, with the same increasingly venerable publicity shots use to promote multiple

167

168

Cinemas and cinemagoing in wartime Britain, 1939–45

films.20 However, when The Stars Look Down was released, both colour and black and white stills were available (see Figure 12). With such a range of promotional accessories, it was possible for managers to dress their cinemas in the colours of the different films that paraded through them. Whilst the physical dimensions of a foyer might remain static, canny managers were able to create subtly different environments by the combination of different advertising materials. Such orthodox forms of advertising no doubt accounted for the lion’s share of the money spent on advertising by cinemas, but more individualistic and original strategies were also commonly deployed. In advance of The Stars Look Down’s provincial release, Odeon purchased a full-page in the Bournemouth Daily Echo on 9 February 1940 that, alongside a superlative-ridden review which reads as if provided by the chain (or the film’s producers), features a series of advertisements for local businesses, each of which is tied – with differing degrees of success – to the film and, through it, to the glamour of the cinema. Thus we find that ‘“The Stars Look Down” on Bournemouth’s most Fashionable Women … Dressed by Wimbornes of Boscombe’ and that ‘The Stars … would be proud of furs and fur coats from J. Bass, Bournemouth’s Leading Furrier.’ Other services were also advertised, and the Echo’s readers were informed that ‘“The Stars Look Down” chimneys cleaned by Hygienic Chimney Cleaners.’ Less glamorous than high-end couture, perhaps, but arguably more important, and unquestionably more relevant to the film itself.21 At Granada, it was understood that The Stars Look Down was ‘going to be a difficult picture to put over’, but several publicity angles were developed, each of which provides a glimpse of the ways in which cinemas and the films that they screened were situated in British culture and society. First, because it was felt that ‘the star names cannot be depended upon to bring the people in’ – neither Michael Redgrave nor Margaret Lockwood were thought by exhibitors to be particularly bankable attractions in their own right, despite previously appearing together in The Lady Vanishes (1938) – great prominence was given to Cronin, not least because his novel The Citadel had been turned into a very popular feature in 1938.22 Odeon clearly came to a similar conclusion, and advertisements for the film’s Leicester Square engagement in national papers such as The Times, the Daily Express and the Observer talked only of ‘A. J. Cronin’s masterpiece’ whilst making no mention of the actors in the leading roles.23 As Hutchison pointed out, promoting a film using the author’s name was a



Showmanship in wartime

time-honoured strategy, ‘particularly if the author is well-known … There are many instances in which such an association has overcome weakness  of cast’.24 Such a strategy points to the importance of recognisable names when it came to selling films. Indeed, names – be they of actors or novelists or even production companies, although less frequently of directors or producers – seem to have been more important than narrative or genre when it came to promoting films, perhaps because the production companies themselves, having paid handsome sums to build up stars or to purchase the rights to a novel or play, geared their promotional materials in this direction. Second, Granada’s head office advised that the phrase ‘The Manager personally presents The Stars Look Down’ be used in local publicity material, in the belief that such a recommendation – and the intimate relationship it implied between exhibitor and patron – might overcome any potential hesitancy felt by cinemagoers. This personal approach was made possible by the fact that cinema managers were important figures within a given n ­ eighbourhood –‘not far short of the bank manager’, remembered one Bristolian25 – meaning that their words carried some weight. Further, many managers went out of their way to ensure that any sense of parochial identity that existed outside their hall was recreated inside it. As such, cinemas – particularly smaller venues – became, in Eric Barlow’s phrase, ‘community centres’: people were known, you see; when they went in … the lady in the pay box [or] the manager would say … ‘Good evening Mrs So-and-so’ and ‘Are you all right?’ and ‘Where’s So-and-so, they’ve not come in yet tonight, are they all right, are they well?’26

Whilst managers of larger venues could not be expected to remember everyone who watched a film at their cinema, the idea of the manager as a known and accessible figure – the embodiment of his cinema and what it stood for – had a certain degree of currency, and it was this currency that Granada sought to cash in on with its advertising strategy. Third, and linked, managers were encouraged to appeal to the audience’s sense of itself, and of its particular tastes, by suggesting that local cinemagoers knew better what they wanted than did outsiders: ‘They say you won’t like The Stars Look Down, but they said you wouldn’t like Pygmalion [1938]. Were they right? Not b----- likely!’27 Quite who ‘they’ are is left intentionally unclear, but the implication is that neither m ­ iddlebrow nor metropolitan critics were sufficiently attuned to the preferences of

169

170

Cinemas and cinemagoing in wartime Britain, 1939–45

c­ inemagoers in areas such as Wandsworth Road to speak on their behalf. Such appeals to local taste were taken a step further by Granada’s decision to take groups of local traders to watch advance screenings of The Stars Look Down and then put their names to a pre-prepared declaration attesting the importance and power of the film: The Stars Look Down is an outstanding film, dramatic, thrilling and packed with everything that ensures fine entertainment. The critics of the national newspapers were unanimous in praising it as one of the greatest films ever. We agree with that verdict. The Stars Look Down should be seen by everyone in (name of district). (Signed)28

Such statements were then taken to local newspapers – in need of stories to fill up their columns, even in times of war – and reproduced almost verbatim.29 The amateur film critics came from a range of local businesses and were clearly selected because they were well known within their districts: the manager of the Granada Wandsworth Road rounded up a licensee and his wife, a barber, a butcher, a fish-and-chip-shop owner and the manager of a local cooperative society. These were not exclusive or highbrow professions, but rather were the preserve of ordinary people who interacted with customers – and, hence, local cinemagoers – on a daily basis. Such recommendations mattered not so much because of any elevated intellectual or social status that the person doing the recommending might have enjoyed, but because they were made by individuals who swam alongside the patrons of the Granada Wandsworth Road in the shared cultural waters that surrounded the cinema. However, willingness to endorse The Stars Look Down might have been attributable in part to the setting in which it was watched. Granada ensured that the traders were given a day to remember; the film was screened in Grand National Pictures’ private theatre on Wardour Street, the heart of the British production industry, and when it finished, tea and biscuits were provided.30 Apparently unwilling to bite the hand that had so recently fed them, and no doubt still in a good mood having just been given a jolly to the West End, the traders unanimously recommended The Stars Look Down. Yet Granada’s advertising campaigns – which also included imaginative and cost-effective one-off publicity stunts31 – were not altogether successful. Many patrons remained unconvinced of the merits of what A. Fraser Green, then manager of Granada’s hall on Wandsworth Road, described privately as a ‘stolid and rather slow’ film.32 Even pairing The Stars Look Down with French without Tears (1940) – ‘It’s saucy, it’s naughty, it’s



Showmanship in wartime

171

gay’ – and presenting it alongside the cinema organ’s ‘King of Swing’ John Madin, failed to boost takings.33 Yet the good business that The Stars Look Down did nationally34 suggests that specific localities were, as Sue Harper has observed, individually defined and differentiated ‘taste communities’, cultural micro-climates in which ingrained opposition to a particular film might act as an effective bulwark against the siren song of the advertising devised to promote it.35 Such localism was believed to have dented the chances of a film like The Stars Look Down at a cinema like the Granada Wandsworth Road, both because of its narrative theme (the ‘average Londoner’ had only ‘slight knowledge of mining life’) and because of its formal qualities (the film’s grim storyline was matched by a ‘grit and slag-heap’ mise en scène).36 It was generally believed that attempts at realism held less appeal to working-class audiences than to patrons of what Kinematograph Weekly habitually described as ‘better-class halls’, and the manager noted that during The Stars Look Down’s run at the Granada Wandsworth Road ticket sales were better for the circle – that is, for the more expensive seats – than they were for the stalls.37



Publicity still from The Stars Look Down, a ‘stolid and rather slow’ film that failed to win favour at the Granada, Wandsworth Road despite an extensive publicity campaign.

12

172

Cinemas and cinemagoing in wartime Britain, 1939–45

It was surely in recognition of the importance of local tastes that the decision was taken to promote the film in such a defiantly parochial manner. Yet even worthy, domestically produced and patriotically boosted films, benefitting from locally devised advertising of a sort that took into account established cultural prejudices, no matter how explicitly these prejudices were appealed to or counteracted, foundered on the rock of personal or community taste. The publicity that attended Granada’s release of The Stars Look Down therefore not only offers an instructive view of the different promotional strategies devised to persuade cinemagoers to attend a particular film, but also offers further evidence of the plurality of cinema cultures that existed (and still exist) in Britain. Although it is possible to talk of the commonalties binding British cinemagoers together – especially during the war, when a great deal of government legislation brooked no argument as to local sensibilities, and when a greater degree of national consciousness might be expected – what in retrospect sometimes appears or is described as a coherent cinema culture, on closer scrutiny emerges as a much more complex, composite phenomenon. Posters and paper rationing As interest in cinema ephemera grows, film posters are coming to be regarded as important cultural artefacts. Posters can change hands for vast sums of money, testament not only to their aesthetic appeal, but also to their rarity: posters were not designed for posterity, but rather for ­immediacy – once the programme that they advertised had concluded, posters were most often discarded.38 Indeed, the transitory nature of the medium, and the sheer number of films that needed to be promoted, did not always lend itself to great art. S. John Woods, who was involved in designing a range of advertisements for Ealing Studios, in 1943 offered his own opinions as to the ‘shocking vulgarity’ of many posters: One of the reasons is, I think, that they have never properly progressed beyond the film’s early genesis as one of the attractions of the travelling showman, so that contemporary film posters smack of the showman’s booth, but without the genuine virility of the style from which they sprang and without even the charm of a period piece.

Woods conceded that the economic structure of the exhibition industry was in large part responsible for the ‘lurid’ advertising it produced. Whilst large cinema chains had the financial resources, and the justification, to



Showmanship in wartime

commission artists to design posters, the majority of smaller theatres were reliant on advertising materials provided by distributors, who could only hope to make a profit on poster sales by minimising production costs.39 Needless to say, artists and designers resented the implication that the work they did for the cinema was below par, or unambitious, and one responded to Woods by shifting the blame onto cinema managers, claiming that they ‘reject good displays and posters on the assumption that they are above the heads of the inhabitants of, say, Camden and Kentish Towns’.40 Whatever the merits of the typical British poster in this period, it is clear that film posters were an important element of the visual bricolage that shaped perceptions of urban Britain for much of the mid-twentieth century. A publicity still for British National’s Old Mother Riley’s Circus (1941) shows Mother Riley (Arthur Lucan) in animated conversation with a policeman; they stand in front of a wall covered with posters promoting tobacco, Heinz tomato chutney, a circus and – carefully positioned for maximum visibility – Pimpernel Smith (1941), a film starring Leslie Howard that also happened to be produced by British National.41 As a youth, Leslie Halliwell planned his journeys through Bolton so that he could ‘study form in the shape of stills and posters of coming [cinema] attractions’, and later recalled ‘the excitement of reading … brightly-­ coloured posters, which because they changed so frequently were the cleanest items in our damp and sooty town’.42 The visual prominence of the cinema in British towns and cities resulted from advertising posters being placed on official hoardings and unofficial fly-posting sites, in shop windows and cinema foyers. Relatively few wartime film posters survive. Most were recycled as part of the effort to maximise the nation’s paper stocks, especially in the wake of the German conquest of Norway, a country that had before the war supplied much of Britain’s wood-pulp. This, though, was all part of a more general – and heavily advertised – wartime mania for salvage, which saw regular collections not only of paper, but also of food scraps and bones, rags, metal, rubber and glass. For a short period, some cinemas accepted waste paper in lieu of payment for admission to children’s matinees, although the widespread adoption of this practice was deprecated by the CEA, which feared that allowing local councils to use cinemas as waste-paper dumps risked bringing about ‘a downward turn in prestige’.43 However, the trade press rarely missed a chance to urge the exhibition industry to collect as much waste paper and cardboard as possible – ticket stubs, food wrappers,

173

174

Cinemas and cinemagoing in wartime Britain, 1939–45

cigarette packets and so forth – and was adamant that such collections were part of the industry’s duty to the nation. The introduction of strict controls over the use of paper affected British cinemas and cinema culture in a number of ways. Two daily exhibition industry trade papers, Daily Film Renter and Cinema/Today’s Cinema, agreed to publish on alternate days, whilst from the start of 1942 Kinematograph Weekly saw its pages reduced in size.44 Other publications simply went into hibernation during the war, aware that their particular market had dried up: there was, for example, no point in using precious paper to publish Cinema and Theatre Construction when the building of neither cinemas nor theatres was permitted. Fan magazines also underwent significant changes. In 1936, the four most popular cinema magazines had a combined circulation of approximately 300,000 copies per week, although given that a single copy was likely to pass through multiple pairs of hands, the number of actual readers might have been as much as four times greater. Soon after the start of the war, Picture Show joined forces with Film Pictorial, whilst Picturegoer agreed to merge with Film Weekly. The number of pages per issue was slowly whittled down: Picturegoer and Film Weekly was restricted to 30 pages in 1940, and to just 16 in the autumn of 1941, with the latter move accompanied by the transition from a weekly to a fortnightly publication schedule. Given that before the war Picturegoer alone had regularly put out 60 pages each week, such limits represented a dramatic reduction in the availability and variety of popular film journalism.45 Although the continued availability of fan magazines was probably a comfort to many regular and habitual cinemagoers, their truncated wartime appearance spoke of the impoverished nature of wartime life, and the ways in which the conflict disrupted even the most innocuous and innocent of pastimes. The war had an even greater impact on film posters. In June 1940, the prospect of imminent German invasion led the government to prohibit the display of place names and directional indicators, including telephone numbers, from signs and posters.46 As with so much wartime regulation, there was more than a touch of ambiguity concerning how, and how strictly, this regulation was to be implemented, but some local councils decided that they were not prepared to risk providing any potentially useful intelligence to enemy parachutists. In St Ives, Cornwall, for instance, one advertisement was left reading: ‘------- Garages, Ltd., -------. Phone ------- 100’ after all geographically specific information was redacted.47





Showmanship in wartime

Millions Like Us (1943) has fun with the official pronouncement that  from June 1940 the display of place names on signs was prohibited.

The decision to obliterate geographical information is satirised in Millions Like Us (1943) when a workman is shown painting over the words ‘Stratford-upon-Avon’ on a sign, whilst leaving the words ‘The birthplace of Shakespeare’ untouched (see Figure 13). Cinema posters were also affected by this decision, for many designs left a blank space so that the details of the particular cinema screening the film could be over-printed – an important device when programmes were changed so frequently, and with multiple venues competing for patronage. Whilst in most instances simply printing the name of the cinema was permitted, and provided those familiar with local theatres with sufficient information, some of the larger chains, which often had more than one cinema in a locality and so needed to distinguish between them, were left in a more difficult position. In South East London, the three Odeon cinemas in Woolwich differentiated themselves by producing differently coloured posters (red and blue; orange and black; green and mauve), and then printing a key to which colours represented particular cinemas on the film pages of a widely read local paper.48 Granada, which operated three cinemas in the area, included a slide in every programme for three weeks explaining

175

13

176

Cinemas and cinemagoing in wartime Britain, 1939–45

how patrons might decrypt posters ‘even though the name of the district has been blanked out’.49 It would be 1943 before these restrictions were relaxed, and even then in many cases geographical information could only be included by permission of the local constabulary and so long as it could not be read ‘from the air, or from a slowly moving vehicle’.50 Changes to the content of cinema posters need to be understood in the light of concurrent changes to their size, number and location. In March 1940 the first moves to ration paper were initiated by the Ministry of Supply, and over the following months new provisions were added to the Paper Control Order which specifically targeted the advertising trades, and were believed to amount, as one insider phrased it, to ‘More or less a death-blow for the poster industry.’51 From 1 August 1940 posters were restricted to a maximum area of 2,400 square inches, and to 1,200 square inches from November 1941, leaving the exhibition sector dependent on 30" × 40" quad crowns that were less than five per cent of the size of prewar 48-sheets.52 Whilst the gargantuan 48-sheets were clearly the exception rather than the norm, they were displayed at the busiest and most expensive locations, and as a consequence were disproportionately visible. Indeed, when Granada cancelled its contracts to hire a range of large hoardings at familiar and ‘spectacular’ sites, it commissioned and screened a short film to explain to patrons ‘the disappearance of your big posters’, and to assuage fears that the absence of posters equated to the closure of the cinema that had paid to have them posted.53 Some hoardings continued to be used to boost particular cinemas rather than the films they screened: the details needed to promote a venue were unlikely to change, so information could be painted on to a black background, and then the whole thing varnished to protect it from the elements. In many such instances, hoardings featured a quad crown-sized gap so that a poster for that week’s film could simply be pasted in. It became an offence to place two posters within one hundred feet of each other if they contained substantially the same information and if they could be viewed simultaneously, and in November 1941 exhibitors were informed that they would henceforth be allowed to display only ten posters per programme. Before the war, large cinemas advertising prestige films had made use of extensive poster campaigns: the Odeon Leicester Square booked 140 separate 48-sheet sites for The Spy in Black (1939) and it was not unusual for cinemas to display as many as 300 posters of varying sizes



Showmanship in wartime

to advertise a single programme.54 Many managers were concerned that these new restrictions would have a deleterious effect on box office takings, and the difficulties associated with promoting films meant that some venues ‘might as well be in China’.55 Film posters were designed to arrest attention – to be visible – and through their sheer abundance they had assumed a reassuring familiarity. Posters were potent symbols of the ways in which the cinema existed as an idea, the thought of which could be enjoyed even when dissociated from the immediate bounds of the site of exhibition, and whose appeal existed in the acts of expectation and reminiscence as well as in the moment of actual consumption. And just as fan magazines, film reviews and star-endorsements for beauty products were vital and vibrant elements of cinema culture, so posters triggered in those that saw them an emotional response that was not necessarily linked to the content of an individual film.56 For every cinemagoer who saw an advertisement for Gone With the Wind and thought of the narrative contortions – in Technicolor! – of the Civil War epic, there was a secretary more interested in Vivien Leigh’s hairstyle; for each ticket sold on the back of a poster for a Warner Bros gangster feature, there was a youthful factory worker whose walk to work suddenly took on a Cagney-esque swagger;57 for each film promoted, there were numerous hearts that beat faster in anticipation or memory of a first date, first kiss or first fumbling sexual encounter. All of these were elements of what cinema meant to people, how it was experienced, how it existed as a part of their lives. Changes to cinema posters therefore affected the way in which the cinema was perceived and the way in which it operated as part of British life. The successive strictures of the Paper Control Order transformed the presence of the cinema, especially when considered in the light (or otherwise) of the blackout: cinemas that had previously determined to make their existence known as widely as possible had to come to terms with a much more muted existence. In late 1940, Mass-Observation found that posters were ‘overwhelmingly’ the most important means by which cinemagoers found out where films were playing, with 54 per cent of the sample gaining information from on-street advertising (advertisements in newspapers accounted for only 32 per cent).58 So, whilst it was the case that the control of paper did not necessarily bring about a downturn in boxoffice takings – at the annual, national level, at least – it did in a very real sense change the ways in which people found out about, saw and thought about the cinema.

177

178

Cinemas and cinemagoing in wartime Britain, 1939–45

As cinema posters became less prominent, exhibitors became more dependent on advertisements placed in local newspapers. This had, of course, been considered an ‘essential’ form of advertising prior to the war, but exhibitors came to rely on it to an ever increasing degree as poster advertising became progressively more difficult.59 A quick look at pretty much any local newspaper issued in an urban district provides evidence of the sheer range of cinematic entertainment on offer across the United Kingdom. The Cambridge Daily News let town and gown alike know what was on at seven different picture theatres. In and around larger cities the advertisements were even more numerous. It was not unusual, for example, for the Wathamstow, Leyton and Chingford Guardian to carry publicity for the ten or more cinemas in the district it covered, the Western Daily Press to contain details of at least a dozen programmes in Bristol (see Figure 14), or the Edinburgh Evening News to inform inhabitants of the Scottish capital of what was playing at more than twenty cinemas in the city. Cinemas in the West End – likely to attract patrons from further afield – advertised in both the daily nationals and the three main London evening papers, the Evening Standard, the Evening News and the Star. The same pressures that trimmed the size of the trade press and fan magazines also brought about a reduction in the number of pages in British newspapers, with the Daily Express, for example, down to just six pages by mid-1940. The result was increased competition for advertising space, which brought in its train increased advertising rates (which the general inflationary pressures of wartime no doubt exacerbated). In the Observer, a Sunday national, the cost of cinema advertising rose by some 20 per cent during the first year of the war, and many other papers introduced similar price hikes.60 Cost alone, though, did little to deter the cinemas from placing their advertisements in newspapers: greater expenditure on this form of advertising could be justified both through rising ticket sales and the smaller outlay on poster publicity. Indeed, only the drastic short-term decline in patronage resulting from events such as the blitz could convince cinemas to give up advertising space, and even then only for short periods. On 7 September 1940, the day of the first major raid on London, the Daily Express carried details of the programmes of nineteen central London cinemas; by 18 October, the paper contained only four such advertisements.61 Whilst some of this decline might be attributed to cinemas either temporarily or permanently closing their doors, the short-term absence





Showmanship in wartime

Detail from cinema programme advertisements as printed in Western Daily Press, 29 April 1940. Note the call for female projectionists visible at the foot of the column.

179

14

180

Cinemas and cinemagoing in wartime Britain, 1939–45

of  perennial advertisers such as the Empire, Leicester Square suggests that the financial pressures brought to bear by the precipitous drop in audience  numbers was enough to make advertising in national papers unattractive.62 Elsewhere, Granada decided that advertising in London’s evening papers could no longer be justified, although it did continue to place programme notes in local weeklies.63 As trade recovered, so did advertising, and it was not long before all of the major West End venues – or at least those that were still open – resumed advertising in the local and national press. The reduction in paper advertising resulted in an increasing reliance on alternate forms of publicity. Film trailers, for example, although ‘practically universal in their use’ even before the war, became proportionately more important.64 Plans to make more efficient use of available raw stock by eliminating trailers altogether were discussed in 1942, but came to naught, although not before National Screen Service (NSS), responsible for the production of the trailers shown at some 80 per cent of British cinemas, were said to have experienced ‘considerable anxiety’.65 When feature-film trailers – described by those that made them as combining ‘artistry and emphasis’, and by Documentary News Letter as blending ‘hysterical language and feverish pictures’ – came under threat, NSS came out strongly in their defence, pointing out that the facilities that allowed NSS to work with, for example, the MoI and MoF in the course of the production, copying and distribution of propaganda and informational films were only there because of the NSS’s more nakedly commercial operations.66 Ultimately, film stock economies were found elsewhere, leaving the trailer-makers free to carry on as normal in their attempts ‘to make a bad picture look good and a good one better’.67 Seeking to ‘whet the public appetite’ for a particular film by including ‘as many of the “spicy” bits’ as they could, trailer producers tended to include ‘Gruesome and spectacular scenes, passionate embraces, violence, horrific action.’ However, for all that these were ‘the things that can give punch to the Trailer’, it remained crucial that they did not go too far. Trailers ‘must always achieve perfect purity in the eyes of the censorship authorities’, for trailers that were not awarded a ‘U’ certificate could not be included in an otherwise all-U programme, meaning that unaccompanied children could not enter the cinema, even though the other films on show might be entirely suitable for, or even aimed squarely at them.68



Showmanship in wartime

NSS understood that ‘too much subtlety does not pay in mass selling to an audience’, and produced its trailers accordingly.69 The same might be said of the publicity stunts and strategies employed by cinema managers as they attempted to promote their theatres and demonstrate their chops as showmen in the absence of posters and advertising hoardings. In this regard, necessity begat inventiveness: the exhibition industry had to find ways to peddle its wares that did not, as had so much pre-war advertising, rely on the use of paper. Sandwichboard-men, regular features of many British High Streets prior to the war, became even more popular, their presence enlivened by some novel developments, such as the use of luminous paint that allowed the advertisements they carried to be seen in the dark.70 Elsewhere, publicity stunts and street parades, previously considered something of a risk – ‘very difficult … A slovenly reproduction [of noteworthy elements of a film] is decidedly more harmful than beneficial’ – became decidedly more popular as cinema managers attempted to raise the profile of forthcoming programmes.71 The ‘Showmanship in War Time’ section of Kinematograph Weekly is a rich and endlessly diverting source of material for anyone hoping to understand the imaginative ways in which British cinemas advertised their wares after September 1939, from mock electioneering in Southampton on behalf of Mr Smith Goes to Washington (1939)72 to the good folk of Bury St Edmunds being invited to knock a nail into a coffin inscribed ‘A. Hitler’ (in support of The Great Dictator, 1940),73 via ‘leaflet raids’ in the foyer of a Willesden cinema74 and the display in autumn 1941 at the Elite in Middlesbrough of a glass case full of onions, a commodity then in short supply.75 Of course, the tendency of the ‘Showmanship in War Time’ section to feature the most original and outré stunts and campaigns makes the content of these pages somewhat unrepresentative, but nevertheless, those managers that took pains to keep showmanship alive were praised and their efforts held up as shining examples of what was possible, even in the straitened circumstances of the war years. Indeed, many of the exploitation competitions organised by distributors or the larger circuits to boost particular films made it explicitly clear that it was ‘Showmanship and originality of ideas alone’ that would be judged, a nod to the trying conditions in which showmen were operating.76 For the most part, these competitions were for commercial films such as Henry V (1944), for which a total prize fund of some 1,425 guineas was established, or less celebrated features such as Belle of the Yukon (1944) which b­ enefitted

181

182

Cinemas and cinemagoing in wartime Britain, 1939–45

from the publicity generated by a nationwide singing competition, but on occasion state-sponsored releases such as World of Plenty (1943) were also given ‘the works’.77 As attention-grabbing as many of the stunts undoubtedly were – and many reports attest to the good business done as a result of bespoke promotional campaigns – no less important were personal appearances by film stars. For many British cinemagoers, the chance to see an actor in the flesh was simply too good to pass up: such appearances were remembered as ‘something special’ by Joseph Marks, who enjoyed the visit of Elsie and Doris Waters (a.k.a. Gert and Daisy) to a Chingford cinema.78 Given that even relative non-entities could generate considerable excitement, it is hardly surprising to learn that whilst promoting 49th Parallel (1941) in his home town of Halifax, Eric Portman was ‘mobbed … and carried shoulder high into the foyer’ of a cinema which he was visiting.79 Personal appearances were also made by servicemen, especially those home on leave who had taken part in recent military actions, although these were greeted with varying degrees of enthusiasm by cinemagoers.80 Such appearances were of a part with a general tendency for British cinemas to cooperate with the various national war campaigns, if only because it was ‘absurdly easy to obtain posters’ for such campaigns and theatre managers were eager to fill the blank spaces that had previously advertised the latest Hollywood production. Foyer displays therefore promoted myriad schemes and initiatives – from rationing and National Savings Bonds to Aid for Russia and Warship Week – contributing to the war effort by raising awareness of important issues and encouraging patrons to donate money. Perhaps most importantly of all, involvement in such campaigns assisted in ‘selling the theatre in the guise of what every manager should aspire to make his theatre – a real community centre’.81 And it was in this attempt to create community, to imbricate a venue within its environment, that participation in government schemes allowed the exhibitors to continue to project their cinemas within their communities. A veritable palace of luxury, comfort and beauty? We all know that wartime difficulties crowd in on managements, but this doesn’t absolve them from making every effort to preserve the decencies, if not the best amenities of a cinema. I was disgusted on visiting one of London’s most palatial cinemas recently to find the men’s toilet in a distressing state of untidiness.



Showmanship in wartime

There was no plug to the wash-bowl, no towel and the soap-container had been wrenched half out of its tilting frame. The floor was littered with scraps of newspaper – apparently used by patrons to dry their hands – and the whole place revealed a lack of attention which indicated scanty managerial attention. I know that in many districts the public treat these places as they would not dare to treat their own homes, but that only calls for added supervision. It all contributes to showmanship.82

Many contemporary reports attest that the physical environment of an individual cinema made a significant contribution to its appeal, and that the standard and upkeep of the furnishings helped to establish a cinema as a potentially glamorous locale removed from the workaday environment in which it was so often located. Those paying to build cinemas certainly believed that this was the case, and the opening of a new venue, or the reopening of a recently renovated hall, was often accompanied by the release of promotional material that stressed the pains taken to create an opulent interior. When in 1930 the Windsor opened in Smethwick, the cinema’s managing director claimed that ‘No one can cross its threshold without feeling a sense of exhilaration’ before waxing lyrical about the delights contained within: It is a triumph of architecture graced by the art of the scenic decorator, a veritable palace of luxury, comfort and beauty. Here, music, colour, soft lighting, all combine to provide an atmosphere of joyousness, in which the mind can more easily cast aside the worries and problems of everyday life.83

In late 1936, as the Odeon in Portsmouth prepared to open its doors to the public, readers of the Portsmouth Evening News were told that ‘The new cinema is more than a theatre – it might easily be called a work of art, because every detail has been carried out with an eye to beauty.’ Potential patrons were also instructed that The approach to the auditorium comprises two large vestibules, [and] has a colour conception which merges into the general scheme of the theatre. The walls are beige and are relieved by the introduction of abstract lines which create an interesting optical illusion. The whole scheme is speckled in gold and picked out in green and reds.84

Placing such emphasis on interior design makes clear that the ‘atmosphere’ so prized by J. H. Hutchinson was in large part attributable to the way in which a cinema presented itself to its patrons, possibly because with so few really good films to go round, cinemas were keen to stress the importance of the non-cinematic elements of the practice of cinemagoing.85

183

184

Cinemas and cinemagoing in wartime Britain, 1939–45

Comparatively few cinemas were architectural masterpieces fitted out to the exacting standards set by the supers.86 Further, not all cinemagoers regularly or consciously paid much attention to the surroundings in which they watched films. That said, many small-town exhibitors were eager to discuss their cinemas in a manner that aligned them with the glamour of London’s most opulent venues: the Embassy brought ‘to Maldon [in Essex] all the amenities of the … West End super-cinema’;87 the New Ritz in Preston declared itself ‘Second to none in the provinces and equaled by few in the world of entertainment’;88 Gaumont’s Palace in Barnstaple, Devon, was said to have ‘been modelled upon similar lines to the Gaumont Corporation’s wonder cinema, the New Victoria, London’.89 Clearly, there was an ideal of cinemagoing to which provincial and independent exhibitors felt compelled to at least pay lip-service, even if budgetary constraints and local planning and licensing regulations meant that in many instances this ideal remained unrealised.90 For many people, the interior fit-out of a cinema was an important element of the cinemagoing experience. Young men in South Wales, for example, admitted to ‘receiving a “thrill” from the carpets and the comfortable seats’ on offer at their local halls,91 whilst in Bridgend, one cinemagoer recalled years later that one of the town’s cinemas had a ‘carpeted staircase leading to a carpeted lounge’ – evidently, floor coverings were memorable enough to stick in her mind.92 In part, this may have been because of the emphasis placed on interior design by the exhibition industry, but reports such as these also speak of a country that was in many areas still desperately poor and which was still recovering from the effects of the Great Depression. For many patrons, the cinema offered not so much décor and furnishings of a better order than that which could be seen at home, but décor and furnishings of a kind that were not seen at home at all. As late as 1934, the author of a history of British carpets could claim that the ‘ordinary civilized man probably thinks of a carpet as a pleasant covering to his floor … that will deaden the sound of his – and his ­servitors’ – footfalls’.93 Even given the far greater number of people employed in domestic service at the time, this comment works to position carpet as something of a luxury, and it is clear that until the consumer boom of the 1950s, ‘fitted carpet was … available only to a minority of the population’.94 Indeed, discussing the cinemas that his father owned and operated in Bristol, Denys Chamberlain observed that for many working-class



Showmanship in wartime

patrons a trip to the pictures ‘was probably the only occasion upon which they walked on carpet – their own homes providing only bare boards or lino’. As such, carpet made a not insignificant contribution to the excitement of ‘just being there’.95 Consequently, a cinema need not provide patrons with ‘soft carpets that might have graced the palaces of the Arabian Nights’ fantasies’ to provide a contrast to the everyday and so create the impression of opulence.96 When during the war the amount of carpet produced for home consumption fell away almost to nothing, cinema managers were concerned that their patrons would be quick to notice the effects.97 Given that the average life of a cinema or theatre carpet was thought to be in the region of five years, by 1945 most were looking more than a little ragged, not least, it was thought, because of the increased number of uniformed customers: ‘There is all the difference between the result of a patron turning upon a thin, smooth sole and upon the heavy nailed bottom of an Army boot.’98 Of course, carpets and floor coverings in private houses were in a similarly dishevelled state, but given that many British cinema exhibitors had used décor to consciously differentiate their halls from their patrons’ homes, this was scant consolation. From the fantastic array of colours and designs to be found in the super-cinemas (see the art-deco fan pattern visible in Figure 8), to the acres of ‘pneumatic’ carpet with a pile so deep that feet sank in ‘up to your ankles’, to the less luxurious but no less important fitted floor coverings to be found in the majority of British picture houses, maintaining carpets during the war was, as an exhibition industry  commentator noted, ‘our biggest headache’.99 One manager admitted to having to resort to ‘patching and re-patching, as well as cutting, stripping and introducing multi-coloured designs’, whereas another noted that worn carpets ‘are replaced with synthetic linoleum, or are not replaced at all’.100 Similar problems beset cinema managers when it came to maintaining or replacing seats. Utility furniture was designed to be affordable, efficient and durable rather than elegant or comfortable, and this should have given an additional advantage to cinema seats, which were designed ‘to make even a mediocre film a pleasure’.101 This, however, was not always the case. Before the war, cinema managers were told that in the event of damage, ‘it is advisable to re-cover the entire seat … as material quickly fades and too many patches of varying sizes would detract from the appearance of your auditorium’.102 However, upholstery materials and spare parts for

185

186

Cinemas and cinemagoing in wartime Britain, 1939–45

seats became increasingly scarce. From 1941, only women, and men aged over 40, were permitted to work in furniture factories, and fewer and fewer resources were given over to the production of furniture.103 What’s more, resources diverted to the production of furniture prioritised domestic consumers, most notably those who had lost their possessions and newlyweds seeking to set up a home.104 Many exhibitors were therefore forced to watch as their expensive, comfortable seats, so recently the ‘essence of house appeal’, slowly fell into a state of disrepair or were patched up, very much in the wartime make-do-and-mend spirit, ‘with any available material – seldom the right colour or texture’.105 By 1946, an estimated 50 per cent of cinema seats were in urgent need of either re-upholstering or replacement, and the problem was so acute that it was described in some quarters as ‘the manager’s nightmare’.106 This nightmare was not merely one of aesthetics. In many areas, local councils would only licence a cinema on the condition that it installed and maintained adequate and safe seating. In October 1944, the Public Entertainments Committee in Birmingham insisted that ‘more frequent attention be given to the renovation of the equipment’ after finding that at certain cinemas within its jurisdiction ‘some of the seats were in an extremely dilapidated condition, in one or two cases even involving the risk of damage to the clothing of the persons using them … neglect of this kind could not be permitted’.107 The problems associated with replacing broken or worn seats were exacerbated by damage caused by patrons. The arrival of American servicemen might have further boosted ticket sales, but it also introduced chewing gum into the auditorium, and thence to the underside of cinema seats.108 Chewing gum could, with a little ingenuity, be removed, but far more difficult to solve were the problems caused by a spate of seat slashings, the effects of which were felt the length and breadth of Britain, and which became more common from 1943 onwards.109 Vandalism was, of course, not a new phenomenon, but its effects were felt all the more painfully in wartime: ‘What makes the crime more heinous’, the manager of the Model cinema in Cresswell told readers of Picturegoer as he requested their cooperation in bringing malefactors to justice, ‘is that replacements and materials for repairing the damage is in most cases unobtainable’.110 Malicious damage to cinemas became so widespread that many exhibitors screened a trailer asking patrons to report anyone seen slashing fabric, using wire clippers to cut seat springs, or stealing or damaging fixtures and fittings.111



Showmanship in wartime

At the Byron cinema in Hucknall, Nottinghamshire, more than £100worth of damage was done when 100 or so seats were mutilated. The police became involved when it was found that what had initially appeared to be wanton vandalism was in fact theft: the rubber pads that were used in the seats’ arm rests were stolen so that they might be sold as sponges for use in the baths at a local colliery. Seven men between the ages of 16 and 23 were eventually prosecuted and fined between £3 and £5. Such substantial penalties reflected the financial severity of the crime: rubber arm pads that before the war might be purchased for 1s. each were in such short supply by mid-1943 that the cost of replacing them stood at approximately £1 per seat.112 In the hope of deterring similar acts of vandalism, the CEA attempted to make an example of the guilty parties. On the same day that the Hucknall Dispatch carried news of the prosecution, the same paper carried the following ‘Public Notice’ on its front page: The Notts. and Derby Branch of the Cinematograph Exhibitors’ Association of Great Britain and Ireland do wish it to be known publically that admission to any cinema in the Counties of Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire will be refused to those persons who pleaded guilty and who were convicted at the Shire Hall, Nottingham, on Saturday, May 22, 1943, for stealing and receiving Rubber Arms Pads and doing willful damage to the seats in the Byron Cinema, Hucknall.113

However, despite the use of such tactics, the exhibitors’ campaign against the seat slashers was believed in some quarters to have been largely ‘futile’.114 Part of the problem arose from the difficulty of apprehending those responsible – the darkened auditorium was a vandal’s paradise – and part from the tender years of many of those caught causing damage: juvenile courts were more likely to caution youths, bind them over to keep the peace, or place them on probation, than they were to impose the harsh ‘salutary’ punishments demanded by exhibitors.115 It should come as no surprise, however, that the cinema became the site of criminal activity. Several recent studies have given the lie to the notion that the consensual and collective ideas espoused by so much British propaganda, and reiterated by so much contemporary and subsequent history, reflected the full reality of life in wartime Britain.116 Crime and antisocial activity increased markedly, and the cinema, so deeply embedded in British social and economic life, could not expect to exempt itself from such increases simply because it promised the possibility of entertainment or escape. For

187

188

Cinemas and cinemagoing in wartime Britain, 1939–45

if a cinema was a space where a community could come together, then it is certain that all of the virtues and vices of that community would be found there, too. Consequently, just as the cinema was a site of companionship, romance or, on occasion, sexual adventure, so it was also a site of vandalism, embezzlement, robbery, sexual assault and even murder.117 The mutilation caused by the seat-slashers and the general tiredness of carpets and seats was accompanied by a general running-down of the physical fabric of the cinema building as a whole. Whilst in some instances damage was caused by enemy action, the down-at-heel appearance of many cinemas was the product of the difficulties associated with the maintenance of the physical environment of the picture theatre in time of war: ‘It seems that the cinema, which once prided itself upon its spick-and-spanness, may have to be content with less exacting standards.’118 Following on from strict controls being imposed upon civil building, in January 1942 the Ministry of Works announced that a limit of £100 would be imposed on ­maintenance or building in any given twelve-month period, although licences for more extensive projects could be sought.119 Given that the £100 figure was to include the wages, pro rata, of any staff members who carried out even the most basic of maintenance (which the legislation defined as including such activities as flushing drains or washing glazed brickwork), it is perhaps not surprising that many exhibitors reacted with horror: ‘this particular regulation [seems] to be absolute rot’, complained Portsmouth’s E. V. Glenister.120 Indeed, the parsimonious sum allowed by the Ministry of Works meant that as far as British cinemas were concerned, ‘practically none of them will be able to spend further money on maintenance without a special permit’, a statement borne out by figures from the 500-seat Curzon cinema in Mayfair, London, which in January 1940 estimated an annual expenditure on repairs of between £150 and £200, a figure that was in all likelihood exclusive of internal labour costs.121 Larger cinemas spent greater sums on repairs and maintenance, and could therefore be expected to suffer proportionately more. The super-cinemas, whose large sizes were matched by their aesthetic largesse, stood to lose most as the gilt peeled slowly and publically from the lily.122 However, whilst the objective of the Control of Building Order was to restrict as far as possible the use of resources for non-essential maintenance and construction, it was generally understood that any building genuinely in need of repair or maintenance would not be denied the necessary



Showmanship in wartime

licence, so long as it was applied for through the appropriate channels. The Ministry of Works was prepared to adopt a sympathetic attitude to applicants, even though this did not necessarily result in successful applications. The Ministry was, though, notably unsympathetic to anyone found to have contravened the Order, as the proprietors of Glasgow’s George and Victory cinemas found in mid-1943; in the first case a prosecution was brought for carrying out work in excess of £100, in the second, for exceeding the amount stipulated in an approved licence. Both were fined £50.123 Whilst most exhibitors seem to have understood the need for economy in terms of repairs, the fact that building materials were diverted towards the construction of hundreds of new cinemas in military camps caused some annoyance. By 1942, between three and four hundred had been built: ‘While many of these theatres are unpretentious and conform strictly to the barest utilitarian needs, others have been so ingeniously designed and well equipped that they fully merit the description of “pocket-supers” applied to them by a resentful exhibitor.’124 Further tension resulted from the screening of commercial features in camp cinemas. Exhibitors expressed concern both that this policy kept servicemen out of their own halls, and that civilian patrons were sneaking into camp to watch films intended only for those in uniform. Although attempts were made to position camp cinemas at least two miles from commercial cinemas, this was not always feasible. Exhibitors did not begrudge service personnel their leisure time, and were keen to keep them in the cinemagoing habit, but were loathe to lose business.125 Many of these concerns were still current in the post-war period when Rex Hipple, performing his National Service, ran film shows for his fellow soldiers. Initially, these shows consisted primarily of training films, with documentary features such as Battle of Stalingrad (1949) being all that could be provided ‘in the way of entertainment’. However, when he found that the Army Kinema Corporation film vaults were located at the barracks, he took to borrowing commercial features, advising his audience, ‘“Look, if anybody asks you, you should be seeing the Battle of Russia [1943]”, or whatever it was, “but actually [we’re] going to see Rhapsody in Blue [1945].”’ It was only when the camp authorities got wind of this ruse that Rex was advised to stop.126 As British exhibitors sought to comply with the provisions of the maintenance order, they introduced economies that would have been unimaginable in the pre-war period. In many instances, only those parts of a venue immediately visible to the public were cleaned, and the carefully

189

190

Cinemas and cinemagoing in wartime Britain, 1939–45

considered interior design scheme became increasingly shambolic: the idea of unity of space, all contributing to the creation of a particular environment, became another casualty of war. It was hoped that cinemagoers, understanding only too well that there was a war on, would forgive declining standards, and, desperate as they were for entertainment, patrons do appear to have been prepared to overlook a great many of the experiential changes that came about after 1939. The industry itself was not always so accepting, as Kinematograph Weekly’s resident Showman made clear in June 1942: Cinema frontages are being repainted – but only up to a height of some 10 feet from the pavement. Above this arbitrary level there remains all the grime and filth of years of neglect, which is made to look all the more repulsive by reason of the freshness of the bottom half.127

The impact that the war had on the aesthetics of the cinema building was profound: After visiting a series of cinemas with shabby frontages, gloomy vestibules, untidy offices, and other depressing features, one might reasonably form the conclusion that soap rationing, shortages of cleaners and other staff, ­restrictions on paint and other wartime obstacles have proved too much for managers and [has brought about] a deterioration in the standard of s­martness to which we have grown accustomed in our places of entertainment.128

If this was so, it was also true of Britain more generally. Arriving back in Britain in 1947 after spending the war in America, Christopher Isherwood was ‘powerfully and continually depress[ed]’ by the sight of London: ‘Plaster was peeling from even the most fashionable squares and crescents; hardly a building was freshly painted.’ This was, Isherwood observed, a city that ‘remembered the past and was ashamed of its present appearance’.129 For London, one might read Britain. Or even, because the fate of the two was so intimately intertwined, British cinemas. Notes 1 J. H. Hutchison, The Complete Kinemanager (London: Kinematograph Publications, 1937), pp. 27–8. 2 Annette Kuhn, ‘Cinemagoing in Britain in the 1930s: report of a questionnaire survey’, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, 19:4 (1999), p. 536.



Showmanship in wartime

3 See, for example, Helen Richards, ‘Memory reclamation of cinemagoing in Bridgend, South Wales, 1930–1960’, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, 23:4 (2003). 4 Annette Kuhn, An Everyday Magic: Cinema and Cultural Memory (London: I.B. Tauris, 2002), p. 146. 5 The trade press continued to talk of showmen and showmanship despite the fact that conscription and other wartime changes had combined to place an increasing number of women in managerial positions. What had previously been an almost exclusively male preserve changed to the extent that Kinematograph Weekly could ask, ‘Who is going to be the first cinema manageress to win a Kine Showmanship award?’ 8 January 1942, p. 116. 6 Kinematograph Weekly, 23 April 1942, p. 29. 7 Alan Burton and Steve Chibnall, ‘Promotional activities and showmanship in British film exhibition’, Journal of Popular British Cinema, 2 (1999), pp. 94, 83. Burton and Chibnall observe that simultaneous nationwide releases brought about a decline in localised promotional campaigns: ‘There was little incentive for exhibitors to trump up a film that might be playing up the road.’ 8 Portsmouth City Records Office: The Regent Ledgers: figures are from early 1939; the National Archives of Scotland: GD 289/1: the Playhouse Ledgers, figures are from mid-1939. If, as seems likely, all of the nearly 5,000 cinemas in Britain advertised in some form every week, each would only have to have spent a little more than £4 a week for the sector’s annual advertising budget to exceed £1,000,000. Whilst some smaller or less salubrious venues might well have spent less than £4 a week, contemporary evidence suggests that mediumsized and large cinemas spent a good deal more. 9 BFI Special Collections: Bernstein Papers: Box 78: Theatres 1940: Wandsworth Road: F. C. Knott to Ewart Hodgson, 13 May 1940. 10 BFI Special Collections: Bernstein Papers: Box 78: Theatres 1940: Wandsworth Road: Sidney L. Bernstein to Mr Knott, 16 May 1940. 11 Burton and Chibnall, ‘Promotional activities’, p. 90. 12 Burton and Chibnall, ‘Promotional activities’, p. 84. 13 Daily Mirror, 19 January 1940, p. 12. Although the consensus amongst the newspaper critics was generally extremely positive, the Daily Worker took exception to the film, insisting that so many punches had been pulled in order to get the production past the censor that a novel that had lambasted capitalism had ended up ‘profoundly and subtly reactionary’. Daily Worker, 22 January 1940, p. 3. 14 Daily Express, 19 January 1940, p. 11. 15 Illustrated London News, 3 February 1940, p. 148. 16 Daily Mirror, 26 January 1940, p. 15. 17 For The Stars Look Down as a piece of national cinema, see Manchester Guardian, 20 January 1940, p. 10, or Graham Greene’s review in the Spectator (26 January 1940), BFI Microfiche Collection – The Stars Look Down. 18 BFI Microfiche Collection: The Stars Look Down – Press Book.

191

192

Cinemas and cinemagoing in wartime Britain, 1939–45

19 Hutchison, Complete Kinemanager, p. 14. 20 Details of the Order can be found in Kinematograph Weekly, 5 February 1942, p. 3. 21 A reproduction of the Odeon advertisement in the Bournemouth Echo, and details of the other publicity materials, can be found in BFI Microfiche Collection: The Stars Look Down – Press Book. 22 Bernstein Papers: Box 78: Theatres 1940: Wandsworth Road: Ewart Hodgson to Mr Green, 31 January 1940. 23 The Times, 22 January 1940, p. 4; Daily Express, 22 January 1940, p. 6; Observer, 11 February 1940, p. 2. 24 Hutchison, Complete Kinemanager, p. 12. 25 Denys Chamberlain, interview with author, 13 June 2011. Tonie Downes recalled that the managers of the cinemas in Walsall were ‘always persons of … status in the community’. Interview with author, 10 June 2011. 26 Eric Barlow, interview with author, 1 February 2011. 27 BFI Special Collections: Bernstein Papers: Box 78: Theatres 1940: Wandsworth Road: Ewart Hodgson to Mr Green, 31 January 1940. Formatting in original. 28 BFI Special Collections: Bernstein Papers: Box 78: Theatres 1940: Wandsworth Road: Ewart Hodgson to S. Greenberg, 31 January 1940. 29 See, for example, Balham, Tooting and Mitcham News and Mercury, 23 February 1940, p. 9; and a similar story in Walthamstow, Leyton and Chingford Gazette, 16 February 1940, p. 8. 30 The provision of refreshments, even as seemingly bland as these, was deemed worthy of mention in reports of the trip. Granada’s contact at Grand National Pictures, and the man responsible for providing the noteworthy tea and biscuits, was the publicity manager Jack Griggs, who would soon after move to the Ministry of Information’s Films Division. 31 A. Fraser Green of the Granada Wandsworth Road, for example, won the weekly publicity prize after gluing labels reading ‘Beer is best – and so is The Stars Look Down and French Without Tears [1940] – at the Granada next week’ on the base of some 500 pint glasses at a number of local pubs: ‘when a customer finished his beer he was able to read the label, which was slightly magnified by the thick base of the glass’. BFI Special Collections: Bernstein Papers: Box 78: Theatres 1940: Wandsworth Road: Sidney L. Bernstein to Mr Green, 8 March 1940. 32 BFI Special Collections: Bernstein Papers: Box 78: Theatres 1940: Wandsworth Road: A. Fraser Green to Sidney L. Bernstein, 9 March 1940. 33 Advertisement in Balham, Tooting and Mitcham News and Gazette, 23 February 1940, p. 8. John Madin’s life is described in Mike Kerry, Wand’ring Minstrel (Cambridge: Vanguard Press, 2005). 34 R. H. ‘Josh’ Billings put The Stars Look Down in joint second on his list of money-makers at British box-offices for February 1940, tied with The Rains Came (1939) but behind the Judy Garland-Mickey Rooney hit Babes in Arms (1939). Kinematograph Weekly, 9 January 1941, p. 26.



Showmanship in wartime

35 Sue Harper, ‘A lower-middle-class taste-community in the 1930s: admissions figures at the Regent cinema, Portsmouth, UK’, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, 24:4 (2004). For contemporary analysis of these cultural micro-climates, see Elizabeth Bowen, ‘Why I go to the cinema’, in Charles Davy (ed.), Footnotes to the Film (London: Lovat Dickson, 1938), pp. 207, 209–10. 36 BFI Special Collections: Bernstein Papers: Box 78: Theatres 1940: Wandsworth Road: A. Fraser Green to Sidney L. Bernstein, 9 March 1940; Spectator, 26 January 1940, p. 108. 37 BFI Special Collections: Bernstein Papers: Box 78: Theatres 1940: Wandsworth Road: A. Fraser Green to Sidney L. Bernstein, 9 March 1940. 38 On the history of cinema posters in Britain, see Sim Branaghan, British Film Posters: An Illustrated History (London: BFI, 2006). 39 Advertiser’s Weekly, 9 September 1943, pp. 326, iii. 40 Advertiser’s Weekly, 30 September 1943, p. 403. 41 The still, RC2, is held in the BFI National Archive Stills and Posters and Designs collection. Old Mother Riley’s Circus was pretty shameless in promoting other British National films, and features posters for Contraband (1940), Gaslight (1940), Love on the Dole (1941) and The Common Touch (1941). The last of these films is also the subject of an advertisement, featured in lingering close-up, on the front page of a mocked-up edition of the trade paper Cinema. 42 Leslie Halliwell, Seats In All Parts: Half a Lifetime at the Movies (London: Grafton Books, 1986), pp. 23, 29. 43 Kinematograph Weekly, 29 January 1942, p. 15. Salvage campaigns feature in many wartime films, from the paper drive witnessed in A Canterbury Tale (1943) to Food Flashes requesting the return of used milk bottles, to Basil Radford’s Rubber Appeal (1942), an MoI short released after the Japanese had captured Singapore and Malaya. 44 It was agreed that, as of 18 September 1939, Daily Film Renter would appear on Monday and Thursday, Cinema/Today’s Cinema on Tuesday and Friday; both would continue to print a Wednesday edition. 45 Kuhn, Everyday Magic, pp. 248–9; Mark Glancy, ‘Picturegoer: the fan magazine and popular film culture in Britain during the Second World War’, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, 31:4 (2011), pp. 458–9. 46 The Directional Signs Order of 1940 led to the dismantling of signposts, as lamented in Manchester Guardian, 10 February 1941, p. 8. 47 Signs and Outdoor Advertising, May 1941, p. 186. 48 Kinematograph Weekly, 18 July 1940, p. 4. 49 BFI Special Collections: Bernstein Papers: Box 78: Theatres 1940: Wandsworth Road: Memo from Ewart Hodgson to all theatres, 11 July 1940. 50 Daily Film Renter, 19 April 1943, p. 3. 51 Advertiser’s Weekly, 30 May 1940, p. 244. 52 The development of the distinctly British quad crown is discussed in Branaghan, British Film Posters, pp. 55–7.

193

194

Cinemas and cinemagoing in wartime Britain, 1939–45

53 BFI Special Collections: Bernstein Papers: Box 78: Theatres 1940: Wandsworth Road: Ewart Hodgson to F. C. Knott, 7 June 1940; F. C. Knott to the Southern Railway, 12 June 1940. 54 Kinematograph Weekly, 10 August 1939, p. 30; Guy Morgan, Red Roses Every Night: An Account of London Cinemas Under Fire (London: Quality Press, 1948), p. 23. 55 Kinematograph Weekly, 7 May 1942, p. 39. 56 The ways in which stars were commodified and consumed in the period is discussed in Charles Eckert, ‘The Carole Lombard in Macy’s window’, Quarterly Review of Film Studies, 3:1 (1978). 57 The influence that Hollywood gangsters had on British youths – criminal and otherwise – is discussed in Mark Roodhouse, ‘In racket town: gangster chic in austerity Britain, 1939–1953’, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, 31:4 (2011). 58 Mass-Observation Archive: File Report 445: Len England, ‘Film questionnaire’, 8 October 1940, p. 4. 59 Hutchison, Complete Kinemanager, p. 16. 60 Observer, 20 August 1939, p. 22; 18 August 1940, p. 8. 61 Daily Express, 7 September 1940, p. 4; 18 October 1940, p. 4. 62 Although the Empire ceased trading for only a single day – 16 October 1940 – there were many other days – for example, 26 September 1940 – on which it did not place its regular advertisements in, for example, the Daily Express. 63 See, for instance, BFI Special Collections: Bernstein Papers: Box 78 – Wandsworth Road (1940): Cecil G Bernstein to All [London] theatres, 16 September 1940. 64 Hutchison, Complete Kinemanager, p. 13; Kinematograph Weekly, 2 April 1942, p. 41. 65 Advertisement for NSS in Kinematograph Yearbook, 1944 (London: Kinematograph Publications, 1944), p. 192; Documentary News Letter, 4:3 (March 1943), p. 194. On the raw-stock shortage more generally, see Kinematograph Yearbook, 1942 (London: Kinematograph Publications, 1942), p. 198. 66 Advertisement for NSS in Kinematograph Yearbook, 1944, p. 192; Documentary News Letter, 4:3 (March 1943), p. 194. On NSS’s British operation, see Sarah Street, ‘“Another medium entirely”: Esther Harris, National Screen Service and film trailers in Britain, 1940–1960’, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, 29:4 (2009). 67 Esther Harris, ‘The production of trailers’, British Kinematography, 23:4 (October 1953), p. 98. 68 John Huntley, ‘“U” and cry: the story of Denham’s trailer department’, Film Industry, June 1947, pp. 8–9. Emphasis in original. 69 Harris, ‘Production of trailers’, p. 98. 70 Kinematograph Weekly: 13 June 1940, p. 39; 2 November 1939, p. 20. 71 Hutchison, Complete Kinemanager, p. 21.



Showmanship in wartime

72 Kinematograph Weekly, 27 June 1940, p. 26. 73 Kinematograph Weekly, 6 March 1941, p. 27. 74 BFI Special Collections: Bernstein Papers: Box 78: Theatres 1940: Wandsworth Road: Sidney L. Bernstein to Mr Knott, 4 April 1940. 75 Kinematograph Weekly, 2 October 1941, p. 43. 76 Kinematograph Weekly, 2 December 1943, p. 52. This quote is taken from a competition to promote First Comes Courage (1943). 77 Cinema, 30 May 1945, pp. 3, 12; Jack Griggs, quoted in Richard Farmer, ‘Exploiting a universal nostalgia for steak and onions: the Ministry of Information and the promotion of World of Plenty (1943)’, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, 30:2 (2010), p. 170. 78 Joseph Marks, interview with author, 16 May 2011. 79 Cinema, 12 November 1941, p. 9. For more on Portman’s reception, see Yorkshire Post, 6 November 1941, p. 6. 80 Norman Longmate recounts the story of a ‘survivor from Dunkirk’ who was arrested as a deserter from the Pioneer Corps shortly before he was due to make a personal appearance. How We Lived Then: A History of Everyday Life during the Second World War (London: Pimlico, 2002), p. 405. Appearances by servicemen were not always welcomed: Pam Ashford described as ‘terribly boring’ the story told by a sailor about his experiences on the Altmark. Diary entry, 8 June 1940. In Simon Garfield (ed.), We Are at War: The Remarkable Diaries of Five Ordinary People in Extraordinary Times (London: Ebury Press, 2005), p. 251. 81 Kinematograph Yearbook, 1942, p. 208. 82 Kinematograph Weekly, 1 May 1941, p. 4. Misuse (or abuse) of the lavatories was also a bugbear of F. C. Knott of the Granada, Wandsworth Road, who complained of his patrons’ ‘filthy’ ways and claimed that he ‘could use much more forcible language to express … disgust at the habits and manners’ of the cinemagoers to whom he catered. BFI Special Collections: Bernstein Papers: Box 78: Theatres 1940: Wandsworth Road: F. C. Knott to Sidney L. Bernstein, 1 June 1940. For J. H. Hutchison’s opinion regarding the importance of properly maintained toilets – ‘Patrons are more critical of lavatories than any other part of the building so they must be scrupulously clean’ – see Complete Kinemanager, pp. 32–4. 83 Cinema-Theatre Association Archive: Birmingham Papers: Mike Simkin, ‘Birmingham cinemas versus the blitz’, p. 38. 84 Portsmouth Evening News, 5 December 1936, p. 3. 85 Block-booking, a practice that required an exhibitor to agree to rent a number of films of unknown quality in order to be able to screen a first-rate feature, had been made illegal by the 1927 Cinematograph Films Act, but smaller independent cinemas could still find it a challenge to get their hands on attractive films. 86 Vera Eldridge was relocated to Hampshire at the start of the war, and remembered of the Civic in Alresford that its tin roof that was so noisy when it rained

195

196

Cinemas and cinemagoing in wartime Britain, 1939–45

that ‘you could hardly hear’. Interview with author, 16 July 2010. The Civic was a pretty much uninsulated tin shed, cold in the winter and hot in the summer. 87 Chelmsford Chronicle, 20 March 1936, p. 12. 88 Lancashire Evening Post, 30 April 1938, p. 1. 89 North Devon Journal, 11 June 1931, p. 5. 90 That this had been the case since the earliest days of fixed-site exhibition in Britain has been demonstrated by Rosalind Leveridge. When the Sidmouth Cinema opened in 1913, it was ‘consciously modelled on London standards’ and said by the local press to be a ‘a replica of Oxford Street down to the smallest detail’. ‘“Proud of our little local Palace”: Sidmouth, cinema, and community, 1911–14’, Early Popular Visual Culture, 8:4 (2010), p. 394. 91 A. J. Lush, The Young Adult: Being a Report Prepared in Co-operation with Young Men in Cardiff, Newport, Pontypridd, Under the Auspices of the Carnegie United Kingdom Trust (Cardiff: University of Wales Press Board, 1941), pp. 80–1. Lush also found that many of those surveyed ‘went to the cinema even when they confessed they knew that no good film was showing’. 92 Mrs May, quoted in Richards, ‘Memory reclamation’, p. 347. 93 C. E. C. Tattersall, A History of British Carpets: From the Introduction of the Craft until the Present Day (Benfleet, Essex: F. Lewis, 1934), p. 15. Emphasis added. E. Norman Evans, writing shortly before the start of the war, advised that cinemas should be carpeted as ‘this gives a well-furnished appearance and deadens the noise of movement and service’. Cinema and Theatre Construction, May 1939, p. 10. 94 Judy Attfield, ‘The tufted carpet in Britain: its rise from the bottom of the pile’, Journal of Design History, 7:3 (1994), p. 206. The key word here is fitted: many people covered floors with rugs, matting or lino. 95 Denys Chamberlain, letter to author, 26 August 2011. 96 BFI Special Collections: Cinema Ephemera: Regions: Newcastle-on-Tyne: Paramount News, 4 September 1931, p. 1. D’Arcy Orders, recalled that the carpets of the Regal in Cambridge were so deep that stepping through the door, he felt like he was ‘treading on almost a beach rather than … a foyer’. Interview with author, 28 February 2011. 97 Board of Trade Working Party Report: Carpets (London: HMSO, 1947), p. 30. According to the Board of Trade, the carpet industry ‘virtually closed down during the war and factories were used for making or storing munitions’. See also Longmate, How We Lived Then, p. 261. 98 Cinema and Theatre Construction, 13:5 (April 1947), p. 37; Ideal Kinema, 6 November 1941, p. iii. 99 Bowen, ‘Why I go to the cinema’, p. 212; Eric Barlow, interview with author, 1 February 2011; Cinema and Theatre Construction, 12:1 (June 1946), p. 29. 100 Cinema and Theatre Construction, 12:1 (June 1946), pp. 29, 30. 101 Cinema and Theatre Construction, 12:5 (October 1946), pp. 45–6. An overview of the history of and debates surrounding utility furniture can be found



Showmanship in wartime

in Matthew Denney, ‘Utility furniture and the myth of Utility, 1943–48’, in Judy Attfield (ed.), Utility Reassessed: The Role of Ethics in the Practice of Design (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1999). 102 Hutchison, Complete Kinemanager, p. 29. 103 Juliet Gardiner, Wartime: Britain 1939–1945 (London: Headline, 2004), p. 576. 104 This remained the case into the post-war era, as evidenced by a 1947 advertisement by C. R. Harrison & Sons Ltd: ‘During the past year or so we have been so fully engaged on work of National importance that the manufacture of Cinema Seating has had, literally, to “take a back seat.” … Now, however, the situation is easing and we will soon hope to be in production again.’ Kinematograph Yearbook, 1947 (London: Kinematograph Publications, 1947), p. 604. 105 Cinema and Theatre Construction, June 1946 (12:1), p. 30; October 1946 (12:5), p. 46. 106 Cinema and Theatre Construction, October 1946 (12:5), p. 45; June 1946 (12:1), p. 30. 107 Kinematograph Weekly, 26 October 1944, p. 10. 108 Morgan, Red Roses, p. 47. 109 Seat-slashing in cinemas was part of a wider trend of juvenile delinquency. See Angus Calder, The People’s War: Britain 1939–1945 (London: Pimlico, 2008), pp. 225–6. 110 M. Mitchell in Picturegoer, 1 May 1943, p. 9. 111 Lead pipes were a favourite target of thieves, but lamps were also stolen; in some cases small fires were started inside the cinema, whilst in others walls were defaced. There were concerns that the anti-vandalism trailer might do more harm than good, with one exhibitor worried that it had simply ‘shown [wrongdoers] how damage might be done’. Kinematograph Weekly, 25 March 1943, p. 23. 112 Hucknall Dispatch, 27 May 1943, p. 1; Daily Film Renter, 2 June 1943, p. 22. 113 Hucknall Dispatch, 27 May 1943, p. 1. 114 Kinematograph Weekly, 3 June 1943, p. 36. 115 Kinematograph Weekly, 28 October 1943, p. 23. See also the opinions of ‘Theodolite’ in Ideal Kinema (9 October 1941, p. iii) that ‘Many managers who have suffered would welcome the imposition of a type of punishment that would render the offenders unable to make use of any seat for a period.’ 116 See, for example, Edward Smithies, Crime in Wartime: A Social History of Crime in World War II (London: Allen & Unwin, 1982); Donald Thomas, An Underworld at War: Spivs, Deserters, Racketeers and Civilians in the Second World War (London: John Murray, 2003); Gardiner, Wartime, pp. 588–609. 117 For examples of the severe or violent crimes committed at British cinemas during the war, see: Daily Express, 23 September 1941, p. 3; Kinematograph Weekly, 25 March 1943, p. 23, 1 August 1940, p. 8, 1 January 1942, p. 10; Audrey Field, Picture Palace: A Social History of the Cinema (London: Gentry Books, 1974), pp. 140–1.

197

198

Cinemas and cinemagoing in wartime Britain, 1939–45

118 Ideal Kinema, 6 November 1941, p. iii. 119 Similar legislation had been first introduced in April 1941, but did not unduly concern the exhibition sector until its terms were revised at the beginning of 1942. C. M. Kohan, Works and Buildings (London: HMSO, 1952), pp. 139–43. 120 Kinematograph Weekly, 2 April 1942, p. 19. 121 Cinema, 24 December 1941, pp. 1, 3; BFI Special Collections: Cinema Ephemera: London: Curzon Cinema, Mayfair: Copy of cinema finances, 5 January 1940. 122 When Granada formulated its proposal for an 1,800 seat cinema in Kingston, it anticipated an annual repair budget of £250. See BFI Special Collections: Bernstein Papers: Box 73 – K – Kingston (1939): ‘Estimated trading and profit and loss account based on (a) seating capacity of 1,800, and (b) total cost of £65,000’. 123 Daily Film Renter, 7 June 1943, pp. 3, 6. 124 Kinematograph Yearbook, 1942, p. 191. 125 Exhibitors were also concerned that the MoI’s mobile projection units had the potential to compete with the commercial cinema. The MoI moved swiftly to allay such concerns, and dropped plans to include entertainment films in the programmes screened by mobile projection units. Margaret Dickinson and Sarah Street, Cinema and State: The Film Industry and the Government, 1927–84 (London: BFI, 1985), p. 118. 126 Rex Hipple, interview with author, 13 June 2011. 127 Kinematograph Weekly, 25 June 1942, p. 52. 128 Kinematograph Weekly, 23 April 1942, p. 29. 129 Isherwood, writing in 1956, is quoted in David Kynaston, Austerity Britain, 1945–51 (London: Bloomsbury, 2007), p. 191.

Cinemagoing in wartime

6 Cinemagoing in wartime

A

t one point during In Which We Serve (1942), Captain Edward Kinross (Noel Coward) and his wife Alix (Celia Johnson) take their children to the countryside for a picnic. It is the summer of 1940, and as they eat they watch as the Battle of Britain is fought in the skies above them. Bathed in bright, warm sunshine, the visual tranquillity of the shot, and the evident enjoyment that the family takes both in each other’s company and the rural idyll to which they have temporarily transported themselves, is at odds with the sound of Hurricanes and ME-109s audible on the soundtrack. The conversation eventually turns to this incongruity: Mrs Kinross: What a perfectly lovely day it’s been. Lovely for us, I mean. I suppose that’s very selfish of me, isn’t it? Capt. Kinross: Extremely. Mrs Kinross: I can’t believe it’s so dreadfully wrong to forget the war now and again, when one can, just for a little. Capt. Kinross: I think it’s very clever of you, with all hell breaking loose immediately over our defenceless heads. Mrs Kinross: I made the most tremendous effort and pretended it wasn’t real at all; they [the planes] were toys having a mock battle just to keep us amused. Capt. Kinross: That’s a most shameful confession. Sheer escapism.

Sheer escapism. This phrase – and numerous variations on a similar theme – is often used to celebrate or denigrate the popularity of the cinema during the Second World War. And just as Captain Kinross’s final line is delivered with a mixture of amusement, admonition and sympathy that makes clear his ambivalent feelings about his wife’s desire and ability to exempt herself from the realities of war, so the relationship between the cinema and the real world in which cinemas and cinemagoers were situated was equally uneasy.

200

Cinemas and cinemagoing in wartime Britain, 1939–45

When Charles de Gaulle arrived in London after Dunkirk, and with a German invasion of the United Kingdom widely expected, he was amazed – and, it seems, a little resentful – to find London’s ‘streets and parks full of people peacefully out for a walk [and] long queues at the entrance to cinemas’. To de Gaulle, such activities ‘belong[ed] to another world than the one at war’; the popularity of the cinema marked not so much an escape from the war as a wilful refusal to engage with it.1 Picture Show magazine’s Edward Wood, however, saw things rather differently: none of us could forget the war in the fullest sense of the word if we wished to do so, and … no British citizen worthy of the name would want to, for in doing so we should not be doing our duty. But it would be foolish to think we should not take our pleasures where and when we can find them, and they take a bit of finding in these days of blackouts and blitzes.2

Escapism was understood variously by different groups – to some, it was mere escapism, to others it was glorious – and the debates that surrounded the value of the cinema in wartime tended to hinge on notions of the role that the cinema was expected to play. For every zealot who was disbelieving that any sort of solace could be taken from the cinema, and who was incredulous that people could direct energy in this direction when the world was teetering on the brink (and it was almost always entertainment films that riled them), there was an apostle determined to proclaim the joys of the filmic medium and discuss the cinema as an institution capable of making a significant contribution to morale, national life and the British war effort. Escapism was, therefore, a term that could be used either pejoratively or affirmatively depending on who was using it. Indeed, in some instances it could be used both ways by the same person, as the Illustrated London News’ Ivor Brown demonstrated in early 1940: Now it is undeniably true that a great many people go to the pictures for ‘escape’, as romance is now contemptuously called by superior persons. I cannot for the life of me see any reason in despising the urge to escape for an hour or so from the contemplation of the world as it is today. The trouble is that some people want nothing but escape and are bored by any kind of picture, play, or book which is not smeared with the glamour of sex-romanticism.3

This reflects the fact that there was no single relationship between Britain and the cinema – as if either of these things could really be understood as singular in any meaningful way – but instead a huge number of relationships between individual Britons and the cinemas that they patronised



Cinemagoing in wartime

and the films that they watched. The passage of time affected both the country and individual cinemagoers, and so altered the relationship that Britons had with the cinema; each cinemagoing experience was unique, constructed not only by the film on show, but also by a range of temporally and spatially sensitive conditions that could and would never be replicated. Each of the billions of cinema tickets purchased during the war was done so by someone with a different reason for making a trip to the pictures and likely to bring back different things from it. Yet escapism, or perhaps more usefully escape, is still a useful point of departure for any exploration of the social significance of the cinema in Britain between 1939 and 1945, for the term brings with it both positive and negative connotations and brings to mind the idea that the cinema facilitated movement or transition: from here to there, from restriction to freedom, from one emotional state to another, from wartime reality to wartime fantasy, from individuality to collectivity and back again. Above all, it suggests that cinemagoing was not a passive pursuit, but an active one – people did not simply visit the cinema, they used it. And they did so for a wide variety of different reasons and for a range of different purposes. ‘That grand old pal the picturehouse’: cinema as entertainment Much of this book has championed the idea that cinemagoing is not the same thing as watching a film, and in so doing sought to demonstrate that the film, or programme of films, is but the most obvious – and most important – of the multiple experiences available to those who visited the cinema. But by concentrating on the non-filmic elements of a night at the pictures, it has not been my intention to marginalise the central role that films played in constructing ideas of the cinema. It was specific films that were promoted on each of those progressively smaller and scarcer posters, it was particular programmes that were projected by male and female operators, it was a western or comedy or a melodrama that people travelled through the blackout to see, it was the individual star that patrons walked over threadbare carpets and sat on inadequately patched-up seats to watch. The film remained as central to the cinema after 1939 as it had been before, when almost two-thirds of respondents to one survey chose to visit a venue on the strength of the programmes that it put together.4 Indeed, given the pressures that the war placed on the non-filmic aspects of the cinemagoing

201

202

Cinemas and cinemagoing in wartime Britain, 1939–45

experience, it is not inconceivable that this proportion might actually have risen after 1939. To get an impression of the wide variety of film types that found favour with British audiences, one need only look at the annual list of box-office winners produced by Josh Billings for Kinematograph Weekly.5 In amongst the big-name features such as Mrs Miniver (1942), For Whom the Bell Tolls (1944) and Gone With the Wind (1939) could be found a range of comedies (Ninotchka, 1939; The Great Dictator, 1940; the prodigious output of Bud Abbott and Lou Costello), musicals (Hello Frisco Hello, 1943; Sweet Rosie O’Grady, 1943), cartoons (Bambi, 1942; Saludos Amigos, 1942) and thrillers (Foreign Correspondent, 1940). All of the films mentioned so far, of course, were made by American studios, but the war saw an upturn in the fortunes of British productions of all genres: from prestigious and high-minded patriotic flag-wavers (49th Parallel, 1941; The First of the Few, 1942) to ribald comedies (Let George Do It, 1940; Old Mother Riley’s Ghosts, 1941); from war films (be they assiduously realistic like In Which We Serve, or not, like Convoy, 1940) to meditations on British life (Love on the Dole, 1941; This Happy Breed, 1944); from passionate Italian-based, split-personality costume melodramas (Madonna of the Seven Moons, 1944) to lachrymose Cornwall-based incipient blindness melodramas (Love Story, 1944) by way of Victorian-London-based love-between-the-classes melodramas (Fanny By Gaslight, 1944). These last three, all produced by Gainsborough Pictures, proved wildly successful, despite the implausibility of their plots and the ambivalent attitudes of many broadsheet critics: in the Observer, C. A. Lejeune described Love Story’s narrative convolutions as ‘magnificent, abstruse and silly’ before conceding that it would ‘run for weeks and weeks’.6 Such was the variety of styles, modes and genres listed by Billings that it becomes difficult to say exactly what British cinemagoers liked, except in the broadest possible sense: they liked films, and lots of them. It is surely too much to claim, as William Goldman does in Adventures in the Screen Trade, that ‘nobody knows anything’ when it came to anticipating audience responses to individual films, but given that so many different types of film were successful, it is all but impossible to determine any common denominators beyond, simply, the medium itself. What Billings provides, then, is an impressionistic overview of success at the national level. Local tastes could vary between and within cities, regions, genders and social groups: films that might play very well in one venue often failed to make the Kinematograph Weekly list of ‘Biggest Winners’.



Cinemagoing in wartime

Cinemagoers queue outside the Empire and Ritz cinemas in Leicester  Square, London, in March 1941. The Empire is showing The Philadelphia Story (1940), which ran for four weeks; the Ritz – as it did for much of the war – is screening Gone With the Wind (1939).

Box-office success rewarded particular films, but it also reflected the appeal of specific elements of those films. Billings himself was convinced that a film’s success was based on the sum of its parts, and noted of the hits of 1944 that ‘the majority of films that made the grade … had star, title and story values in the order given’. Expanding on the linkage that he saw as existing between star-value and ticket sales, he insisted that because ‘the public creates the stars … what’s more natural than that it should hitch its wagon to meteors of its own making?’7 Indeed, Billings provided exhibitors not simply with a list of popular films, but also with a list of the year’s most popular stars, as measured by box-office success. Publications such as Motion Picture Herald did likewise, pointing to the commercial success and contemporary cultural prominence of performers such as James Stewart and Vivien Leigh, whose stars have waned only slightly in the seventy years since the end of the war, and George Formby and Arthurs Askey and Lucan (Old Mother Riley), whose popularity with wartime cinemagoers has too often been either overlooked or explained away as an embarrassing cultural hiccough.8 For much of the war, comedians tended to feature prominently

203

15

204

Cinemas and cinemagoing in wartime Britain, 1939–45

towards the head of such lists – in 1941, for example, six of the top ten British stars were comics – and were said to do so ‘because they are comedians’: ‘Formby, Old Mother Riley, Big Hearted Arthur Askey, have beaten Hitler flat … in such present and preoccupied times as the present [by providing] sheer escapism and entertainment.’9 However, although Billings and the Motion Picture Herald might both have excitedly discussed the revenues generated by Abbott and Costello, and whilst the pair might have ‘scooped the pool’ at the Regent in Portsmouth, starring in three of only sixteen films to attract more than 20,000 patrons at that particular venue during the war, Bud and Lou’s commercial success is attributable to the fact that they appealed to individual cinemagoers en masse.10 Taste – in stars, as in films – is an indication of individual preference, meaning that whilst stars had the power to bring an audience together, they also had the potential to divide opinion. This is true even, and perhaps especially, between friends, as Joan Carbutt and Kathleen Wykes make clear: Joan: Kathleen: Joan: Kathleen:

Clark Gable in Gone With the Wind … oooohhh. He got big ears, his ears stuck out. Yeah, yeah, I didn’t mind that so much, I got used to his ears. Well, he wasn’t a favourite of mine, as you can tell.11

But disagreements such as this tend to focus on which stars were worthy of adoration, rather than on whether such adoration was appropriate in the first place. Although many of the most critically acclaimed films produced in Britain focussed on consensus and collective effort, and so placed less emphasis on the star as individual, the continued interest in stars shown by both exhibitors and cinemagoers would suggest that there was still scope for commercial and emotional investment in such figures.12 Yet what lists such as those produced by Billings and the Motion Picture Herald really foreground is the sheer range of films and stars that British cinemagoers had to choose from. In a period when numerous restrictions on choice, both in terms of consumption and production, brought about the increased regimentation and uniformity of everyday life, the fact that cinemagoers were able to exercise their own discretion in choosing a film was not unimportant. The Financial Times noted of the cinema that ‘the more necessaries are rationed, the more the wage earner will have to left to spend on harmless luxuries. Cinemas undoubtedly contribute to ­maintaining the morale of the hard-worked factory hand and themselves



Cinemagoing in wartime

require the minimum of labour.’13 Choice can be seen as an expression of individuality, of identity, of personal preference, a manner by which the individual might exercise a degree of control over their consumption patterns and, as far as the cinema is concerned, their time. As one soldier, stationed ‘somewhere in England’, put it, when one is compelled to forfeit so many of the things that one has been used to, it is most gratifying, helpful and comforting to know that he still has that grand old pal the picturehouse, which always offers so very much in return for little.14

In a period when the butter ration was set at two ounces a week and when pre-war margarine brands were pooled and sold under a single name,15 when the government provided enough clothing coupons for a man to purchase a new suit, without waistcoat, every two years and introduced regulations that governed to a great degree what that suit might look like, when the Ministry of Labour and National Service could direct Britons to specific jobs or workplaces, often away from home and family, and essentially compel them to remain there, and when homeowners were told by what time they had to close their curtains and could be prosecuted for failing to do so, the fact that the cinemagoer might go as often as they liked to whichever cinema they chose to watch whatever film appealed to them offered a sense of release, the significance of which might be difficult to fully comprehend today. To escape, or to attempt to escape, is to act; and whilst escapism is often thought of in terms of the content of certain films or genres – that is, in terms of where cinemagoers are hoping to escape to – it is just as productive to recognise where and what they are looking to escape from. And whilst many telling comparisons have been drawn between set design, costume and narrative on the one hand and the clothes, hairstyles, diets and emotional affairs of ordinary British cinemagoers on the other, we would do well to remember that the general scarcity that made films, especially Hollywood films, so appealing also produced an environment in which the expression of individual agency had become substantially more difficult. As Mark Glancy has noted, escapism ‘should not be equated with meaninglessness’.16 For some, the cinema retained its ability to transport them away from the concerns of the everyday, and Christine Gitsham, for example, remembered of her local picture house that ‘if you went to the Van Dyke [in Fishponds, Bristol] you forgot everything else’.17 Other cinemagoers, however, proposed that in wartime, a conscious effort had to be made to allow the cinema to work its magic:

205

206

Cinemas and cinemagoing in wartime Britain, 1939–45

there is no point going to the cinema for entertainment if we do not let ourselves relax when we are there. There is no pleasure to be got from a couple of hours at the cinema spent wondering whether there will be an air raid warning, and if so what we ought to do. The thing to do once inside the cinema is to forget the war and settle down to enjoy the picture.18

Here, one has to make the decision to forget the war; pleasure is not given but, rather, has to be taken, and its provision is reliant on the will power and single-mindedness of the individual: escape did not simply happen, it had to be made to happen. The films being screened often determined the extent to which escape was deemed to be possible, and those that contained military themes and content were held by some to remind viewers of the world outside the cinema: Went to the pictures and saw a film all about a doctor who goes to China … house not very full, Chinese in air raid, screaming in hospital, hospital coming down. Not very cheerful fare for people already thinking of bombs.19 Why should not the sound-box be ‘muted’ while [scenes featuring aeroplanes, sirens and bombing raids] are taking place? … Picture patrons go to the cinema to enjoy quietude and to find themselves in a frame of mind which allows them to concentrate their minds upon and appreciate the pictures. I have known several people recently who wanted to see welladvertised films refrain from visiting their local cinema because of the ‘racket kicked up’ by aeroplanes.20

Indeed, the psychological weight of the war was such that cinemagoers such as Joseph Marks dismissed the possibility that the pictures were ever able to successfully compete for attention with the conflict: You tried to escape but you came out into reality. The war was in the films and you couldn’t do anything about it you know, you couldn’t do anything. I mean you’re in a cinema and you’re watching a film and the lights suddenly go on, ‘Air Raid Siren.’ You can’t forget it. You can’t. ‘All Clear Sounded.’ You can’t forget it. You can’t forget it. Someone’s smoke next to you, you can’t forget it. You can never forget it.21

To quote a Mass-Observation diarist, ‘the war, however much you try not to think about it, it’s always there’.22 Furthermore, the war’s pervasiveness as a feature of the mental and experiential landscapes of Britain between 1939 and 1945 meant that even those producers who sought to avoid overt references to the conflict, or to military themes more generally, found that relatively innocuous content



Cinemagoing in wartime

could be interpreted through the prism of wartime experience. This phenomenon is exemplified by R. C. Paget’s story, recounted in Picturegoer in mid-1941, of watching a western set in America the 1860s: The film was Arizona [1940], and the moment was starkly dramatic, Miss [Jean] Arthur was waiting to know whether she was a wife or a widow. ‘Fifty pounds of sugar’, she ordered. ‘Ooooh’, roared the audience as one woman. And the drama was lost. We were not in Arizona, where two men were fighting for their lives, while a woman waited. We were back in England, where five pounds of sugar is an event, fifty pounds a miracle.23

Concerned that too much war-related material, either in narrative fictions or newsreels, threatened to undermine cinemagoers’ enjoyment of the pictures, some Britons insisted that British cinemas might best serve the public by dedicating themselves to the screening of the ‘carefree and comedy type’ of film. Providing patrons with a constant diet of Walt Disney animations and features starring actors such as Mae West, Ginger  Rogers and Fred Astaire, and Jack Hulbert and Cicely Courtneidge would ensure, insisted one picturegoer, that ‘the war would soon be forgotten’.24 It would be incorrect, however, to assume that British cinemagoers’ ability to enjoy the cinema was determined only by a given programme’s ability to help them blank out all thoughts of the war. Newsreels, many of which gave visual form to ‘the day to day violence of warfare’,25 often acted as a positive draw as Britons sought to see what the war looked like and gain a better understanding of how the conflict was progressing.26 However, the central position that the newsreel occupied within the programme meant that an audience’s reaction to a particular story ‘profoundly affected’ the ‘enjoyment or non-enjoyment’ of the rest of the programme.27 Although the more graphic newsreels came in for criticism – ‘May I venture to protest very strongly against the policy of some of our newsreels? … Let us live in our land of make-believe and for an hour or two at least forget the war and its horrors’28 – historians of the newsreel have asserted that producers were ‘acutely attuned to public taste’,29 whilst Mass-Observation found that much dissatisfaction with newsreel content related to their including ‘no news’ and therefore being insufficiently concerned with events then transpiring in the real world.30 Further, James Chapman, developing an idea first put forward by Graham Dawson, has discussed ‘the pleasure culture of war’, proposing that films with martial stories or violent content are capable of not simply

207

208

Cinemas and cinemagoing in wartime Britain, 1939–45

engaging cinemagoers, but also actively entertaining them.31 Within this model, war is frequently presented in a manner that is noble, heroic and exciting, meaning that it sits comfortably within the established conventions of popular narrative cinema. No less in wartime than in peacetime, films such as Ships with Wings (1941) that told tales of bloodshed, sacrifice and derring-do could find wide and appreciative audiences amongst both the general public and those with a close connection to the armed forces who might be thought to have been more sensitive to representations of loss and conflict.32 The specific moment that a cinema patron occupies in terms of the grand events and movements of historical time (public traumas, tragedies and triumphs) and individual experience (personal traumas, tragedies and triumphs) positions them in relation to a given film, producing temporally contingent effects that cannot always be fully anticipated or controlled. In Which We Serve, for example, was conceived of, produced and released before the battle of El Alamein (23 October–11 November 1942), but given a general release only after the Eighth Army’s victory in North Africa. In this instance, a film that before Alamein was perhaps best understood as a paean to British resolution and endurance became, in the aftermath of General Bernard Montgomery’s success, a far more hopeful narrative holding out the possibility that those who had survived to fight another day would achieve ultimate victory.33 An individual’s ability to use the cinema to escape the war was clearly dependent on a number of factors, not the least important of which were the spaces that they occupied emotionally, temporally and geographically. The cinema also offered a sense of continuity with the certainties and relative stabilities of the pre-war world. To go to the cinema was to refuse, even if only briefly, to allow the war to dictate entirely the rhythms and the content of one’s temporal, social and existential experiences. To go to watch a film was an action that provided, within quite strictly prescribed parameters, for an existence outside the painful, frustrating and sometimes terrifying realities of wartime life. So, when the British correspondent for an American trade paper observed in January 1942 that Despite the bombs and the attempted blockade, despite dislocation of public and private life, despite evacuation and rationing, the mobilization of men and women, and the myriad disturbances and tragedies of life under totalitarian war conditions, Britain has gone to the pictures in just the same old way



Cinemagoing in wartime

he might have substituted ‘despite’ with ‘because of’.34 The war, as readers of Picturegoer evidently understood, made the cinema more appealing, in that within the confines of the auditorium, a night at the pictures ‘makes me forget the problems and difficulties of the moment’. However, as well as providing a means by which British citizens might attempt to temporarily block out the present, the cinema also worked as a time machine, as an experience that ‘links us with a happy, peaceful past’, and whose power lay in ‘helping me to recapture moments of the past and inspiring in me good hope for the future’.35 These remarks are taken from a series of letters published in Picturegoer in response to correspondence submitted by K. W. Colehill, which had been printed on 30 August 1940: Before the war I looked upon going to the pictures as a pleasant habit. I went regularly, twice a week, not alone; but now that my man is in the army I mostly get a single seat. In those days we used to look upon the films as a pastime, something to pass the time away in enjoyable company. Now that I am alone I don’t know what I would have done without the films … I never miss a week. I find myself taken away from the war into a make-believe world and I thank God for it.36

Although the replies to this piece locate the value of the cinema in very different places, their collective tenor is remarkably consistent, and contains more than a suggestion of the sadness and desperation evident in Coleshill’s original letter.37 Neither the religious language found in these letters – ‘I sincerely think that they are a second church … God bless those who make moving pictures’; ‘I pray they will continue to flourish’ – nor the upbeat tone of some correspondents is able to hide the fact that during the war the cinema was something for which many people were pitifully and pathetically grateful. Certain themes get repeated in the letters, and these themes speak to preoccupations and dangers, both physical and psychological, then prevalent in the world outside the cinema. That the cinema was called upon to counteract such dangers is testament to the faith the British public had come to place in the cinema as an institution. Medicinal phrases are used to describe the power of the cinema, with two correspondents referring to it as a ‘tonic’. This kind of language was actively promoted by the exhibition sector itself: Odeon screened a short film during the first Christmas of the war in which Oscar Deutsch stated that ‘The cinema has become the nation’s physician, prescribing a tonic for tired minds, and a sedative for

209

210

Cinemas and cinemagoing in wartime Britain, 1939–45

nerves on edge.’38 Elsewhere in the Picturegoer letters, cinematic entertainment was said to offer ‘a seventy-minutes convalescence’ or discussed as having placebic qualities: ‘Most people … feel it has done them good. And so it does.’ Cinema was held to be good both for mind and body, and many a wartime Briton might have identified with both the nineteen-year-old industrial worker from Cardiff who observed that ‘the long hours in the factory would, I am sure, tell on my health but for my interest in these bright and amusing people whose company I try and enjoy a couple of times a week’ and also with Una Richardson who insisted that ‘after a hard day’s work people are only too thankful for [the pictures]’. The very fact that the cinema was called upon to nurture and restore, to counteract the experience of loss and feelings of confusion, speaks volumes about the elevated position of the exhibition sector in this period. But the cinema was only one of a number of leisure activities in which wartime Britons might have chosen to participate. Whilst for some enthusiasts the question was not so much whether to go to the cinema but, rather, which cinema to go to, for others, such as D’Arcy Orders, a young man who lived in Cambridge during the war, it was simply ‘something to do … somewhere to go with a girlfriend’.39 The banal accessibility of the cinema was one of the key factors in its massive success during the war. Unlike the theatre, for example, tickets rarely needed to be booked in advance; some cinemagoers visited the pictures because they found themselves with a free evening and nothing better to do – or, like D’Arcy, more exciting things to do but nowhere else to do them. Although exhibitors were happy to welcome agnostics into the cathedrals of the talkies, it would surely be wrong to look upon the pictures primarily as a refuge for waifs and strays who ‘preferred sitting in a cinema than strolling the streets’40 or who regarded the cinema as simply ‘one form of entertainment for leisure hours, and by no means the chief one’.41 Most cinemagoers were far more enthusiastic about the possibilities offered by a night at the pictures, and looked to film and the cinema to provide them with pleasure and entertainment. In this sense, it was business as usual. ‘The desperate edge of now’: emotion and wartime cinema If I cannot come out of the pictures feeling beautifully happy I like to come out feeling beautifully sad. Helen Fletcher42



Cinemagoing in wartime

On 20 June 1940 Winston Churchill addressed a secret session of parliament. In his speech, only the notes of which survive, Churchill outlined the likelihood that German bombing raids on Britain would intensify, and that the war would soon begin to take a much heavier toll on the British people: ‘This supreme battle depends upon the courage of the ordinary man and woman. Whatever happens, keep a stiff upper lip.’43 The idea that adopting a phlegmatic, stoical attitude was the best and most British way to approach the war and react to horrendous wartime events became a feature of wartime culture in the United Kingdom, as can be seen in one Portsmouth resident’s reaction to the blitz on that city: Sometimes I say if we could stand Monday, we could stand anything. But sometimes I feels I can’t stand it any more. But it doesn’t do to say so. If I says anything my girls says to me: ‘Stop it, Ma! It’s no good saying you can’t stand it, you’ve got to!’ My girls is ever so good.44

This woman’s words make clear that the stiff upper lip demanded and so admired by Churchill was, for many Britons, not so much an innate psychological trait but a stance affected in order to comply with social expectations established in part through a particular image of national identity: ‘people [tried] to live up to an image of themselves set by the propaganda stereotype’.45 Furthermore, they suggest some of the reasoning behind the use of such a strategy, for there was a very real contemporary concern that uncontrolledly emotional reactions to wartime trials, especially by women (who were thought to be ‘naturally’ more emotionally demonstrative), had the potential to undermine the British war effort.46 As Pat Jalland has observed in her history of death, loss and grief in England, ‘The government needed good humour and sangfroid, even from the victims of the Blitz and the flying bombs. Emotional “breakdown” amounted to undermining the war effort, even cowardice.’47 Although historians have tended to assert that for the most part morale in Britain remained good, this is not to say that personal feelings regarding the war were not, at heart, deeply ambivalent. Belief in eventual victory coexisted alongside a dread of the material and personal impact the war might have; hopes for a brighter post-war future were tempered by the concern that death might occur before such a future might be enjoyed. Evacuation, conscription, separation, shortages, air raids, loss: the quotidian worries and occasional and intense horrors of life in a period of total war took a cumulative toll. It was an appalling, tiring and trying

211

212

Cinemas and cinemagoing in wartime Britain, 1939–45

time which left many Britons clinging, to use Mervyn Peake’s haunting phrase, to the ‘desperate edge of now’.48 There was a disjuncture between public discourse and private experience, between national resolution and individual nervousness, between the desire to join the ranks of the resolute British collective and the nagging fear that personal weakness in the face of enemy action made one somehow unworthy of a place within it. The cinema provided different means by which Britons might deal with the powerful feelings that they were generally encouraged to keep in check. Most obviously, it allowed people to ignore them, or marginalise them, by offering entertainment in a manner that encouraged a focus on something other than the war for a couple of hours. However, wartime cinemagoing should not be thought of only in terms of its potential ability to escape the emotions prompted by the war. Consideration should also be given to the ways in which the cinema encouraged British picturegoers to engage more fully with the strong emotions of wartime. Discussing various explanations for the popularity of the cinema in Britain after 1939, Roger Manvell observed, Almost half the population from early youth to old age went at least once a week to the pictures. They went, it was said, to escape from the pressing responsibilities of being alive in wartime Britain. They went because they were tired. They went, it was said, for a hundred reasons except the true one, which was that a regimented life, in or out of the Services, was a dull life, an unemotional life, and within the dark walls of the cinemas stories of human beings were shown with such emotional emphasis that this life seemed once more valuable and precious. For most people the War meant hard work undertaken in the emotional vacuum of a broken home or strange surroundings.49

One of the great pleasures of the film, in peace as well as in war, is the scope it offers for emotional engagement. We laugh, we cry, we scream because we care, and we care because the cinematic medium has proved remarkably adept at playing upon our emotions, with filmmakers using an array of formal, narrative and musical techniques to draw us in. The cinema is an emotion engine, and should be celebrated as such; we should not feel sullied by our willingness to be manipulated by the cinema, and nor should we view the feelings prompted by film as being synthetic or as being somehow compromised due to their being, in the most creative sense of the word, artificial. Rather, we should glory in the fact that as a species we have sufficient empathy to have maintained for more than a century a



Cinemagoing in wartime

system that provides scope to indulge our emotions, and sufficient ingenuity to conceive of and construct it in the first place. Although in their lives outside the cinema, wartime Britons existed in a cultural climate in which the public expression of volatile emotion was at some level discouraged, in the auditorium the situation was very different. The cinema has long been associated with overt displays of emotion, both by those on the screen and those in the plush seats. After 1939, the emotionalism that the cinema permitted and, indeed, encouraged, made it an invaluable resource for the people of Britain – the picture house was a safe house. People who felt or who were told that they were not allowed to express their feelings elsewhere for fear of letting the side down were, in the auditorium, encouraged to recognise the legitimacy of these same feelings and give vent to them; this was a world in which Eleanor Humphries, who claimed to hate ‘undue emotionalism’, was prepared to let herself react to How Green Was My Valley (1941): ‘the tears just welled up and over, too much emotion had produced a state of ecstasy’.50 No matter their genre, mode or tone, films offered a population struggling to properly comprehend or express what J. B. Priestley described as the ‘mumbling horror’ of wartime life the opportunity to better articulate, shout down or debate their emotional concerns.51 Of course, not all films fulfilled this purpose, and neither did all cinemagoers ask them to. Yet the contemporary record makes clear that the cinema was cherished for its ability to affect: We were ready for a good cry over something that was far removed from the war. We welcomed The Song of Bernadette [1943]. We wallowed in the tragedy of Fanny by Gaslight, Love Story, and Madonna of the Seven Moons. We loved to be harrowed by This Happy Breed.52

This is an interesting list of films, in that alongside the torrid emotionalism that characterised the Gainsborough films and the ‘consistent level of unstrained emotion’ witnessed in The Song of Bernadette – produced, thought The Times, by Jennifer Jones doing ‘little more than look[ing] with a wide-eyed candour and innocence into the mysteries entrusted to her’53 – we find the far more muted tones of This Happy Breed. This last film, alongside In Which We Serve, Millions Like Us (1943), The Way to the Stars (1945) and a select few others, is one of the canonical texts of the British documentary-realist style, a ‘national school’ of documentary-influenced and quasi-realist narrative features. Documentary-realist films most often

213

214

Cinemas and cinemagoing in wartime Britain, 1939–45

deployed a low-key emotional register: feelings were internalised rather than expressed, understatement was preferred to hyperbole. This is not to say, though, that such features are unemotional; This Happy Breed’s inclusion in a list of films capable of facilitating a ‘good cry’ demonstrates quite the opposite. Rather, documentary-realist features presented a very specific model for dealing with emotion, in that passion, grief, love and loss were sublimated to rationality and duty. In adopting such a model, films like In Which We Serve or Millions Like Us offered contemporary viewers a picture of how to handle and channel difficult, intense or painful emotions in such a way as to prevent them hindering the war effort or the collective good.54 In short, they were the stiff-upper-lip rendered in celluloid. These films are characterised more by restraint than repression; emotion is controlled, not absent. The presence of emotion is no less important an element of documentary-realist narratives simply because characters are shown to keep their feelings in check. Indeed, many critics praised these films upon their initial release for their ability to engage the emotions, noting of In Which We Serve, for example, that it was ‘human [and] deeply moving’,55 ‘as moving as it is stirring’,56 and ‘exceedingly moving [and] heart-rending’.57 Similar thoughts were expressed by ordinary cinemagoers: ‘moving film … without too much heroics’; ‘true to life – unemotional but moving’.58 This last comment is particularly intriguing, in that it seeks to differentiate between types of feeling in order that higher consequence might be attributed to some. Indeed, it is interesting to note that In Which We Serve’s formal style appears, in some commentators’ eyes, to have legitimised its emotional content, and the Daily Herald was not alone in praising In Which We Serve’s approach as ‘sincere … and free from any “phoney” false sentiment’.59 Further, one contributor to Mass-Observation described In Which We Serve as ‘documentary, convincing, moving’ – a sequence of words that moves almost causally from one descriptor to the next.60 Of those who admitted to – and enjoyed – being moved by In Which We Serve, some were keen to legitimise their emotional involvement through reference to the film’s narrative and aesthetics: ‘There is pathos, tragedy, strong emotion in it, but no exaggerated sentiment, and no “glamorous” film stars stepping out of its story and showing off their “charms”.’61 Another cinemagoer wrote of films such as The Way to the Stars that ‘the very lack of “Slush” made a lump in your throat’.62 Yet a lack of ‘slush’ is not the same thing as a lack of emotion. Taking



Cinemagoing in wartime

a single example from In Which We Serve, the reaction of Walter Hardy (Bernard Miles) to the death of his wife, Kath (Joyce Carey), who is killed during an air raid, it becomes possible to recognise and applaud a brilliantly executed piece of controlled emotional manipulation. The sequence lacks many of the characteristics present in a great number of explicitly emotional scenes in contemporary melodramas: there are no close-ups of actors emoting, no non-diegetic music, the camerawork is minimal and unobtrusive, and the editing is notable for its slow pace (one shot lasts for the best part of two minutes). However, by seeming to allow events to unfold in their own time, the film adopts an observational style, whilst simultaneously diverting attention away from the fact that, like all films, it is a contrivance (although, admittedly, a very skilful one). The poignancy and emotional power of the sequence is dependent on the ways in which the distress caused by Kath’s death is juxtaposed and forced to compete for screen time and the viewer’s attention with the joy and relief associated with the successful delivery of the baby of one of Walter Hardy’s colleagues, AB Shorty Blake (John Mills). Neither of these events – birth and death – which in so many films provide a justifiable excuse for emotional grandstanding, is given full scope; each is bounded and informed by the other. Shorty learns of the birth of his son in a letter that he reads whilst off duty in the mess of the HMS Torrin, the ship on which both he and Hardy serve. The personal elation caused by this news, though, is cut short when he finds that the letter also tells of Kath’s death: the pan that follows his ecstatic progress from one side of the mess to the other becomes a static medium close-up, the joyful energy of the first part of the shot draining from the camera just as it drains from Shorty’s face. Simultaneously, the low hum of the ship’s engines is faded down on the soundtrack, creating a powerful yet subtle silence that focuses attention on the catch in Shorty’s voice when he announces to his crewmates that Kath has been killed. The suddenness of the transition is quite startling, and the collision of the two contrasting emotions generates tensions of which the sequence takes full advantage. Further, by first establishing an atmosphere of levity, the sequence is able to make the subsequent sense of sorrow – which cannot, of course, be overplayed if the film is to maintain its emotional sobriety – seem more powerful, as responses to the second emotion draw upon their relative difference to the first. Shorty is called upon to inform Walter of his wife’s death, and this introduces an uncomfortable imbalance of knowledge in which the

215

216

Cinemas and cinemagoing in wartime Britain, 1939–45

a­ udience is made complicit. When Shorty asks Walter if he has any word from home, clearly hoping that he will not have to be the one to pass on distressing news, Walter replies that he has not received ‘so much as a postcard’ and jokes that he has ‘never known her [Kath] get a post right yet’. This exchange serves to create a delay, exacerbating tension by allowing the emotional implications of Shorty’s knowledge to more fully reverberate, and making the viewer aware of the awfulness and awkwardness of the coming revelation. As Shorty tells Walter of Kath’s death, the dialogue is marked by hesitancy and inarticulacy. An incongruous note is struck when Walter thanks Shorty for bringing him the news, saying ‘I’m much obliged.’ The seeming inappropriateness of this response, so far removed from cinematic conventions of lachrymose eloquence or incoherent ululation, serves to present the sequence as lacking in guile and thereby permits it to insist upon its authenticity. The sequence ends with Hardy balling up an unfinished letter to his wife and throwing it over the side of the Torrin; there are no words, no tears. As Edgar Anstey recognised, much of the emotional impact of the sequence came from ‘the power of the word unsaid, and the gesture unmade’.63 But there is a sleight of hand at work here: by so rigidly controlling Walter’s emotional response to his wife’s death, In Which We Serve in fact foregrounds it, presenting the audience with a model of how the destructive potential of powerful human emotionality might be managed and its threat contained. Rather than allowing them to act as distractions, In Which We Serve dignifies loss and tragedy so as to incorporate them into the war effort – they are the price to be paid for eventual victory. Proposing that emotional responses to personal and social traumas might be integrated into the national experience, the film brings those who had suffered loss into the embrace of the wartime nation. An emotional tour de force, the film allegorises the experiences of the ship as those of the nation, and constructs a vision of Britain and Britishness that cinemagoers are asked to accept as real. Establishing a model in which emotion is recognised but not permitted to overwhelm, the formal and narrative structures of In Which We Serve and other documentary-realist films make the viewer feel as if they are able to position themselves in relation to the film rather than being explicitly positioned by it, thus providing them with the illusion of control over their emotional response to these films and to the war itself. It would be hard to argue, then, that In Which We Serve is any less calculating in its emotionality than, say, Mrs Miniver, even though despite its



Cinemagoing in wartime

massive popularity, this Hollywood vision of Britain has not always enjoyed much by way of praise for its explicit sentimentality. Documentary News Letter, no friend of Hollywood, found popular reaction to Mrs Miniver scarcely credible: ‘You can sit at the Empire [in Leicester Square] and hear practically the whole house weeping – a British audience with three years of war behind it, crying at one of the phoniest war films that has ever been made.’64 Clearly, cinemagoers were able to enjoy Mrs Miniver in a manner that escaped this mean-spirited and condescending documentarist, as one man made clear when discussing the reaction of a female acquaintance to the film: ‘[she] told me it was the nicest film she had ever seen. She simply cried the whole time and was going back every night.’65 Both In Which We Serve and Mrs Miniver did very good business at British box offices, and both were capable of arousing emotional responses. Clearly, no single type or style of film could claim a monopoly over the cinema’s capacity to affect: the cinematic medium as a whole was able to assist Britons shoulder their emotional burdens. But whereas documentaryrealist features used emotional restraint in an ideological manner, aligning the viewer with an idealised representation of those who constituted the nation, and encouraging them to react in a very particular fashion to the horror of the war, overtly sentimental films such as Mrs Miniver, and melodramas such as those produced by Gainsborough, assisted British cinemagoers in a very different way. Obviously, films that set out to prompt an emotional response were often successful in these attempts, and provided a degree of catharsis in doing so.66 However, I would also argue that whilst the overwhelming majority of melodramas could not be understood as realist, let alone realistic, they can be thought of as presenting a degree of emotional realism to viewers, in that they were constructed in a manner that allowed the viewer to recognise within them an emotional truth growing out of the shared existence of film and viewer within particular cultural and emotional landscapes. This, of course, does not mean that emotional content within such films was presented in a realistic manner, as Stewart Granger noted of Love Story, a melodrama in which he featured as the male lead: I played a man going blind. The villagers dislike me as they think I should be in the army. Why don’t I tell them I’m going blind? Margaret Lockwood is dying of some unnamed disease. We meet. I don’t tell her I’m going blind. She doesn’t tell me she’s dying. The audience knows all this but we don’t. We fall in love. Great stuff!67

217

218

Cinemas and cinemagoing in wartime Britain, 1939–45

High-brow and middle-brow critics lined up to lambast Love Story – ‘all the facets of a novelette and nothing in either the direction or the script … to raise it from that plane’;68 ‘simpering … mawkish’69 – and its star retrospectively dismissed the script as ‘crap’.70 However, in the battle between elite critical opinion and popular taste, there was only ever likely to be one winner and, as Granger later recalled, Love Story was a ‘smash hit … there wasn’t a dry eye in the house’.71 The same emotionalism that had prompted Love Story to be dismissed by a certain type of critic – and it is worth noting that the film was reviewed far more positively in mass-circulation dailies such as the Daily Mirror and the Daily Express – underpinned its popular success.72 Discussing Love Story, Robert Murphy posited that the film appealed because it dealt deeply and sympathetically with real emotional issues. Not many romances between the war-wounded would resemble that [seen in the film], but the problems – the morality of grabbing a happiness which might be all too temporary, the humiliating prospect of a life of disability and dependence – would be familiar enough.73

In advancing this argument, Murphy acknowledges Love Story as an emotional artefact, as well as – or perhaps rather than – an artistic one, and its ability to emote convincingly on themes not far removed from those that affected the audience was a major element of its success in engaging viewers. However, I think that we might go further and propose that the torridly emotional nature of certain forms of the cinematic imagination overlapped with the overwhelming emotional nature of life in wartime. Here, realism is grounded not so much in the realistic portrayal of emotion, but in the fact that ‘grandiose emotional states’ are so integral to melodramatic texts that they are best approached emotionally rather than rationally.74 Many melodramatic plots make little sense when discussed separately from the experience of actually watching the film. To be enjoyed, and understood, they need to be felt rather than simply comprehended. Indeed, so important is emotion and sensation within cinematic melodrama that Steve Neale has observed that frequently ‘there is little causal preparation for the way events unfold … There is an excess of effect over cause, of the extraordinary over the ordinary.’75 We might usefully replace ‘effect’ with ‘affect’, for many melodramas charge headlong through widely varying emotions, rarely favouring one over another, and so create a diegesis in which the



Cinemagoing in wartime

presence of numerous emotions is more important than the hierarchical relationship between them. Or, for that matter, their role or importance in advancing or understanding the narrative. We might turn to Fanny by Gaslight to explore this idea, for, as one contemporary review made clear, it had an especially ‘busy story’: Probably the best way of giving you an idea of what is in store … is to consider the characters separately, in rough order of their appearance. There is something dreadful the matter with almost all of them. Fanny Hopwood (Phyllis Calvert) is a nice girl, a dear girl, but illegitimate. Her mother is dying of some incurable disease. Her supposed father keeps a brothel in the basement. Attempting to run the place in a refined way, he is pushed under a hansom cab by a drunken client, Lord Manderstoke (James Mason). Lord Manderstoke himself, besides being drunk, loose, and brutal, is carrying on with a Cabinet Minister’s wife. The Cabinet Minister turns out to be Fanny’s real father, and what with this and that quickly throws himself under a railway train …76

And so it goes, on and on, towards a Parisian climax, where, in a duel fought over Fanny’s honour, Manderstoke is slain by Fanny’s true love, Harry Somerford (Stewart Granger), ex-secretary to the now deceased Cabinet Minister and scion of a wealthy family aghast at his romance with the common, illegitimate and orphaned daughter of a bordello-keeper. Clearly the film doesn’t want for talking points. Nor, for that matter, for emotionally stimulating events, which are thrown at the screen with such reckless abandon that it can at times be difficult to keep abreast of the film’s complex narrative and emotional developments. But this is the point: the constant outpouring of emotions, be they positive or negative, echoed at some level the disquieting and sometimes euphoric nature of life in wartime. The complexity that so amused critics proved to be no barrier to popular success, and may even have increased the film’s appeal. Audiences lapped it up: Fanny by Gaslight was the second most lucrative British film of 1944, and ‘romped home’ as the most successful film of all in its month of release.77 These films rarely, if ever, demonstrate any degree of verisimilitude with the lived experiences of Britons during wartime, but this should not blind us to the possibility that they might have been thought of as containing a kernel of emotional truth, in that the superfluity of emotional situations in melodramatic films is understood as largely congruent with the superfluity of emotional situations present in the lives of wartime cinemagoers. In this model, the cinema not only provided an environment in which

219

220

Cinemas and cinemagoing in wartime Britain, 1939–45

such e­ motions might be expressed – if necessary, tears could be blamed on a film  – but which also legitimised heightened emotion and spoke to people of the extraordinary emotional flux of their everyday lives in a manner where restraint was anathema and the stiff upper lip wilted under the white heat of cinematic emotion. As such, these films provided not simply an alternative way of expressing emotion, but also of making sense of the discrepancy that all too often existed between British cinemagoers’ immediate reactions to intensely emotional situations and the controlled responses presented in both documentary-realist films and much of the official discourse.78 Consequently, the very obvious emotionality of the melodrama, even if not strictly authentic in terms of viewers’ actual lives, facilitated an engagement with the everyday rather than an escape from it. Melodramatic films establish a world in which emotion is to the fore, not so much wallowed in or glorified as acknowledged as being essential to an individual’s place in and response to the world. Melodramas are frequently convoluted in a narrative sense, but they are often emotionally simplistic in the sense that they make it explicitly clear what it is that they are encouraging the viewer to feel.79 Rather than controlling emotion, as In Which We Serve does to such effect, melodramatic and romantic films propose that not only is it permissible to feel, but that it is essential to do so, that an individual’s understanding of narrative development – in regard to their own life as much as in a given film – is incomplete unless emotion is taken into account. Reactions to emotional materials are deeply personal; we cannot help but experience a film through the lens of our own emotional subjectivity. Consequently, emotional engagement with a film is particularly dependent upon when it is watched.80 In wartime Britain, torrid and excessively emotional plots spoke to the individual, personal and emotional now during a period of social dislocation and heightened emotionality. Encouraging the viewer to engage with them at an emotional level, these films became or appeared realistic to the audience because they provided an authentic portrayal of a hyper-emotional mode of existence. Such emotional engagement could, of course, result from watching realist cinema, which was often as keen and as capable as more populist styles to move the viewer. The restraint evidenced by realist films attempted to establish a vision of the world – a vision that the films’ aesthetic and formal strategies worked to authenticate – in which emotion was initially recognised but ultimately controlled. On occasion, such films could be both



Cinemagoing in wartime

commercially successful and ideologically effective. But because it seems unlikely that all Britons were either able or willing to control their feelings in the manner demonstrated by Walter Hardy, the model of restraint established by such films, although useful and perhaps even laudable, was often of limited applicability. Thus cinema patrons continued to turn in huge numbers to more escapist forms of entertainment, finding in them both the opportunity to evade wartime life for a couple of hours and, simultaneously, narratives and diegeses that chimed on an emotional level with their own experiences. For whilst such films took the viewer away from the traumas associated with the everyday, and much of their value lay in this capacity, they also facilitated an engagement with these traumas through the recognition and legitimisation of the emotions with which they were associated. The already complex nature of the viewer’s emotional engagement with a film was in wartime further complicated by the ‘mumbling horrors’ lurking not at the edges but at the very heart of individual experience. For, after all, who is to say what should be understood as real, or how emotions should be experienced, in a world turned upside down? All in it together: cinema as community The opportunities for emotional release that the cinema offered British picturegoers during the Second World War were all the more powerfully felt, and all the more important, because they were experienced collectively. To go to the pictures was to spend time in the presence of other people. This had the potential to shape an individual cinemagoer’s response to a given film, as Elizabeth Bowen recognised: So affectable are we that to sit through a film that is not pleasing the house, however much it might happen to please one personally, causes restless discomfort that detracts from one’s pleasure … This works both ways: the success of a film with its house communicates a tingling physical pleasure – joining and heightening one’s private exhilaration – a pleasure that only the most weathered misanthrope could withstand – and your misanthrope is rarely a cinemagoer … To reject as any kind of experience a film that is acting powerfully on people round seems to me to argue poverty in the nature. What falls short as aesthetic experience may do as human experience: the film rings no bell in oneself, but one hears a bell ring elsewhere.81

Emotional reactions to films occurred in spaces where there was a decent chance that other cinemagoers would be experiencing the same or similar

221

222

Cinemas and cinemagoing in wartime Britain, 1939–45

reactions. Emotions could therefore be experienced both singularly and collectively, with the one informing the other. The cinema became a site where difficult or problematic emotions could be more or less freely expressed, and as such provided for the creation of an alternate emotional community, one that existed within the war, but which stood apart from the most common tropes of the ‘wartime community’. The idea that the cinema was able to foster a sense of community is not new. Scholars have, however, tended to focus on the ways in which films used communal imagery to promote the notion of collective experience and endeavour, with Margaret Butler, for instance, arguing that the ‘one major function’ of British films during the war was to ‘visualise the “people’s war”, at the heart of which was the notion of “community”’.82 This thematic concern with community had the potential to perform a significant social function, in that national unity was more likely to provide for an effective war effort than was individualism, discord or factionalism. However, the cinema was also, and just as importantly, a place where the community idealised in British wartime propaganda could be physically manifested. As Rex Hipple remembered, the cinema was a ‘vital entity that brought people together, and for the best possible reasons’.83 But whereas films tended to discuss ‘the community’ or ‘the people’ at a national level – and productions such as The Foreman Went to France (1942), San Demetrio London (1943) and Millions Like Us, for example, were careful to incorporate a range of different accents from across the British Isles – cinemas were grounded in specific places and as such brought people together locally, giving tangible life to what might otherwise have remained an impersonal abstraction. There was, though, an overlap between the reality of the cinema audience and the idea of the national community as presented on the screen. Newsreels and films sometime elicited audible or physical responses from patrons – sometimes en masse – with the appearance of the king or Churchill prompting clapping or cheering, and the screening of footage of Hitler or senior Nazi officials provoking booing, hissing or even scornful laughter.84 Such reactions, almost pantomimic though they were, allowed for a collective response to the important events and figures then shaping the world as it affected the people who made up a particular audience. Exhibition venues that opened before the Great War were predominantly parochial institutions careful to accommodate local tastes and concerns, and as such often became a focus for ‘local pride and interest’.85



Cinemagoing in wartime

Although the greater capital required to construct and operate the larger, purpose-built cinemas that emerged during the 1920s meant that regional and national chains came to dominate the exhibition industry, especially as it existed in relation to high-end or city centre venues, and despite the fact that such chains were noted more for their desire to generate revenue than for their interest in local affairs, cinemas continued to operate in concrete spaces and in many cases employ staff drawn from their immediate environs.86 Consequently, it was not simply the flea-pits or second- or thirdrun venues that operated as neighbourhood amenities, and the cinema was still able to operate as ‘a social club … where people went and met and enjoyed being in that community’.87 Cinemas brought people regularly, if temporarily, together, and this was especially important between 1939 and 1945. During the war, Britain’s civilian population was in the region of 40 million people, and some 60 million changes of address were registered as a consequence of evacuation, industrial conscription or bomb damage. Thirty-five million people moved from one local government area to another.88 Given that in the year before the war less than 50 per cent of the population had spent even a single night away from home, enforced mobility of this nature was particularly disruptive.89 Whilst it would be facile to claim that the cinema was some sort of panacea for those forced to adapt to new lodgings in either familiar or unfamiliar locations, it is not unreasonable to suggest that the maintenance of regular cinemagoing afforded a degree of continuity (especially if a cinemagoer remained within easy reach of their old haunts) or that attending an entirely new venue might provide an immediate and unforced means by which individuals and families might integrate themselves into a new community.90 Some people were forced to move to rural areas, and found their ability to watch films much reduced.91 However, even in these circumstances, the cinema offered succour: At the present time, owing to the evacuation of my office, I am only able to see a film once a week, because the nearest cinema is ten miles away and transport is not available at convenient times. However, I manage to keep informed about films from the Picturegoer and Picture Show and although I have not seen very many films recently, I know I have not lost, nor ever shall lose, my enthusiasm for the screen.92

Here, it is not simply the cinema itself that provides a sense of continuity and community, but cinema culture more generally. Magazines such as

223

224

Cinemas and cinemagoing in wartime Britain, 1939–45

Picturegoer, for example, sought to promote a sense of film fandom as a ­collective endeavour by dedicating space to letters written by readers,93 creating an epistolary community that paralleled the epistolary families created when fathers and mothers, sons and daughters, brothers and sisters were separated and carried on their relationships by letter, telegram or airgraph.94 Although the letters pages of Picturegoer were to cinemagoing what irregular and occasionally censored telegrams from a husband stationed in North Africa were to normal family life, and notwithstanding the fact that one would be hard-pressed to claim that the cinema was of equal import to familial relationships, in both instances correspondence was able to allow for the maintenance of personally significant bonds by other means. If letters home were a way in which soldiers were able to maintain a semblance of their peacetime identity, then participation in the rituals of the fan magazine – either in terms of writing letters or simply by reading correspondence submitted by other members of the wider cinemagoing community – allowed the cinema to retain its elevated cultural status even for those Britons who were unable to attend the pictures in person as often as they would like.95 Spatial disruption was accompanied by temporal disruption, in the sense that the war interfered with the normal passing of time and the established rhythms of an individual’s life.96 The state’s willingness to exert control over its subjects’ bodies meant that various events and rites of passage – education, friendship, courtship, marriage, labour, home life – were compressed, snatched at, and this brought about changes to the ways in which people were able to mark the development and progress of their lives. As planning for the long term became more difficult due to the sheer number of potentially disruptive factors, the ability to make and keep short-term plans became comparatively more important: knowing that one could make plans to visit the pictures tonight or tomorrow or Saturday next allowed Britons a measure of control over their immediate futures. As Roger Manvell recognised, the arts, including cinema, ‘flourished because they gave emotional nourishment to people who had to pack natural living into seven days’ leave, and marry their lovers on the eve of long departures’.97 And although cinemagoing was often a ritualised event – taking this bus with these people on this day to this cinema at this time and sitting in these seats – the sheer accessibility of the cinema also permitted a degree of spontaneity that helped to impose the illusion of structure onto the rootlessness of so much wartime experience.



Cinemagoing in wartime

One group who felt these disruptions particularly acutely were British servicemen stationed overseas. The cinema became a means by which such servicemen were able to maintain contact with their families at home. Newsreel companies such as Pathe featured occasional segments that contained messages from troops, most often soldiers, stationed overseas,98 and, starting in the autumn of 1943, the Directorate of Army Welfare in India produced almost 400 Calling Blighty films to be shown at cinemas across the United Kingdom.99 In these films, which took their inspiration from BBC radio broadcasts of a similar nature, soldiers, some of whom had not seen their relatives in four years, were ‘shown to their kinsfolk’ in what Today’s Cinema believed would be ‘a very good move for morale’.100 The films collected together messages recorded by men from a limited geographical area – Aberdeen, Brighton, East London, Norfolk, Liverpool – and were often thick with regional accents, slang and terms of affection and, on occasion, locally specific songs.101 A good number of the films were shot on location in India or Burma, and many was the nervous, khakiclad first-time film star who haltingly sent his regards to his family before making a reference to the fact that, like Kipling’s old trooper, he found himself on the road to Mandalay.102 Of the films, a critic for the Manchester Guardian declared that ‘These inarticulate and sincerely spoken messages are not unmoving in their simple way’, but conceded that to compare them to standard cinematic fare was to miss the point: the films were ‘essentially personal’ in that they were aimed squarely at family members.103 The Calling Blighty shorts were sometimes advertised as forming part of a regular cinematic programme,104 but were more often shown at special screenings where the featured servicemen’s relatives, many of whom were given frame enlargements of their loved ones to take home with them, were sometimes joined by the local mayor or other civic dignitaries. Seeing familiar faces on a screen more usually occupied by Gary Cooper, Roy Rodgers or James Mason – and sometimes even as part of the same programme – was an effective tribute, a means of remembering the ‘forgotten army’ and of recognising the sacrifices that they were making. The immediacy of the moving image created a sense of excitement and spectacle, especially for younger viewers: ‘From all parts of the cinema’, observed the Yorkshire Post of one screening at the Tower cinema in Leeds, ‘could be heard children’s exultant voices recognising fathers or elder brothers and many were the shouts of “That’s my daddy” from excited youngsters.’105 For such youngsters, some of whom might not

225

226

Cinemas and cinemagoing in wartime Britain, 1939–45

remember nor even have met their fathers, brothers or uncles, the Calling Blighty films made them real in a way that a letter or a photograph never could. For children, weekly attendance at a Mickey Mouse Club at the local Odeon or Grenadier Club at the Granada – or participation in what Josephine Harper called the ‘tuppenny rush’ at one of hundreds of less regimented children’s matinees106 – provided structure and rhythm and a sense of belonging which complemented that provided by schools that were ‘all too frequently’ unable to provide British youngsters with a fulltime education.107 Cinema staff were not expected to replace teachers who had been called up, nor were cinemas expected to stand in for those schools that had been requisitioned for use as fire stations or ARP depots, but one might suggest that they inadvertently took on additional responsibilities, especially in terms of the unofficial civics education that they provided to children, especially at the more formal clubs run by the major circuits.108 The sing-alongs that were so frequent a feature of the children’s cinema clubs were also a feature of picturegoing more generally, especially at those venues that featured an organ. In the run up to the first Christmas of the war, however, community singing was introduced at many additional cinemas. At the Triangle in Clifton, Bristol, music ‘was supplied by organ recordings which synchronise[d] with words flashed upon the screen’. This was a novel experiment for the Triangle, and proved to be a great success; any doubts about its popularity ‘were quickly dispelled by the heartiness of the singing, the extent of the applause, and personal requests for the interlude to continue’.109 Elsewhere, the Ritz in Hastings, Kent, was sure enough of the appeal of group singing that it advertised community singing as part of its Christmas programme,110 whilst the Gaumont in Yeovil invited patrons to ‘come on Wednesday night for the community singing interlude!’111 It would be wrong to assume that all cinemagoers were enthusiastic participants in such activities.112 However, it would be churlish, especially in the light of the number of venues that offered community singing, presumably on the basis that it would attract more customers than it would repel, to deny the widespread appeal of this part of the programme. Cinemas were, of course, not alone in their ability to give physical expression to the community; pubs, theatres, churches, dancehalls and sports grounds all provided easily accessible spaces in which people might congregate. The physical manifestation of the community in the auditorium gave cinematic propagandists something to aim at, for the feelings



Cinemagoing in wartime

of comradeship evinced by MoI shorts or feature films were potentially magnified when experienced in the presence of others. However, such films often made great efforts to stress the overriding primacy of the national war effort at the exact moment when individual Britons were exercising their cultural autonomy and giving expression to their personal taste. This, indeed, might in part explain some of the hostility felt towards MoI films, not simply because people wanted to be entertained, and a worthy MoI film stood between them and the big picture, but because such films were, in the context of the auditorium, unnecessary. For the most part the MoI came to recognise that adopting an exhortative tone was likely to be ineffectual when it came to communicating with the British people, and adjusted the content of its propaganda accordingly.113 However, the very act of reminding cinemagoers – no matter how gently, inventively or humorously – that they needed to remain community-minded smacked of redundancy, for what was a cinema audience if not an instinctive and voluntary community hoping to achieve common goals? The cultural promotion of the communal ideal at the national level arose from a political reality in which individuals were corralled into a well-regulated collective. A web of rules, legislation and obligations created a specific place for, and idea of, the individual within the war effort that provided greatly reduced scope for personal choice. The sense of community arising from personal interactions with the regulatory, ideological and economic structures established during the war was no less resonant simply because these structures originated in Whitehall. Here, ‘state’ and ‘nation’ coalesced around the notion of collective endeavour, with emotional appeals based on perceived and real threats to the nation used to justify the actions of the state, and the actions of the state promoted as permitting the continuation of the nation. Within this conceptualisation of Britishness, a Britishness that was so often experienced collectively, the most telling contribution that an individual could make to the survival of the nation was to willingly participate in a state-orchestrated war effort. The community here was a tool or a weapon for the state to use as it saw fit. Yet the British state’s promotion of communal nationhood was not so totalising that it prevented something more organic and spontaneous from emerging. Indeed, the communities that gathered night after night in British cinemas were voluntary aggregations of people, collections of individuals who chose to come together, whose temporary collectivity arose as a by-product of their desire to express a degree of autonomy and carve out

227

228

Cinemas and cinemagoing in wartime Britain, 1939–45

private experiences during a period of all-too-public service. The cinema gave people a chance to decide how they might spend their time and their money and how they might position themselves physically, mentally and emotionally. It is somewhat ironic that a discretionary activity that allowed for the expression of individual agency resulted in a collective experience – but we should be wary of asserting that wartime Britons were desirous of escaping the social ties that bound them to their peers. Rather, the cinema offered Britons an opportunity to affirm and reaffirm the bonds of community that the state spent so much effort promoting. The voluntary and the compulsory pointed in the same direction. In the auditorium, the community was made real. Notes 1 Quoted in Angus Calder, The People’s War: Britain 1939–1945 (London: Pimlico, 2008), p. 111. 2 Picture Show, 18 January 1941, p. 9. 3 Illustrated London News, 3 February 1940, p. 148. 4 J. H. Hutchison, The Complete Kinemanager (London: Kinematograph Publications, 1937), p. 27. 5 Kinematograph Weekly: 10 January 1940, pp. 32–4; 9 January 1941, pp. 26, 33; 8 January 1942, pp. 40–1; 14 January 1943, pp. 46–8; 13 January 1944, pp. 51–3; 11 January 1945, pp. 44–6; 20 December 1945, pp. 50–1, 64. 6 Observer, 8 October 1944, p. 2. 7 Kinematograph Weekly, 11 January 1945, p. 44. 8 These actors all featured on Motion Picture Herald’s list of most consistently bankable stars in Britain for 1941. Motion Picture Herald, 3 January 1942, pp. 35–8. 9 Motion Picture Herald, 3 January 1942, p. 35. Emphasis added. 10 Sue Harper, ‘Fragmentation and crisis: 1940s admissions figures at the Regent cinema, Portsmouth, UK’, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, 26:3 (2006), p. 366. 11 Joan Carbutt and Kathleen Wykes, interview with author, 4 December 2010. 12 Geoffrey Macnab, Searching for Stars: Stardom and Screen Acting in British Cinema (London and New York: Cassell, 2000), pp. 99–101. 13 Financial Times, 10 February 1942, p. 1. 14 Corporal J. Simpson, Picturegoer, 5 October 1940, p. 32. 15 Margarine was sold under the name ‘marcom’. The history of margarine in this period is discussed in Alysa Levene, ‘The meanings of margarine in England: class, consumption and material culture from 1918 to 1953’, Contemporary British History, 28:2 (2014).



Cinemagoing in wartime

16 Mark Glancy, Hollywood and the Americanization of Britain: From the 1920s to the Present (London and New York: I.B. Tauris, 2014), p. 145. 17 Christine Gitsham, interview with author, 14 June 2011. 18 Cambridge Daily News, 14 September 1939, p. 6. 19 Mass-Observation Archive: Diarist 5291: F, 31: London – 8 December 1939. 20 William Newell, Carshalton. Picturegoer, 16 September 1939, p. 30. 21 Joseph Marks, interview with author, 16 May 2011. 22 Woman, 60. Diary entry (mid-1940?) in Dorothy Sheridan (ed.), Wartime Women: An Anthology of Women’s Wartime Writing for Mass-Observation 1937–45 (London: Heinemann, 1989), p. 118. 23 R. C. Paget, Nottinghamshire, Picturegoer, 16 August 1941, p. 13. 24 J. R., Sheffield, letter, Picturegoer, 30 September 1939, p. 28. 25 Roger Manvell, ‘The British feature film from 1940 to 1945’, in Michael Balcon et al., 20 Years of British Film, 1925–1945 (London: Falcon Press, 1947), pp. 84–5. 26 According to a report carried in Picture Show during the summer of 1940, ‘the general public inquire more about [the newsreel] – such as times of showing, contents of the reel and whether a currently important Press story is included, etc., than they do about the star picture’. 24 August 1940, p. 3. 27 Anon., ‘A filmgoer’s diary’, in Guy Morgan, Red Roses Every Night: An Account of London Cinemas Under Fire (London: Quality Press, 1948), p. 69. 28 J. Martin, letter, Picture Show, 13 January 1940, p. 21. 29 Nicholas Hiley and Luke McKernan, ‘Reconstructing the news: British newsreel documentation and the British Universities Newsreel Project’, Film History, 13:2 (2001), p. 191. 30 MOA: File Report 444: Len England, ‘Newsreel Report 3’, 7 October 1940. 31 James Chapman, War and Film (London: Reaktion Books, 2008), pp. ­184–204. Graham Dawson developed the idea of the ‘pleasure culture of war’ in Soldier Heroes: British Adventure, Empire and the Imagining of Masculinities (London: Routledge, 1994). 32 A Mass-Observation report found that 99 per cent of women in naval ports – a decent proportion of which, it seems fair to say, would have had husbands or sons in the Royal Navy – liked Ships with Wings. Jeffrey Richards, ‘Wartime British cinema audiences and the class system: the case of Ships With Wings (1941)’, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, 7: 2 (1987), p. 134. 33 This argument is developed in more detail in Richard Farmer, ‘Remember the Torrin: positioning In Which We Serve’, in Petra Rau (ed.), Long Shadows: The Second World War in British Literature and Film (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, forthcoming). 34 Motion Picture Herald, 3 January 1942, p. 38. 35 Letters from: ‘A Factory Girl’, Cardiff; ‘Just a Tommy’, Somewhere in Wales; Corporal J. Simpson, Somewhere in England. Picturegoer, 5 October 1940, pp. 32–3. 36 K. W. Coleshill, letter, Picturegoer, 31 August 1940, p. 21.

229

230

Cinemas and cinemagoing in wartime Britain, 1939–45

37 Unless otherwise stated, all quotations in the following paragraphs are taken from letters published in Picturegoer, 5 October 1940, pp. 32–3. Letters quoted were written by: Ethel James, Gravesend; ‘Filmgoer’, Paisley; E. Marshall, New Cross, London; Una Richardson, Handsworth, Birmingham; ‘A Factory Girl’, Cardiff. 38 A Christmas Message from Mr Oscar Deutsch (1939). ‘Tonic’ is a word that crops up almost as frequently as ‘escapism’ in literature concerning films and the cinema in wartime. To take but a few examples: female, 23 in J. P. Mayer, British Cinemas and their Audiences: Sociological Studies (London: Dennis Dobson, 1948), p. 210; reviews of Let George Do It! (1940) in Jeffrey Richards and Anthony Aldgate, Britain Can Take It: British Cinema in the Second World War (London: I.B. Tauris, new edn, 2007), p. 87; W. J. Lawn’s assertion that ‘Good pictures are fine tonics’ when arguing in favour of Sunday opening in Cheltenham in Gloucestershire Echo, 13 September 1943, p. 4. 39 D’Arcy Orders, interview with author, 28 February 2011. 40 Female, 21, in Mayer, British Cinemas and their Audiences, p. 110. 41 Female, 47, in Mayer, British Cinemas and their Audiences, p. 120. 42 Sunday Graphic, 30 March 1947, p. 10. 43 Winston Churchill, Secret Session Speeches (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1946), p. 7. 44 MOA: File Report 606, quoted in Aldgate and Richards, Britain Can Take It, p. 207. 45 Robert Mackay, The Test of War: Inside Britain 1939–45 (London: UCL Press, 1999), p. 146. 46 The wartime stiff upper lip had its origins in Victorian ideas of manliness that posited that emotional reserve be contrasted with more affectionate and tender female characteristics. John Tosh, cited in Sonya Rose, Which People’s War? National Identity and Citizenship in Wartime Britain, 1939–1945 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), p. 156. The notion that women might approach the war with a similarly reserved attitude was therefore novel. 47 Pat Jalland, Death in War and Peace: Loss and Grief in England, 1914–1970 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), p. 138. 48 ‘Is there no love can link us?’ (1941), in Robin Skelton (ed.), Poetry of the Forties (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1968), p. 93. 49 Manvell, ‘The British feature film from 1940 to 1945’, p. 81. 50 Quoted in James Hinton, Nine Wartime Lives: Mass-Observation and the Making of the Modern Self (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), p. 106. 51 Postscript: 1 September 1940. J. B. Priestley, Postscripts (London: William Heinemann, 1940), p. 61. 52 Anon., ‘A filmgoer’s diary’, in Morgan, Red Roses Every Night, p. 72. 53 The Times, 28 March 1944, p. 2. 54 Andrew Higson has observed of these films that ‘The “national interest” must be able to accommodate the private and the domestic; it must be able to



Cinemagoing in wartime

accommodate the emotional capacity of the individual, if necessary by demonstrating the irresponsibility of holding private, and particularly romantic, interests above the national interest.’ ‘Britain’s outstanding contribution to the film: the documentary-realist tradition’, in Charles Barr (ed.), All Our Yesterdays: 90 Years of British Cinema (London: BFI, 1986), p. 84. 55 Daily Express, 24 September 1942, p. 3. 56 Manchester Guardian, 24 September 1942, p. 3. 57 Tribune, 9 October 1942, p. 13. 58 These comments are taken from the answers provided by 220 MassObservation participants when, in November 1943, they were asked to list the six films they had enjoyed most in the past year. Answers are reproduced in Jeffrey Richards and Dorothy Sheridan (eds), Mass-Observation at the Movies (London and New York: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1987), pp. 220–91. Quoted material from pp. 248, 261. 59 Daily Herald, 24 September 1942, p. 3. See also, for example, the Manchester Guardian’s appreciation of the ‘complete and unembroidered sincerity’ of In Which We Serve’s approach. 24 September 1942, p. 3. 60 Female, 55, in Richards and Sheridan (eds), Mass-Observation at the Movies, p. 269. 61 Female, 52, in Richards and Sheridan (eds), Mass-Observation at the Movies, p. 271. 62 Anonymous contributor in Mayer, British Cinemas and their Audiences, p. 194. 63 Spectator, 2 October 1942, p. 311. 64 Documentary News Letter, 3:8 (August 1942), p. 112. 65 Male, 69, in Richards and Sheridan (eds), Mass-Observation at the Movies, p. 240. 66 Janet Thumim proposes that the ‘complex satisfaction to be had from the cathartic release of emotion’ was heightened during the war by the fact that audiences were likely to include people who had ‘suffered bereavement, displacement, or other traumatic fracturing of their daily routines’. Janet Thumim, ‘The female audience: mobile women and married ladies’, in Christine Gledhill and Gillian Swanson (eds), Nationalising Femininity: Culture, Sexuality and British Cinema in the Second World War (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1996), p. 251. 67 Stewart Granger, Sparks Fly Upward (London: Granada, 1981), p. 76. 68 The Times, 9 October 1944, p. 7. 69 Time and Tide, 14 October 1944, p. 898. 70 Granger, Sparks Fly Upward, p. 76. 71 Granger, Sparks Fly Upward, p. 76. 72 Daily Mirror, 6 October 1944, p. 7; Daily Express, 6 October 1944, p. 7. The Express suggested that both the ‘sincere and emotional story’ and Granger’s ‘impressive torso’ were likely points of appeal. 73 Robert Murphy, Realism and Tinsel: Cinema and Society in Britain 1939–1948 (London and New York: Routledge, 1989), pp. 48, 50.

231

232

Cinemas and cinemagoing in wartime Britain, 1939–45

74 Peter Brooks, The Melodramatic Imagination: Balzac, Henry James, Melodrama, and the Mode of Excess (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1976), p. 35. 75 Steve Neale, ‘Melodrama and tears’, Screen, 27:6 (1986), pp. 6–7. Emphasis in original. 76 Observer, 7 May 1944, p. 2. 77 Kinematograph Weekly, 11 January 1945, pp. 44–5. 78 So concerned was the MoI about this discrepancy that it advised broadcasters not to make generalisations about morale or the ways in which Britons were bearing up under strain because to do so might establish a standard that many Britons would not be able to live up to. See Angus Calder, The Myth of the Blitz (London: Jonathan Cape, 1991), pp. 130–1. 79 Noel Carroll proposes that films work to ‘emotively prefocus’ the viewer’s attention on specific triggers in order that they might recognise emotions more easily and feel them more intensely. ‘Film, emotion, and genre’, in Carl Plantinga and Greg M. Smith (eds), Passionate Views: Film, Cognition, and Emotion (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999), p. 30. 80 Richard Dyer discusses this in ‘Entertainment and utopia’, in Bill Nichols (ed.), Movies and Methods: Volume II (London: University of California Press, 1985), p. 223. 81 Elizabeth Bowen, ‘Why I go to the cinema’, in Charles Davy (ed.), Footnotes to the Film (London: Lovat Dickson, 1938), pp. 207–8. 82 Margaret Butler, Film and Community in Britain and France: From La Règle Du Jeu to Room at the Top (London: I.B. Tauris, 2004), p. 14. On community and the ‘people’s war’ in British wartime films, see also James Chapman, The British at War: Cinema, State and Propaganda, 1939–45 (London: I.B. Tauris, 2008), pp. 161–78; Richard Farmer, The Food Companions: Cinema and Consumption in Wartime Britain, 1939–45 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2011), pp. 96–122; Jo Fox, Film Propaganda in Britain and Nazi Germany: World War II Cinema (Oxford and New York: Berg, 2007), pp. 153–6, 288–92. 83 Rex Hipple, interview with author, 13 June 2011. 84 Pam Ashford was at the Cosmo in Glasgow when ‘half-a-dozen parts of the house’ clapped when Winston Churchill was featured in a newsreel soon after he became Prime Minister in May 1940. Diary entry, 18 May 1940. In Simon Garfield (ed.), We Are at War: The Remarkable Diaries of Five Ordinary People in Extraordinary Times (London: Ebury Press, 2005), pp. 229–30. MassObservation found that the screening of the Nazi salute, even in non-comic films, could often provoke derisive laughter amongst British cinemagoers. MOA: File Report 57 – Len England, ‘Film report’, 29 March 1940, p. 17. 85 Rosalind Leveridge, ‘“Proud of our little local Palace”: Sidmouth, cinema, and community 1911–14’, Early Popular Visual Culture, 8:4 (2010), p. 386. 86 On the rise of the major cinema chains, see Stuart Hanson, From Silent Screen to Multi-Screen: A History of Cinema Exhibition in Britain since 1896 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2007), pp. 60–5.



Cinemagoing in wartime

87 Rex Hipple, interview with author, 13 June 2011. 88 Calder, People’s War, p. 315. 89 John Macnicol, ‘The evacuation of schoolchildren’, in Harold L. Smith (ed.), War and Social Change: British Society in the Second World War (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1990), p. 4. 90 At the Granada Wandsworth Road, locals who had been bombed out were permitted to stay in the cinema until alternative and more permanent housing was found. Morgan, Red Roses Every Night, p. 41. 91 Not everyone who moved to more rural surroundings let their new location get in the way of their cinemagoing. Vera Eldridge, whose employer relocated to Alresford in Hampshire at the start of the war, regularly cycled the eight miles to Winchester, and eight miles back, to enjoy a show at one of the cinemas in that city. Interview with author, 16 July 2010. 92 Female, 17, in Mayer, British Cinemas and their Audiences, p. 64. 93 Mark Glancy, ‘Picturegoer: the fan magazine and popular film culture in Britain during the Second World War’, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, 31:4 (2011), p. 457. 94 An airgraph was a microfilmed letter which became popular during the war because it dramatically reduced the weight and bulk of correspondence. More than 300 million airgraphs were sent by British and Dominion citizens and servicemen during the Second World War. Susan Yell and Meredith Fletcher, ‘Airgraphs and an airman: the role of airgraphs in World War II family correspondence’, History Australia, 8:3 (2011), p. 119. 95 C. D. Robinson noted that during an ‘enforced abstinence from regular filmgoing [as a result of being at sea on the H.M.S. Bootle] I have been kept fully informed of events in the film world through the medium of Picturegoer’. Picturegoer, 1 May 1943, pp. 9, 15. On the vast distances covered by copies of British film magazines, see Picturegoer: 12 June 1943, pp. 9, 15; 7 July 1945, p. 14. 96 Hinton, Nine Wartime Lives, p. 155. 97 Manvell, ‘The British feature film from 1940 to 1945’, pp. 81–2. 98 See, for example, Pathe Gazette, 10 February 1944. 99 On the history of the Calling Blighty films, see Paul Sargent, ‘“Keep smiling, keep those chins up and God bless”: filmed messages home from service personnel in the Far East during the Second World War’, Imperial War Museum Review, no. 7 (1992). 100 Today’s Cinema, 17 September 1943, pp. 1–12. 101 One edition featuring soldiers from the East Midlands ended with a gang of men singing ‘We are the Leicester Boys’. 102 Although many films were shot on location, some were shot on a set of a reconstructed Navy, Army and Air Force Institute canteen. Although family members were gratified to see the troops being looked after so well, the soldiers were quick to write home to paint a different and less flattering picture of the facilities at their disposal: ‘We were told that the filming was to be taken over

233

234

Cinemas and cinemagoing in wartime Britain, 1939–45

a cup of tea in a canteen – and what a canteen! … I don’t want you to think that our canteens are like the one in the film.’ Daily Mirror, 22 December 1944, p. 3. 103 Manchester Guardian, 29 July 1946, p. 2. 104 In Northampton, Calling Blighty was shown at the city’s Savoy cinema alongside A Guy Named Joe (1943) starring Spencer Tracey and Irene Dunne, whereas Dundonian servicemen shared the programme with Rita Hayworth in Cover Girl (1944). Northampton Mercury, 26 May 1944, p. 6; Dundee Courier, 2 September 1944, p. 2. 105 Yorkshire Post, 15 August 1944, p. 3. See also Western Morning News, 19 June 1944, p. 2 for a similar reaction to a screening in Exeter, and Southern Daily Echo, 1 May 1944, p. 1 for the story of Gunner George Kneller who whilst calling Blighty asked of his son, ‘Hello Bobby, can you see me?’ Bobby, who was watching the film at Southampton’s Classic cinema, jumped from his seat ‘in a twinkle’ and said ‘Yes Daddy, I can see you.’ Others at the screening found the film so ‘very exciting and deeply touching that they could not contain their emotions’. 106 Josephine Harper, interview with author, 11 December 2010. 107 Norman Longmate, How We Lived Then: A History of Everyday Life during the Second World War (London: Pimlico, 2002), p. 190. 108 On these clubs, see Sarah J. Smith, Children, Cinema and Censorship: From Dracula to the Dead End Kids (London: I.B. Tauris, 2005), pp. 166–9. 109 Western Daily Press, 9 December 1939, p. 5. 110 Hastings and St Leonards Observer, 16 December 1939, p. 10. The Ritz, as were many cinemas in this period, was open on Christmas Day. On 25 December 1939, patrons could enjoy Errol Flynn in Dodge City and Basil Cuthbert or George Prince – ‘evening only’ – at the Organ. 111 Western Gazette, 29 December 1939, p. 5. 112 Tony Auguste recalled that the organ interlude, and the singing that was often associated with it, was not his favourite part of the programme: the organist at his local Odeon would ‘play all these awful songs, and I didn ’t like the organ at all but you had to have a boring twenty minutes of somebody playing the organ … it was not a sound that appealed to me’. Interview with author, 19 May 2011. 113 The MoI’s Stephen Taylor stated in late 1941 that the ‘British people will not accept exhortation’ and claimed that not only was exhortation of ‘limited value’ but also that it ‘may easily become a positive danger’. Quoted in Ian McLaine, Ministry of Morale: Home Front Morale and the Ministry of Information in World War II (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1979), p. 251.

Conclusion

Conclusion

The State cinema, in the St Budeaux area of Plymouth, was opened in the autumn of 1939 and was damaged during an air raid approximately eighteen months later. Although the cinema ‘escaped complete destruction when a bomb fell almost on top of it’, its roof, even after a temporary fix was instituted, was left in such a poor state of repair that ‘every rainstorm means further damages and further deterioration’. The company that owned the State, Gwent and West of England Circuits, represented in these pages by A. Jackson Withers, was keen to make the necessary repairs. Although it continued to trade, the State, which had once been a ‘beautiful Modern Cinema’, was now noticeable for its ‘complete shabbiness’: one of the walls in the auditorium was in such disrepair that it was thought to be ‘making a difference to the business which was done and could now be done’. Just sitting in the manager’s office, Withers insisted, ‘gives one the pip’.1 The State’s owners engaged the architectural firm David E. Nye and Partners to arrange and supervise repairs. When, in October 1946, Nye made enquiries of the Ministry of Works about the process of gaining the necessary permission to undertake the rebuilding work, he was advised that any application of the type that he proposed ‘would be extremely unlikely to receive favourable consideration at the present time. It is suggested that you defer application for at least six months.’2 In all likelihood, this reply would have come as no surprise. In December 1943, in one of his first parliamentary appearances as Minister of Reconstruction, Lord Woolton reduced the tough decisions that Britain would face in the post-war period to a simple question: ‘When the war is over are we going to build houses or are we going to build cinemas, and how are we going to decide which we are going to build?’ His answer was emphatic: ‘we are going to build

236

Cinemas and cinemagoing in wartime Britain, 1939–45

houses’.3 Britons need only to have looked around them to understand why: many hundreds of thousands of houses had been partially or wholly destroyed during the war, and in some heavily raided areas, such as Hull, more than 90 per cent of homes had been damaged.4 Further, repairs of essential infrastructure had been postponed again and again as resources were diverted to more pressing needs. The country had been run into the ground and cinema renovation did not rate particularly high on the government’s list of priorities, either during or after the war. So massive was the task of reconstruction that the pre-war world did not  – could not – magically reappear as soon as the Axis powers were defeated. Rationing and control schemes of all stripes were continued, and in many instances deepened, well into the post-war period.5 There were ‘acute’ shortages of building materials such as timber and plaster.6 Although frustrated that the government was not willing to permit the immediate restoration of all cinemas damaged or run-down during the war, many exhibitors took heart from the fact that the scarcity of building materials made it extremely unlikely that any new cinemas would be built for at least three years after 1945: down-at-heel pre-war cinemas would not lose out to sleek, clean, immaculate newcomers.7 The exhibition sector was, though, keen to push itself towards the front of the queue as far as reconstruction was concerned. Cinema and Theatre Construction, returning from its wartime hiatus, entered the fray on behalf of an industry hopeful that repairs and rebuilding (and, perhaps, new building) would soon be permitted. Having voiced predictable concurrence with the priority given to the provision of housing – ‘Naturally, houses must come first’ – the editor wasted no time in legitimising the claim that British cinemas might have on the nation’s precious resources: We contend that if [Clement Attlee’s Labour government] is to pursue its policy of considering the public before profits – and who shall blame them? – then as soon as they have housed the people, they must take steps to provide for their recreational needs. The tendency at the moment is towards shorter hours and higher wages for everyone, but it is quite useless – it is worse than useless, it is iniquitous – to provide increased leisure unless we provide facilities for enjoying that leisure, or to provide higher wages unless we provide entertainment on which these wages can be spent.8

The government somehow found a way to steel its heart against such selfless arguments, and although it was not hostile to the exhibition sector, it was not prepared to give preferential treatment to a private industry, even



Conclusion

if that industry could make a persuasive case that it was acting in the public good. Consequently, many exhibitors would continue to find the materials needed to institute repairs hard to come by. That said, there was not a blanket ban on cinema reconstruction. Even during the war, repairs were permitted when the appropriate licence was acquired, much to the consternation of some in parliament. In mid-1941, one MP demanded to know whether repair work to the value of £700 then being undertaken at the Leicester Square cinema was of ‘national importance’; a little over three years later, seven tradesmen were employed to undertake repairs necessitated when a flying bomb damaged the Odeon, Kensington – why, demanded another member, was this work ‘regarded as urgent’?9 Cinemas provided easy targets for questions such as these. Although exhibition venues were valued civic amenities, in neighbourhoods where they had been damaged by enemy action, other buildings had almost always been damaged, too, meaning that there was usually acute competition for resources. Further, despite the work that the exhibition industry did on behalf of the nation and the government during the war, it was never able to entirely cast off its associations with luxury and frivolity – associations that, surely, in large part explained the phenomenal success of the cinema in a period defined in part by prolonged and enforced asceticism. And although it is not difficult to find anecdotal evidence of the emotional and spiritual succour provided by the cinema to individual and groups of Britons, the cinema’s position as a for-profit industry tended to militate against its claims to be acting in or for the public interest being taken entirely at face value; no one questioned the repair of churches, but then again, churches did not have shareholders. The massive growth in tickets sales after 1939 might also have counted against the exhibitors: their industry had done very well during the war, proving itself to be very profitable even in circumstances when, in a material sense, it was down on its uppers. Other factors were also taken into consideration when the Ministry of Works was assessing which cinemas might be permitted to rebuild and renovate. Many of these were based on the specific conditions pertaining in the immediate area surrounding a particular cinema. What other work needed to be done? Were other cinemas in the vicinity still functioning? Was there sufficient labour available to allow multiple projects to take place simultaneously?10 In other instances, the damage done to a venue was so extensive, and the task of restoration so great, that it was never repaired: the

237

238

Cinemas and cinemagoing in wartime Britain, 1939–45

Whitehall in East Grinstead, for example, remained ‘temporarily closed’ following the raid of July 1943 until its owners bowed to the inevitable and stopped renewing its license in 1957.11 All of these issues would have been at play as the State made its representations to be allowed to restore damage done during the war. It was May 1948 before David Nye was able to inform his increasingly impatient client that he had finally obtained the permit that would allow renovation work to commence. As far as A. Jackson Withers was concerned, this was just as well, for the parlous state of the State – ‘the walls are disgusting and the roof is letting in water practically as fast as it can’ – was such that he feared that the council might move to close it.12 Building work, which was anticipated to cost in the region of £3,200, comprised ‘an entirely new ceiling, complete decoration of the auditorium [and] other works … including the repair of the canopy’. Nye expressed special satisfaction that the ceiling could be replaced rather than simply patched up, and also that the War Damage Commission (WDC), which assessed claims for public funds to make good damage done as a result of the war, was prepared to meet the cost of the majority of the work.13 Yet whereas Nye thought that Gwent and West of England Circuits had got a good deal, Withers was not so sure: ‘I do not think the Company should be called upon to pay anything towards damage by enemy action. Considering all things, this is a case where the War Damage Commission surely can congratulate themselves that they did not have to rebuild it.’14 There followed a period of negotiation between the parties as to who should foot the bill, all of which further delayed the repairs, much to Withers’s anguish. By 3 January 1950, however, Nye wrote to Withers to inform him that after a ‘long and protracted argument’, the WDC had agreed to pay £1888 19s. 6d. towards repairs to damage caused by the war. Other restoration work, valued at approximately £800, would need to be paid for by the company, as would that part of Nye’s professional fee relating to non-war damage work.15 Withers’s response was not entirely positive: I do not think this matter need be brought up so early in the New Year because it has caused me great pain. You do not seem to have any mercy at all. You seem to exploit your clients to the utmost. I do not think I should pay a penny.16

Such a comment prompted Nye, usually a model of diplomacy, to lose patience: ‘I am sorry that you consider that rate payers should be



Conclusion

r­esponsible for redecorating your cinema and personally I think that you are getting a very good deal out of this matter.’17 Nye’s response did little to pacify Withers, who wrote to the architect to declare that ‘It is quite obvious I do not care who the devil pays for these things so long as you let this company off, because they cannot afford it.’18 Nevertheless, repairs were undertaken according to the arrangement agreed with the WDC, and by September 1951 the works had been completed, no doubt to the relief of Nye, Withers, Gwent and West of England Circuits and the cinemagoers of St Budeaux. The byzantine bureaucratic process through which the State had to manoeuvre, and the length of time it took for the necessary repair work to be completed, gives some indication of the long shadow that the Second World War cast over the second half of the 1940s and the early years of the 1950s. Although the manager of one north London cinema wrote at the end of 1945 that he ‘look[ed] forward hopefully towards … the end of chocolate points, clothing coupons, fuel rationing forms, lighting restrictions and a hundred other petty restrictions’ – that is, the full gamut of wartime intrusions into the life of the well-run theatre – most wartime schemes continued well into the post-war period.19 Cinema lights were switched off again after VE Day as a fuel economy measure, and the blackout was temporarily reintroduced during the fuel crisis of 1947: stripped of ‘whatever little glamour it had’, this revived blackout became ‘a dull nuisance, a cause of minor accidents and major irritations’.20 Sweets rationing continued until 1953, when readers of Granada’s Manual of Theatre Management were able to cross out those passages in the text that referred to the scheme.21 Clothes rationing was not finally repealed until May 1949, and although this meant that coupons were no longer needed to purchase uniforms, continued cloth shortages and the focus on foreign earnings meant that many clothes were exported and this left many managers frustrated in their attempts to return their staff to pre-war levels of smartness.22 The same was true of interior décor and furnishing, and carpet, for example, remained in desperately short supply. By the spring of 1947 production in British carpet factories had reached only a third of the pre-war output.23 A year after the war, Associated British bemoaned the fact that a lack of resources ‘inevitably curtailed’ its attempts to bring its cinemas up to ‘normal peacetime standards’.24 And, as we have seen throughout this book, what affected the exhibition industry also affected the general populace (and vice versa). Given the slow

239

240

Cinemas and cinemagoing in wartime Britain, 1939–45

pace of reconstruction, the CEA warned against seeing the immediate postwar period as a land of milk and honey: Many unpleasant shocks and an even greater measure of austerity may await the population of these isles. Such increase in contrast to the long awaited relief is doubly disappointing and often more depressing in its effect upon morale than many of the frightening incidents of warfare itself.25

Despite, or perhaps because of, such a gloomy prognosis, the Association remained upbeat about the prospects of the exhibition sector in the postwar world, arguing that Britons would require relaxation, entertainment and escape in the aftermath of war, just as they had during it. Although the return of alternate forms of leisure after 1945 increased competition for the disposable income of British consumers, and so had the potential to undermine cinema ticket sales, the continuation of wartime policies that restricted the production of consumer goods for domestic sale channelled vast sums of money towards the leisure industries in general.26 The age of austerity was marked less by poverty than paucity; there was money to be spent, but there was little to spend it on. Exhibitors were well placed to take advantage of these circumstances, as cinemagoing was a social practice into which millions of Britons had long been habituated. British cinema box offices continued to boom into the post-war period, with ticket sales remaining above 1939 levels until 1957, even if ticket sales fell almost every year between the year of peak cinemagoing in 1946 and the mid-1980s.27 The cinema’s commercial prospects were discussed in the Financial Times in late 1946: Increasing supplies of merchandise in the shops will compete with the cinema for the surplus liquid resources of the individual. But there is little that appears likely seriously to threaten cinema attendance [over the next two years]. Indeed, regular visits to the films have become with many, like the pipe of tobacco and the packet of cigarettes, a conventional necessity, which is not easily dispensed with even when incomes fall.28

Incomes, however, were not falling; quite the opposite, in fact. Given their increasing affluence and shorter working hours, Britons could, had they so desired, surely have afforded both the consumer goods that would allow them to stay in the home and regular visits the cinema. After all, one of the things that had drawn people to the cinema was its affordability, and by



Conclusion

1952 the average price of a ticket had gone up by less than 3d. since the end of the war (from 17.3d to 20.1d).29 Yet, as has been suggested by David Docherty, David Morrison and Michael Tracey, the social structures and cultural certainties that underpinned the success of the cinema in its ‘golden years’ underwent substantive changes in the immediate post-war period, sowing the seeds for what would prove to be a very swift decline in the fortunes of the exhibition sector in the second half of the 1950s. The rise of consumer culture, a baby boom and changes to the film production industry in America all worked against the cinema, providing less time to visit the cinema and fewer films to see.30 Perhaps most important of all, though, were changes to housing patterns. Vast numbers of people were relocated from the inner-city to new towns and suburbs. In one part of Stepney, East London, for example, planners intended to reduce a pre-war population of 217,000 to less than 100,000.31 Smaller populations could support fewer cinemas, leading both to the closure of venues and, as a consequence, a smaller number of films being shown in an area. In the early 1960s, by which time the British exhibition industry appeared to have entered a period of rapid and seemingly terminal decline, John Spraos found that when a cinema closed, many of its patrons, rather than transferring their business to another venue, simply stopped going to the pictures altogether. This was especially the case in areas where there were fewer cinemas to begin with or where the alternative was a trip to a city centre venue with the additional costs that entailed.32 Further, an increased premium came to be placed on the home as a private space, especially in contrast to the enforced communality of industrial hostels or the armed forces.33 The declining appeal of the cinema, both absolutely and relatively, needs to be assessed vis-à-vis the growing appeal of the home. Assessments of this kind have often focussed on the advent of mass television ownership. However, the growth of television was predicated on increasing affluence – many people found themselves able to afford and enjoy in their own homes many of the experiential pleasures that had, before the war, been the preserve of the cinema. The number of owner-occupiers, mainly middle class, began to rise after 1945, but, perhaps more significantly for this study, there was an increase in the number of council tenants as approximately 800,000 new properties were constructed by local authorities by 1951.34 These factors had, by 1959, changed housing conditions to the extent that Mark Abrams could tell readers of The Listener that

241

242

Cinemas and cinemagoing in wartime Britain, 1939–45

for the first time in modern British history the working-class home, as well as the middle-class home, has become a place that is warm, comfortable, and able to provide its own fireside entertainment – in fact, pleasant to live in. The outcome is a working-class way of life which is decreasingly concerned with activities outside the house or with values wider than those of the family.35

Working-class British homes came to provide those who lived in them with previously unimaginable levels of domestic comfort. Post-war council houses were on average more than 10 per cent larger than their pre-war equivalents;36 the 150,000 ‘pre-fabs’ built by 1949 had fitted baths and built-in refrigerators;37 much of the new housing constructed in the East End of London came replete with a domestic hot-water service;38 carpets became much more affordable after the introduction of ‘tufted’ carpets and man-made fibres in the post-war era.39 The decline of cinemagoing, then, took place against the growth of an increasingly affluent and, more importantly, well-housed British population. In comparison to these newly important and comfortable homes, the cinema no longer seemed so exceptional, or so alluring. Before and during the war, the cinema had been able to trade on the contrast between the meanness of the private home and the glamour of the dream palace. Of course, it took many years for existing housing stock to be repaired and the requisite number of new houses to be built – indeed, frustration with the slow pace of house building was one of the factors that turned public opinion against the Labour government. Pre-war housing conditions remained all-too-prevalent in the post-war world, and may have worked to shore up cinema ticket sales through much of the 1950s. However, post-war affluence made possible the domestication of some of the luxuries in which the cinema had previously traded and so worked to undercut the experiential appeal of the cinema, not least because an exhibitor’s own ability to provide these experiences had been undermined by restrictions imposed on the industry during the war. Post-war decline should therefore be understood not simply in terms of post-war affluence and demographic change, although these factors were undoubtedly important, but also as a result of changes instituted by and forced on the exhibition industry between 1939 and 1945. Because the cinema adapted to a set of wartime circumstances that were simultaneously affecting British society and Britons as individuals, many of the changes to the practice of cinemagoing and the popular experience of the cinema



Conclusion

might not always have been immediately noticeable; as merely one set of changes in a society in flux, it was difficult to see the wood for the trees. Further, the large growth in ticket sales produced by specific economic and social conditions during the war diverted attention away from the impact that wartime changes would have in the longer term.40 Quantitative growth in the prominence of the cinema as measured by attendance need not necessarily be paralleled by growth in the qualitative importance of the cinema to the individual or the community of which they are a part. It does not necessarily follow that an increase in ticket sales equates with a deeper emotional engagement with or appreciation of the cinema, merely that people were able to go more often or that they were less able or willing to participate in alternate leisure activities. The war changed the ways in which Britons were able to access the cinema, how they experienced films and how the venues at which they watched films operated. There were few, if any, elements of the cinemagoing experience that survived the war unscathed. Although, when viewed in isolation, many of the changes necessitated by the war were relatively minor, their cumulative impact was massive, and had the potential to divest British cinemas of some of their ability to excite the senses and engage the emotions. It would of course be a fallacy to propose that the cinemas lost all of their appeal, either during or after the war, yet it remains the case that, as a whole, the exhibition industry in 1945 was not the same as it had been in 1939. The war brought the curtain down on what Jeffrey Richards has described as ‘the age of the dream palace’, altering the cinemagoing experience, materially affecting the physical and sensory environment of the cinema and so hampering its ability to arouse awe and inspire fantasy.41 However, the real impact of the experiential changes wrought by the war were most widely felt after the war, when cinemas found that they were unable to recreate the ante-bellum norms that had so enchanted patrons before 1939, and ticket sales started to decline. The cinema was, though, central to the British understanding of the war, both in terms of gaining information about the war from newsreels, MoI shorts and feature films, and also in terms of the cinema’s prominence as an element of everyday and cultural life. Of course, each cinemagoer – indeed, each visit to the cinema – was unique: some tickets were purchased in order that a particular star might be adored, others because a western was showing, because there was nothing good on the wireless or because a young couple wanted some privacy in order to become better acquainted. Some people had a

243

244

Cinemas and cinemagoing in wartime Britain, 1939–45

passion for the pictures, others saw them as a way of killing time, yet others oscillated between these two positions depending on what was showing. The audience was not monolithic, and patrons approached the cinema for many different reasons, just as they took different things from it. The pleasures offered by the cinema were myriad, and shaped in part by what was happening outside the walls of the auditorium when the opening credits rolled. British cinemas existed – geographically, temporally, mentally, culturally – in the war, as did those who made use of them. And just like those that made use of them they suffered and endured and eventually triumphed, were subject to rationing and controls and shortages, were blacked-out and sometimes bombed out, were obliged to come to terms with hundreds of new regulations, lost people to conscription, fighting and the blitz and experienced fear and despair and anger and relief and joy. And through it all, British cinemas and their patrons shared an understanding of the importance of their relationship. The cinema was an essential element of life in wartime Britain, something that made life bearable, or rather, normal, for millions of people each week. The cinema was simply there, a fixture that could be depended on, a crutch that could be leant on; for many British picturegoers, the cinema’s very existence was a comfort. As such, the Second World War was, in Britain, the age of the utility dream palace: many of the pre-war luxuries associated with the grandest picturehouses were stripped back or eliminated altogether, but enough of the idea of the cinema survived to draw in vast crowds every week. It was still possible to dream cinematic dreams in wartime, but such dreams were prompted by and interpreted through reference to wartime experiences.

Notes  1 Cinema-Theatre Association Archive (CTA): David Nye Papers: The State, St Budeaux, Plymouth: A. Jackson Withers to David Nye, 29 May 1948.  2 CTA: David Nye Papers: The State, St Budeaux, Plymouth: D. W. Horne to David Nye, 15 October 1946.  3 10 December 1943. Parliamentary Debates: House of Lords, 5th Series, vol. 130, cols 249–88. Some CEA members had different priorities, and in Manchester, T. S. Dawson insisted that ‘We should push for a high priority for bombdamaged entertainment houses.’ Today’s Cinema, 24 April 1945, p. 23.  4 The Times, 11 September 1945, p. 2; Claire Langhamer, ‘The meanings of home in postwar Britain’, Journal of Contemporary History, 40:2 (2005), p. 348; Hull Daily Mail, 10 May 1945, p. 3.



Conclusion

 5 Ina Zweiniger-Bargielowska, ‘Rationing, austerity and the Conservative Party recovery after 1945’, Historical Journal, 37:1 (1994), pp. 176–82.  6 Kinematograph Weekly, 19 December 1946, p. 27.  7 Today’s Cinema, 17 April 1945, p. 25. Allen Eyles notes that it was 1955 before ‘building restrictions were relaxed to enable cinemas only half-completed to be finished’. ‘Exhibition and the cinemagoing experience’, in Robert Murphy (ed.), The British Cinema Book (BFI: London, 2nd edn, 2001), p. 165.  8 Cinema and Theatre Construction, June 1946 (12:1), p. 4.  9 Parliamentary Debates: House of Commons: William Cove, 30 July 1941 – vol. 373, col. 1391; James Griffiths, 3 October 1944 – vol. 403, col. 780W. 10 See, for example, Today’s Cinema: 1 May 1945, p. 4; 11 May 1945, p. 4. 11 Kinematograph Yearbook, 1950 (London: Odhams Press, 1950), p. 316; Allen Eyles, Frank Gray and Alan Readman, Cinema West Sussex: The First Hundred Years (Chichester: Phillimore, 1996), p. 122. 12 CTA: David Nye Papers: The State, St Budeaux, Plymouth: A. Jackson Withers to David Nye, 27 May 1948. Norman Hart, solicitor to the CEA, noted that in the post-war period many licencing authorities required exhibitors to demonstrate that their premises were structurally sound. Kinematograph Yearbook, 1946 (London: Kinematograph Publications, 1946), p. 140. 13 CTA: David Nye Papers: The State, St Budeaux, Plymouth: David Nye to A. Jackson Withers, 6 July 1948. 14 CTA: David Nye Papers: The State, St Budeaux, Plymouth: A. Jackson Withers to David Nye, 21 January 1949. 15 CTA: David Nye Papers: The State, St Budeaux, Plymouth: David Nye to A. Jackson Withers, 3 January 1950. 16 CTA: David Nye Papers: The State, St Budeaux, Plymouth: A. Jackson Withers to David Nye, 4 January 1950. 17 CTA: David Nye Papers: The State, St Budeaux, Plymouth: David Nye to A. Jackson Withers, 6 January 1950. 18 CTA: David Nye Papers: The State, St Budeaux, Plymouth: A. Jackson Withers to David Nye, 9 January 1950. 19 Kinematograph Weekly, 20 December 1945, p. 105. 20 London Evening Standard, 15 February 1947, p. 2. 21 BFI Special Collections: Granada Theatres: Manual of Theatre Management (1952). 22 At one cinema in Lockerbie, Scotland, ‘new uniforms … were fashioned out of reconditioned American army tunics’. Trevor Griffiths, The Cinema and Cinemagoing in Scotland, c. 1896–1950 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2012), p. 259. Shortages of clothes also affected consumers, and high prices became a much more significant factor in preventing the acquisition of clothing than did coupons even before the ending of the clothes rationing scheme. See Ina Zweiniger-Bargiewlovska, Austerity in Britain: Rationing, Controls, and Consumption, 1939–1955 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), pp. 93–5.

245

246

Cinemas and cinemagoing in wartime Britain, 1939–45

23 24 25 26

Cinema and Theatre Construction, April 1947 (13:5), p. 37. The Times, 6 July 1946, p. 10. CEA Annual Report, 1945, p. 15. Ina Zweiniger-Bargielowska notes that ‘Even though total consumer spending had fallen by merely fifteen per cent in 1942 and returned to prewar levels in 1948, consumption of furniture and other durables, clothing, and private motoring fell by between one-quarter and three-quarters during the war and barely reached 1938 levels in 1950.’ ‘Rationing, austerity and the Conservative Party recovery’, p. 177. 27 Ticket sales declined between 1946 and 1947, but increased in 1948. The size of the drop in 1947 is attributable in part to the partial closure of the cinemas during the Fuel Crisis during the early months of that year. See Richard Farmer, ‘All work and no play: British leisure culture and the 1947 fuel crisis’, Contemporary British History, 27:1 (2013). 28 Financial Times, 16 November 1946, p. 4. 29 H. E. Browning and A. A. Sorrell, ‘Cinemas and cinemagoing in Great Britain’, Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, 117:2 (1954), p. 134. 30 David Docherty, David Morrison and Michael Tracey, The Last Picture Show: Britain’s Changing Film Audiences (London: BFI, 1987), pp. 14–29. 31 Picture Post, 22 January 1949, p. 7. 32 John Spraos, The Decline of the Cinema: An Economist’s Report (Abingdon: Routledge, 2014 [1962]), pp. 37–8, 35. Spraos estimated that between 50 and 75 per cent of an average cinema’s admissions were lost to the industry when it closed down. 33 Langhamer, ‘Meanings of home’, p. 343. 34 John Burnett, A Social History of Housing, 1815–1970 (London: David & Charles, 1978), pp. 274–6; Peter Malpass, ‘The wobbly pillar? Housing and the British post-war welfare state’, Journal of Social Policy, 32:4 (2003), p. 603. 35 Mark Abrams cited in Langhamer, ‘Meanings of home’, p. 341. 36 Jamileh Manoochehri, ‘Social policy and housing: reflections of social values’ (unpublished PhD thesis, University College London, 2009), p. 40. 37 David Kynaston, Austerity Britain, 1945–51 (London: Bloomsbury, 2007), p. 102. 38 Picture Post, 22 January 1949, p. 7. 39 J. Neville Bartlett, Carpeting the Millions: The Growth of Britain’s Carpet Industry (Edinburgh: John Donald, 1978), pp. 191–2; Judy Attfield, ‘The tufted carpet in Britain: its rise from the bottom of the pile, 1952–1970’, Journal of Design History, 7:3 (1994), pp. 205–16. 40 John Spraos attests that it is ‘undeniable’ that cinemagoing was ‘artificially boosted’ during and immediately after the war. Decline of the Cinema, p. 14. 41 Jeffrey Richards, The Age of the Dream Palace: Cinema and Society in Britain, 1930–1939 (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1984).

Bibliography

Bibliography

Archives Bodleian Library, University of Oxford Woolton Papers British Broadcasting Corporation Written Archive Centre, Caversham Home News Bulletins Programme transcripts – Radio – At Home Today British Film Institute Special Collections, London The Sidney Bernstein Papers / Granada Theatre Papers Microfiche Collection Cinema Ephemera Cinematograph Exhibitors’ Association Cinematograph Exhibitors’ Association Annual Report, 1936. Cinematograph Exhibitors’ Association Annual Report, 1939. Cinematograph Exhibitors’ Association Annual Report, 1940. Cinematograph Exhibitors’ Association Annual Report, 1941. Cinematograph Exhibitors’ Association Annual Report, 1943. Cinematograph Exhibitors’ Association Annual Report, 1945. Cinema Theatre Association Archive David Nye Papers London Suburbs Papers Birmingham Papers

248

Bibliography The Mass-Observation Archive, University of Sussex Diarists 5132, 5212, 5240, 5291, 5294, 5420 File Reports 57, 444, 445, 2068, 2159 TC17/1/A TC17/3/A TC17/4/A TC80/1/A The National Archives, London BT 64/4747 CAB 65/12/18; 65/17/15; 65/35/7; 67/9/16 CUST 118/405; 118/411; 118/434; 153/3; 153/9; 153/10; 153/14 HO 45/20876; 186/229; 186/1036; 186/1037; 186/1435; 186/2083; 192/1042; 199/262; 199/268 INF 1/74; 1/196; 1/199; 1/205; 1/249; 1/251; 1/627; 1/845 LAB 83/3185; 83/3330 MEPO 2/6296; 2/6418 RG 23/2; 23/44 The National Archives of Scotland, Edinburgh GD 289/1 Portsmouth City Records Office The Regent Ledgers TUC Library, London Metropolitan University NATKE General Parliamentary papers Central Statistical Office, Annual Abstract of Statistics, No. 84: 1935–1946 (London: HMSO, 1948). Cmd. 3767, Seventy-Fourth Statistical Abstract for the United Kingdom (1931). Parliamentary Debates: House of Commons, 5th Series. Parliamentary Debates: House of Lords, 5th Series.

Unpublished sources Eva Balogh, ‘Mediating desire: usherettes and cinema spectatorship’, forthcoming in Participations.



Bibliography

Jamileh Manoochehri, ‘Social policy and housing: reflections of social values’, (unpublished PhD thesis, University College London, 2009).

Newspapers, periodicals and trade journals Advertiser’s Weekly Balham, Tooting and Mitcham News and Gazette Balham, Tooting and Mitcham News and Mercury Bristol Evening Post Burnley Express Cambridge Daily News Chelmsford Chronicle Cinema Cinema: Construction and Equipment Section Cinema and Theatre Construction Cine-Technician Confectionery Journal Cornishman Daily Express Daily Film Renter Daily Herald Daily Mail Daily Mirror Daily Telegraph Daily Worker Derby Daily Telegraph Derbyshire Times and Chesterfield Herald Documentary News Letter Dundee Courier East Grinstead Observer The Economist Evening News (London) Evening Standard (London) Evening Telegraph (Dundee) Financial Times Gloucester Citizen Gloucestershire Echo Hastings and St Leonards Observer Hucknall Dispatch Hull Daily Mail Ice Cream Industry Ideal Kinema Illustrated London News

249

250

Bibliography Kinematograph Weekly Lancashire Evening Post Lichfield Mercury Light and Lighting Manchester Guardian Middlesex County Times Monthly Film Bulletin Motion Picture Herald New Statesman and Nation News Chronicle Northampton Mercury North Devon Journal North Wales Pioneer Nottingham Evening Post Observer Picturegoer Picture Post Picture Show Portsmouth Evening News Projectionist Projectionist’s Bulletin Signs and Outdoor Advertising Southern Daily Echo Spectator Sunday Express Sunday Graphic Surrey Mirror Time Time and Tide The Times Tobacconist and Confectioner Today’s Cinema Tribune Walthamstow, Leyton and Chingford Gazette Western Daily Press Western Gazette Western Morning News Yorkshire Evening Post Yorkshire Post



Bibliography

Books, journal articles and chapters in edited collections Addison, Paul, The Road to 1945: British Politics and the Second World War (London: Pimlico, revised edn, 1994). Addison, Paul and Jeremy A. Crang (eds), Listening to Britain: Home Intelligence Reports on Britain’s Finest Hour – May to September 1940 (London: Bodley Head, 2010). Aldgate, Anthony and Jeffrey Richards, Britain Can Take It: British Cinema in the Second World War (London: I.B. Tauris, new edn, 2007). Alexander, Sally, ‘A new civilization? London surveyed 1928–1940s’, History Workshop Journal, 64 (2007). Allen, Robert C., ‘From exhibition to reception: reflections on the audience in film history’, Screen, 31:4 (1990). Allen, Robert C., ‘Reimagining the history of the experience of the cinema in a postmoviegoing age’, in Richard Maltby, Daniel Biltereyst and Philippe Meers (eds), Explorations in New Cinema History: Approaches and Case Studies (Chichester: WileyBlackwell, 2011). Attfield, Judy, ‘The tufted carpet in Britain: its rise from the bottom of the pile’, Journal of Design History, 7:3 (1994). Attfield, Judy (ed.), Utility Reassessed: The Role of Ethics in the Practice of Design (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1999). Atwell, David, Cathedrals of the Movies: A History of British Cinemas and their Audiences (London: Architectural Press, 1980). Balcon, Michael et al., 20 Years of British Film, 1925–1945 (London: Falcon Press, 1947). Barr, Charles, ‘“Much pleasure and relaxation in these hard times”: Churchill and cinema in the Second World War’, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, 31:4 (2011). Barr, Charles (ed.), All Our Yesterdays: 90 Years of British Cinema (London: BFI, 1986). Beaven, Brad and John Griffiths, ‘The blitz, civilian morale and the city: MassObservation and working-class culture in Britain, 1940–41’, Urban History, 26:1 (1999). Bernstein, Sidney L., ‘Walk up! Walk up! – Please’, in Charles Davy (ed.), Footnotes to the Film (London: Lovat Dickson, 1937). Board of Trade Working Party Report: Carpets (London: HMSO, 1947). Bowen, Elizabeth, ‘Why I go to the cinema’, in Charles Davy (ed.), Footnotes to the Film (London: Lovat Dickson, 1937). Branaghan, Sim, British Film Posters: An Illustrated History (London: BFI, 2006). Briggs, Asa, The History of Broadcasting in the United Kingdom: Vol. III – The War of Words (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1970). British Film Industry (London: Political and Economic Planning, 1952). Brittain, Vera, England’s Hour (London: Macmillan, 1941). Broad, Richard and Suzie Fleming (eds), Nella Last’s War: The Second World War Diaries of Housewife, 49 (London: Profile, 2006).

251

252

Bibliography Brooks, Peter, The Melodramatic Imagination: Balzac, Henry James, Melodrama, and the Mode of Excess (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1976). Browning, H. E. and A. A. Sorrell, ‘Cinemas and cinemagoing in Great Britain’, Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, 117:2 (1954). Bruzzi, Stella, Undressing Cinema: Clothing and Identity in the Movies (London: Taylor & Francis, 2003). Burnett, John, A Social History of Housing, 1815–1970 (London: David & Charles, 1978). Burton, Alan and Steve Chibnall, ‘Promotional activities and showmanship in British film exhibition’, Journal of Popular British Cinema, 2 (1999). Butler, Margaret, Film and Community in Britain and France: From La Règle Du Jeu to Room at the Top (London: I.B. Tauris, 2004). Calder, Angus, The Myth of the Blitz (London: Pimlico, 1992). Calder, Angus, The People’s War: Britain 1939–1945 (London: Pimlico, 2008). Carroll, Noel, ‘Film, emotion, and genre’, in Carl Plantinga and Greg M. Smith (eds), Passionate Views: Film, Cognition, and Emotion (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999). Chapman, James, The British at War: Cinema, State and Propaganda, 1939–1945 (London: I.B. Tauris, 2008). Chapman, James, War and Film (London: Reaktion Books, 2008). Churchill, Winston, Secret Session Speeches (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1946). Cook, Pam, Fashioning the Nation: Costume and Identity on British Cinema (London: BFI, 1996). Craik, Jennifer, ‘The cultural politics of the uniform’, Fashion Theory, 7:2 (2003). Davy, Charles (ed.), Footnotes to the Film (London: Lovat Dickson, 1937). Dawson, Graham, Soldier Heroes: British Adventure, Empire and the Imagining of Masculinities (London: Routledge, 1994). Denney, Matthew, ‘Utility furniture and the myth of Utility, 1943–48’, in Judy Attfield (ed.), Utility Reassessed: The Role of Ethics in the Practice of Design (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1999). Deutsch, James I., ‘The rise and fall of the houses of ushers: teenage ticket-takers in the twenties theaters’, Journal of Popular Culture, 13:4 (1980). Dickinson, Margaret and Sarah Street, Cinema and State: The Film Industry and the Government, 1927–84 (London: BFI, 1985). Docherty, David, David Morrison and Michael Tracey, The Last Picture Show: Britain’s Changing Film Audiences (London: BFI, 1987). Dyer, Richard, ‘Entertainment and utopia’, in Bill Nichols (ed.), Movies and Methods: Volume II (London: University of California Press, 1985). Eckert, Charles, ‘The Carole Lombard in Macy’s window’, Quarterly Review of Film Studies, 3:1 (1978). Eyles, Allen, ‘Hits and misses at the Empire’, Picture House, 13 (Summer 1989). Eyles, Allen, ‘Exhibition and the cinemagoing experience’, in Robert Murphy (ed.), The British Cinema Book (London: BFI, 2nd edn, 2001). Eyles, Allen, ‘When exhibitors saw Scarlett: the war over Gone With the Wind ’, Picture House, 27 (2002).



Bibliography

Eyles, Allen, Frank Gray and Alan Readman, Cinema West Sussex: The First Hundred Years (Chichester: Phillimore, 1996). Farmer, Richard, ‘Exploiting a universal nostalgia for steak and onions: the Ministry of Information and the promotion of World of Plenty (1943)’, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, 30:2 (2010). Farmer, Richard, The Food Companions: Cinema and Consumption in Wartime Britain, 1939–45 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2011). Farmer, Richard, ‘All work and no play: British leisure culture and the 1947 fuel crisis’, Contemporary British History, 27:1 (2013). Farmer, Richard, ‘Remember the Torrin: positioning In Which We Serve’, in Petra Rau (ed.), Long Shadows: The Second World War in British Literature and Film (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, forthcoming). Field, Audrey, Picture Palace: A Social History of the Cinema (London: Gentry Books, 1974). Field, Clive, ‘Puzzled People revisited: religious believing and belonging in wartime Britain, 1939–45’, Twentieth Century British History, 19:4 (2008). Findlay Shirras, G. and L. Rostas, The Burden of British Taxation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1942). Ford, Richard, Children in the Cinema (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1939). Fox, Jo, Film Propaganda in Britain and Nazi Germany: World War II in Cinema (Oxford: Berg, 2007). Fuller, W. R., ‘The exhibitor’s part’, Sight and Sound, 10:37 (Spring 1941). Gardiner, Juliet, Wartime: Britain 1939–1945 (London: Headline, 2004). Gardiner, Juliet, The Blitz: The British Under Attack (London: Harper Press, 2010). Garfield, Simon (ed.), We Are at War: The Remarkable Diaries of Five Ordinary People in Extraordinary Times (London: Ebury Press, 2005). Garfield, Simon (ed.), Private Battles: How the War Almost Defeated Us (London: Ebury Press, 2006). Glancy, Mark, ‘Picturegoer: the fan magazine and popular film culture in Britain during the Second World War’, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, 31:4 (2011). Glancy, Mark, Hollywood and the Americanization of Britain: From the 1920s to the Present (London and New York: I.B. Tauris, 2014). Gledhill, Christine and Gillian Swanson (eds), Nationalising Femininity: Culture, Sexuality and British Cinema in the Second World War (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1996). Gomery, Douglas, Shared Pleasures: A History of Movie Presentation in the Unites States (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1992). Gordon, Jane, Married to Charles (London: William Heinemann, 1950). Granger, Stewart, Sparks Fly Upward (London: Granada, 1981). Graves, Charles, London Transport at War (Harpenden, Herts.: Oldcastle Books, 1989). Gray, Richard, Cinemas in Britain: A History of Cinema Architecture (Lund Humphries: Farnham, new edn, 2011). Grayzel, Susan R., ‘Defence against the indefensible: the gas mask, the state and British culture during and after the First World War’, Twentieth Century British History, 25:3 (2014).

253

254

Bibliography Griffiths, Trevor, The Cinema and Cinemagoing in Scotland, 1896–1950 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2012). Grimm, Reinhold (ed.), Bertolt Brecht: Poetry and Prose (New York: Continuum, 2003). Halliwell, Leslie, Seats In All Parts: Half a Lifetime at the Movies (London: Grafton Books, 1986). Halpern, D. B., ‘Economic aspects of the cinema trade’, Oxford Institute of Statistics Bulletin, 3:8 (3 June 1941). Hanson, Stuart, From Silent Screen to Multi-Screen: A History of Cinemagoing in Britain since 1896 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2007). Hark, Ina Rae, ‘The “theater man” and “the girl in the box office”: gender in the discourse of motion picture theatre management’, Film History, 6:2 (1994). Harper, Sue, Women in British Cinema: Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know (London: Continuum, 2000). Harper, Sue, ‘A lower-middle-class taste-community in the 1930s: admissions figures at the Regent cinema, Portsmouth, UK’, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, 24:4 (2004). Harper, Sue, ‘Fragmentation and crisis: 1940s admissions figures at the Regent cinema, Portsmouth, UK’, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, 26:3 (2006). Harris, Esther, ‘The production of trailers’, British Kinematography, 23:4 (October 1953). Hecks, Karl, Bombing 1939–45: The Air Offensive against Land Targets in World War Two (London: Robert Hale, 1990). Higson, Andrew, ‘Britain’s outstanding contribution to the film: the documentaryrealist tradition’, in Charles Barr (ed.), All Our Yesterdays: 90 Years of British Cinema (London: BFI, 1986). Hiley, Nicholas, ‘“Let’s go to the pictures”: the British cinema audience in the 1920s and 1930s’, Journal of Popular British Cinema, 2 (1999). Hiley, Nicholas and Luke McKernan, ‘Reconstructing the news: British newsreel ­documentation and the British Universities Newsreel Project’, Film History, 13:2 (2001). Hilton, Matthew, Smoking in British Popular Culture, 1800–2000 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000). Hinton, James, Nine Wartime Lives: Mass-Observation and the Making of the Modern Self (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010). Hodgkins, John, ‘Hearts and minds and bodies: reconsidering the cinematic language of The Battle of the Somme’, Film & History, 38:1 (2008). Hodgson, Vere, Few Eggs and No Oranges: A Diary Showing How Unimportant People in London and Birmingham Lived through the War Years 1940–1945 (London: Dennis Dobson, 1976). Huntley, John, ‘“U” and cry: the story of Denham’s trailer department’, Film Industry, June 1947. Hutchison, J. H., The Complete Kinemanager (London: Kinematograph Publications, 1937). Ingersoll, Ralph, Report on England (London: John Lane The Bodley Head, 1941).



Bibliography

Jalland, Pat, Death in War and Peace: Loss and Grief in England, 1914–1970 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010). Jeacle, Ingrid, ‘“Going to the movies”: accounting and twentieth-century cinema’, Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, 22:5 (2009). Jeffers McDonald, Tamar, Hollywood Catwalk: Exploring Costume and Transformation in American Film (London: I.B. Tauris, 2010). Jones, Helen, British Civilians in the Front Line: Air Raids, Productivity and Wartime Culture, 1939–45 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2006). Kerry, Mike, Wand’ring Minstrel (Cambridge: Vanguard Press, 2005). Kinematograph Yearbook, 1941 (London: Kinematograph Publications, 1941). Kinematograph Yearbook, 1942 (London: Kinematograph Publications, 1942). Kinematograph Yearbook, 1944 (London: Kinematograph Publications, 1944). Kinematograph Yearbook, 1946 (London: Kinematograph Publications, 1946). Kinematograph Yearbook, 1947 (London: Kinematograph Publications, 1947). Kinematograph Yearbook, 1950 (London: Odhams Press, 1950). King-Hall, Stephen, History of the War, Vol. 2: September–October 1939 (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1939). Kirkham, Pat, ‘Fashion, femininity and “frivolous” consumption in World-War-Two Britain’, in Judy Attfield (ed.), Utility Reassessed: The Role of Ethics in the Practice of Design (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1999). Kohan, C. M., Works and Buildings (London: HMSO, 1952). Kuhn, Annette, ‘Cinemagoing in Britain in the 1930s: report of a questionnaire survey’, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, 19:4 (1999). Kuhn, Annette, An Everyday Magic: Cinema and Cultural Memory (London: I.B. Tauris, 2002). Kynaston, David, Austerity Britain, 1945–51 (London: Bloomsbury, 2007). Langhamer, Claire, ‘The meanings of home in postwar Britain’, Journal of Contemporary History, 40:2 (2005). Lant, Antonia, Blackout: Reinventing Women for Wartime British Cinema (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1991). Lant, Antonia, ‘Prologue: mobile femininity’, in Christine Gledhill and Gillian Swanson (eds), Nationalising Femininity: Culture, Sexuality and British Cinema in the Second World War (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1996). Levene, Alysa, ‘The meanings of margarine in England: class, consumption and material culture from 1918 to 1953’, Contemporary British History, 28:2 (2014). Leveridge, Rosalind, ‘“Proud of our little local Palace”: Sidmouth, cinema, and community, 1911–14’, Early Popular Visual Culture, 8:4 (2010). Longmate, Norman, The Doodlebugs: The Story of the Flying Bombs (London: Hutchinson, 1981). Longmate, Norman, How We Lived Then: A History of Everyday Life during the Second World War (London: Pimlico, 2002). Lush, J., The Young Adult: Being a Report Prepared in Co-operation with Young Men in Cardiff, Newport, Pontypridd, Under the Auspices of the Carnegie United Kingdom Trust (Cardiff: University of Wales Press Board, 1941).

255

256

Bibliography Mackay, Robert, The Test of War: Inside Britain 1939–45 (London: University College London Press, 1999). Mackay, Robert, Half the Battle: Civilian Morale in Britain during the Second World War (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2002). Macnab, Geoffrey, Searching for Stars: Stardom and Screen Acting in British Cinema (London and New York: Cassell, 2000). Macnicol, John, ‘The evacuation of schoolchildren’, in Harold L. Smith (ed.), War and Social Change: British Society in the Second World War (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1990). Macpherson, Sandy, Sandy Presents (London: Home and Van Thal, 1950). Malpass, Peter, ‘The wobbly pillar? Housing and the British post-war welfare state’, Journal of Social Policy, 32:4 (2003). Maltby, Richard, Daniel Biltereyst and Philippe Meers (eds), Explorations in New  Cinema  History: Approaches and Case Studies (Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011). Manvell, Roger, ‘The British feature film from 1940 to 1945’, in Michael Balcon et al., 20 Years of British Film, 1925–1945 (London: Falcon Press, 1947). Mass-Observation, Home Propaganda (Bulletin of the Advertising Service Guild, no. 2) (London: Curwen Press, 1941). Mass-Observation, War Begins at Home (London: Faber and Faber, 2009 [1940]). Mayer, J. P., British Cinemas and their Audiences: Sociological Studies (London: Dennis Dobson, 1948). McKernan, Luke, ‘Diverting time: London’s cinemas and their audiences, 1906–1914’, London Journal, 32:2 (2007). McKernan, Luke, ‘“Only the screen was silent…”: memories of children’s cinemagoing in London before the First World War’, Film Studies, 10 (2007). McLaine, Ian, Ministry of Morale: Home Front Morale and the Ministry of Information in World War II (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1979). McNeil, Peter, ‘“Put your best face forward”: the impact of the Second World War on British dress’, Journal of Design History, 6:4 (1993). Miskell, Peter, ‘Seduced by the silver screen: film addicts, critics and cinema regulation in Britain in the 1930s and 1940s’, Business History, 73:3 (2005). Morgan, Guy, Red Roses Every Night: An Account of London Cinemas Under Fire (London: Quality Press, 1948). Morris, Nina J., ‘Night walking: darkness and sensory perception in a night-time landscape installation’, Cultural Geographies, 18:3 (2011). Morton Shand, P., The Architecture of Pleasure Vol. 1: Modern Theatres and Cinemas (London: B. T. Batsford, 1930). Moshenska, Gabriel, ‘Gas masks: material culture, memory, and the senses’, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 16:3 (2010). Murphy, Hugh, ‘“From the crinoline to the boilersuit”: women workers in British shipbuilding during the Second World War’, Contemporary British History, 13:4 (1999). Murphy, Robert, Realism and Tinsel: Cinema and Society in Britain 1939–1948 (London and New York: Routledge, 1989).



Bibliography

Murphy, Robert, British Cinema and the Second World War (London and New York: Continuum, 2000). Murphy, Robert (ed.), The British Cinema Book (BFI: London, 2nd edn, 2001). Neale, Steve, ‘Melodrama and tears’, Screen, 27:6 (1986). Neville Bartlett, J., Carpeting the Millions: The Growth of Britain’s Carpet Industry (Edinburgh: John Donald, 1978). New Survey of London Life and Labour. Vol. I: Forty Years of Change (London: P. S. King & Son, 1930). Nichols, Bill (ed.), Movies and Methods: Volume II (London: University of California Press, 1985). O’Brien, Margaret and Allen Eyles (eds), Enter the Dream-House: Memories of Cinemas in South London from the Twenties to the Sixties (London: BFI, 1993). O’Brien, T. H., Civil Defence (London: HMSO, 1955). Parker, H. M. D., Manpower: A Study of War-time Policy and Administration (London: HMSO, 1957). Plantinga, Carl and Greg M. Smith (eds), Passionate Views: Film, Cognition, and Emotion (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999). Portelli, Alessandro, ‘On the peculiarities of oral history’, History Workshop Journal, 12:1 (1981). Priestley, J. B., Postscripts (London: William Heinemann, 1940). Pronay, Nicholas, ‘War of words’, New Scientist, 59:861, 30 August 1973. Pronay, Nicholas, ‘Introduction’, in Frances Thorpe and Nicholas Pronay, British Official Films in the Second World War: A Descriptive Catalogue (Oxford: Cleo Press, 1980). Rau, Petra (ed.), Long Shadows: The Second World War in British Literature and Film (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, forthcoming). Richards, Helen, ‘Memory reclamation of cinemagoing in Bridgend, South Wales, 1930–1960’, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, 23:4 (2003). Richards, Jeffrey, The Age of the Dream Palace: Cinema and Society in Britain, 1930–1939 (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1984). Richards, Jeffrey, ‘Wartime British cinema audiences and the class system: the case of Ships with Wings (1941)’, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, 7:2 (1987). Richards, Jeffrey and Dorothy Sheridan, Mass-Observation at the Movies (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1987). Robb, Linsey, ‘“The front line”: firefighting in British culture, 1939–1945’, Contemporary British History, 29:2 (2015). Roodhouse, Mark, ‘In racket town: gangster chic in austerity Britain, 1939–1953’, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, 31:4 (2011). Roodhouse, Mark, Black Market Britain, 1939–1955 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013). Rose, Sonya, Which People’s War? National Identity and Citizenship in Wartime Britain, 1939–1945 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003). Rowson, Simon, ‘A statistical survey of the cinema industry in Great Britain in 1934’, Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, 99:1 (1936).

257

258

Bibliography Sargent, Paul, ‘“Keep smiling, keep those chins up and God bless”: filmed messages home from service personnel in the Far East during the Second World War’, Imperial War Museum Review, 7 (1992). Sayers, R. S., Financial Policy, 1939–45 (London: HMSO, 1956). Schlör, Joachim, Nights in the Big City: Paris, Berlin, London, 1840–1930 (London: Reaktion Books, 1998). Sedgwick, John, ‘Cinemagoing in Portsmouth during the 1930s’, Cinema Journal, 46:1 (2006). Sevareid, Eric, Not So Wild a Dream (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1946). Shawn, William (ed.), London War Notes, 1939–1945 (London: Longman, 1972). Sheridan, Dorothy (ed.), Wartime Women: An Anthology of Women’s Wartime Writing for Mass-Observation 1937–45 (London: Heinemann, 1989). Skelton, Robin (ed.), Poetry of the Forties (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1968). Sladen, Christopher, The Conscription of Fashion: Utility Cloth, Clothing and Footwear, 1941–1952 (Aldershot: Scolar Press, 1995). Smith, Harold L., War and Social Change: British Society in the Second World War (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1990). Smith, Sarah J., Children, Cinema and Censorship: From Dracula to the Dead End Kids (London: I.B. Tauris, 2005). Smithies, Edward, Crime in Wartime: A Social History of Crime in World War II (London: Allen & Unwin, 1982). Smithies, Edward, The Black Economy in England since 1914 (Dublin: Gill & MacMillan, 1984). Spraos, John, The Decline of the Cinema: An Economist’s Report (Abingdon: Routledge, 2014 [1962]). Stacey, Jackie, Star Gazing: Hollywood Cinema and Female Spectatorship (London: Routledge, 1994). Storey, Joyce, Joyce’s War, 1939–1945 (London: Virago, 1992). Storey, Richard, ‘The archaeology of the cinema’, Industrial Archaeology, 3:4 (1966). Strachey, John, Post D: Some Experiences of an Air-raid Warden (London: Victor Gollancz, 1941). Street, Sarah, Costume and Cinema: Dress Codes in Popular Film (London: Wallflower, 2001). Street, Sarah, ‘“Another medium entirely”: Esther Harris, National Screen Service and film trailers in Britain, 1940–1960’, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, 29:4 (2009). Summerfield, Penny, ‘“The girl that makes the thing that drills the hole that holds the spring…”: discourses of women and work in the Second World War’, in Christine Gledhill and Gillian Swanson (eds), Nationalising Femininity: Culture, Sexuality and British Cinema in the Second World War (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1996). Sweet, Matthew, The West End Front: The Wartime Secrets of London’s Grand Hotels (London: Faber and Faber, 2011).



Bibliography

Tattersall, C. E. C., A History of British Carpets: From the Introduction of the Craft until the Present Day (Benfleet, Essex: F. Lewis, 1934). Taylor, A. J. P., English History, 1914–1945 (Harmondsworth: Pelican, 1970). Tennyson Jesse, F. and H. M. Harwood, London Front: Letters Written to America (August 1939–July 1940) (London: Constable, 1940). Thomas, Donald, An Underworld at War: Spivs, Deserters, Racketeers and Civilians in the Second World War (London: John Murray, 2003). Thompson, T. A., ‘Front-line Folkestone’, Picture House, 8 (1986). Thorpe, Frances and Nicholas Pronay, British Official Films in the Second World War: A Descriptive Catalogue (Oxford: Cleo Press, 1980). Thumim, Janet, ‘The female audience: mobile women and married ladies’, in Christine Gledhill and Gillian Swanson (eds), Nationalising Femininity: Culture, Sexuality and British Cinema in the Second World War (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1996). Todd, Selina, ‘Young women, work, and leisure in interwar England’, Historical Journal, 48:3 (2005). Williams, David R., ‘The Cinematograph Act of 1909: an introduction to the impetus behind the legislation and some early effects’, Film History, 9:4 (1997). Williams, David R., ‘Ladies of the lamp: the employment of women in the British film trade during World War 1’, Film History, 9:1 (1997). Woon, Basil, Hell Came to London: A Reportage of the Blitz during 14 days (London: Peter Davies, 1941). Yell, Susan and Meredith Fletcher, ‘Airgraphs and an airman: the role of airgraphs in World War II family correspondence’, History Australia, 8:3 (2011). Zweiniger-Bargielowska, Ina, ‘Rationing, austerity and the Conservative Party recovery after 1945’, Historical Journal, 37:1 (1994). Zweiniger-Bargielowska, Ina, Austerity in Britain: Rationing, Controls, and Consumption, 1939–1955 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000).

259

Index

Notes: ‘n.’ after a page reference indicates the number of a note on that page. Numbers that appear in italics refer to an illustration or table on that page. 49th Parallel 182, 202 Abbott, Bud, and Lou Costello 202, 204 ABC circuit 30, 89 n. 100, 91 n. 142, 151, 239 abdication crisis 5 Aberystwyth 22, 26, 27 Abrams, Mark 241–2 advertising see publicity air raids see blitz All This, and Heaven Too 114 Arizona 207 Army Kinema Corporation see camp cinemas Arts Theatre, Cambridge 34 Askey, Arthur 24, 203–4 Associated British Cinemas see ABC circuit Astaire, Fred 207 Astoria cinema, Charing Cross Road 28, 107 Astoria cinema, Tooting 49 At Home Today 154 attendance figures see ticket sales Attlee, Clement 23–4 Bambi 53 n. 58, 202 Band Waggon 24 Battle of Russia 189 Battle of Stalingrad 189 BBC 2, 23–4, 27, 29, 154, 225 Belgium 1–2, 4 Belle of the Yukon 181–2 Bells Go Down, The 106, 139

Bernstein, Sidney 7, 23 see also Granada cinemas Bevin, Ernest 62–3, 136 Beyond the Blue Horizon 117–18 Billings, R. H. ‘Josh’ 192 n. 34, 202–4 Birmingham 12, 153, 161 n. 121, 186 blackout 27, 35–49, 109, 177, 200, 239 easing of restrictions 29, 47–9, 50 injuries 27, 36 leisure culture 27, 37–42, 47, 63, 200 perceptions of urban space 36–8, 41–2, 43–4, 47 public attitudes 36, 48 ticket sales 38, 40, 59, 81 see also British Summer Time; Double Summer Time blackout blues 38 blitz 4, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26–7, 34, 42, 48, 93–120, 139, 145, 149, 178, 200, 206, 211, 235 cinema closures 51, 95–6, 99, 100–2, 105, 107 injuries 93–4, 103, 107, 215 physical damage 93–4, 96, 100–3, 101, 107, 114, 235–9 ticket sales 59, 77, 104, 105–9, 116, 117, 120, 162 n. 126, 178 warning 93, 96–9, 97, 110, 112, 114, 116, 206 see also V-1 rockets; War Damage Commission Board of Trade 58, 60, 71, 130, 131, 134, 159 n. 60, 167 Bolton 10, 173

Index 261 Bowen, Elizabeth 73, 221 Bracken, Brendan 67, 69–70 Brecht, Bertolt 127 Brief Encounter 80 Brighton 10, 121 n. 6, 225 Bristol 12, 66, 69, 100, 108, 121 n. 16, 137, 151–2, 154, 178, 179, 184, 226 Britain Can Take It! 113 British Summer Time 37, 38, 40 Busman’s Honeymoon 106 Byron cinema, Hucknall 187 Calling Blighty 225–6 Cambridge 28, 34, 55 n. 106, 178, 210 camouflage 105 camp cinemas 189 Canterbury Tale, A 129, 193 n. 43 carbons 60, 61 carpets 184–5, 239, 242 CEA see Cinematograph Exhibitors’ Association censorship 12, 180, 191 n. 13 Chamberlain, Neville 1 chewing gum 186 children 26, 31–4, 49, 94, 112, 117, 173, 180, 225–6 Christmas carols see community singing Christmas Message from Mr Oscar Deutsch, A 59 Churchill, Winston 1, 29, 63, 64, 115, 165, 211, 222 cigarettes see smoking Cinema and Theatre Construction 14, 144, 174, 236 cinemagoing 11–12, 13 and emotion 110–2, 118–19, 212–2 entertainment 22–3, 119–20, 201–10 expression of community 14–15, 113–15, 169–72, 187–8, 221–8 personal choice 80, 163–4, 204–5, 227 social practice 5, 10, 13, 177, 200–1 ticket sales 4, 10–11, 32, 77, 105–6, 116, 117, 240 see also escapism; morale cinema managers 96–7, 100, 133, 139–40, 147–9, 165, 169 cinemas appeal 6–8, 9, 14–6, 41, 47, 163–4,182–6, 208–9, 218, 226, 241–3

closure at start of war 22–31, 40 numbers 7–10, 28, 39, 102 rationing scheme 146–7 reopening 24–31, 96 visibility in British cities 5, 7, 10, 43–5, 163, 166, 176–7 see also blackout; blitz Cinematograph Act (1909) 129, 145 Cinematograph Exhibitors’ Association 5, 25–6, 28, 31, 32–3, 38, 59–61, 63–4, 107, 109, 151, 153, 154, 173, 187, 240 and Board of Trade 130–1 membership statistics 101–2 and Ministry of Food 71–4 and Ministry of Information 65–70 and Ministry of Labour 128, 136–42, 146–7 and National Association of Theatrical and Kinema Employees 82, 138, 140, 144–5, 150, 152 and Treasury 74–84 Civic cinema, Alresford 195 n. 86 Civilian Clothing (Restrictions) Orders 134 Clark, Kenneth 64, 66 Classic cinema, Southampton 234 n. 105 closure of cinemas at start of war 22–31, 40 financial implications 30 clothes rationing 130–1, 134, 135, 239 see also uniforms coins 80–1 community singing 24, 34, 100, 226 conscription 137–9, 141 see also female conscription Control of Building Order (1942) 188 Convoy 98, 110, 202 ‘Cooper’s snoopers’ 68 Cosmo cinema, Glasgow 232 n. 84 Courtneidge, Cicely 207 Coventry 40, 100, 102 Cronin, A. J. 166, 168 Curzon cinema, Mayfair 188 Dad’s Army 56 n. 122 dance halls 18, 61, 108, 226 D-Day 116 de Gaulle, Charles 200 Denmark 1 Deutsch, Oscar 14, 59, 167, 209–10 see also Odeon circuit

262 Index Directional Signs Order (1940) 193 n. 46 Display of Photographs (Cinematograph Film Industry) Order (1942) 167 Do It Now 42–3 doodlebugs see V-1 rockets Double Summer Time 37, 40, 109 Eckman Jr., Sam 120 Edinburgh 5, 165, 178 Edward VIII see abdication crisis Elite cinema, Middlesbrough 181 Embassy cinema, Maldon 184 Embassy cinema, Notting Hill Gate 22, 23 Embassy cinema, Tottenham Court Road 45 emotional realism 217–21 Empire cinema, Leicester Square 3, 4, 28, 106–7, 108–9, 180, 203, 217 Empire cinema, Littleport 30 Entertainments Tax 12, 69, 75–9, 78, 83, 140 escapism 5, 15, 95, 119–20, 199–201, 205–6, 208–9, 212 evacuation 26, 31–4, 102, 105, 223 evacuees see evacuation Excess Profits Tax 75, 77, 83 fan magazines 122 n. 23, 174, 177 see also Picturegoer; Picture Show Fanny by Gaslight 202, 213, 219 female conscription 142 female managers 147–9 female projectionists 137–8, 147, 149–55, 151, 179 Film Pictorial 174 film stock 60, 98, 139, 180 Film Weekly 174 Fires Were Started 139 fire-watching 139, 152, 156 n. 23 First of the Few, The 202 Five-Minute Films 65–9 fluorescent paint 46 football 11 Foreign Correspondent 202 Foreman Went to France, The 222 For Freedom 165 Formby, George 203–4 Forum cinema, Derby 100 Forum cinema, Southampton 100 For Whom the Bell Tolls 122 n. 24, 202

France 1–2, 4 Fraser Green, A. 170, 192 n. 31 French Without Tears 170, 192 n. 31 Fuller, W. R 60, 140 Gable, Clark 204 Gaiety Theatre, Manchester 82, 154 Game, Philip 27 gas masks 34–5, 42 Gaumont cinema, Yeovil 226 Gaumont circuit 30, 89 n. 100, 184 Gaumount State cinema, Kilburn 10, 43–4, 107 George cinema, Glasgow 189 Glasgow 66, 95, 98, 150, 189 Gone With the Wind 3, 81–2, 110, 112, 120, 177, 202, 204 Goose Steps Out, The 54 n. 76 Granada cinemas 7, 22, 46, 49, 73, 105, 107, 117, 161 n. 114, 165, 168–9, 170, 175–6, 180, 226, 239 Greenford 122 n. 30, 158 n. 41 Kingston 198 n. 122 Tooting 7, 49, 121 n. 17 Walthamstow 165 Wandsworth Road 107–8, 112, 161 n. 114, 162 n. 126, 165, 170–1, 192 n. 31, 195 n. 82, 233 n. 90 Granger, Stewart 217–18 Great Dictator, The 181, 202 Grenadier Club 226 Gwent and West of England Circuits 235, 238–9 Halliwell, Leslie 173 Hell Came to London 113 Hello, Frisco, Hello 202 Henry V 181 Hippodrome cinema, Portsmouth 100 Hitler, Adolf 48, 113, 181, 204, 222 Hollywood Cavalcade 167 Home Intelligence reports 1–2, 3, 76 Home Office 25–9, 99, 145, 148 Hope and Glory 97 How Green Was My Valley 213 Hulbert, Jack 207 Hull 34, 95, 102, 103, 236 Hutchison, J. H. 144, 152, 167, 183 ice cream 71–4 I Love You Again 106 I Married a Witch 94

Index 263 In Which We Serve 134, 199, 202, 208, 214–16, 220 Isherwood, Christopher 190 It Could Happen to You 120 n. 6 J. F. Emery circuit 104 Jones, Jennifer 213 Knott, F. C. 107, 108, 195 n. 82 Komisarjevsky, Theodore 7 Lady Vanishes, The 168 Leicester Square 3, 4, 30, 168, 203, 237 see also West End Leicester Square Cinema 4, 106, 237 Leigh, Vivien 177, 203 Let George Do It 202 Lido cinema, Lichfield 12 light-locks 45, 46 Lion Has Wings, The 121 n. 7, 167 Liverpool 100, 102, 103, 225 Lockwood, Margaret 143, 168, 217 London 3–4, 23, 24, 26, 27, 28–9, 34, 39, 40, 49, 52 n. 26, 66, 82, 102, 104, 106, 107–8, 112, 113, 115–18, 120, 144, 178, 184, 190, 200, 241 Love on the Dole 202 Love Story 202, 213, 217–18 Lucan, Arthur 143, 203–4 see also Old Mother Riley… films Luxor cinema, Hulme 100 Macpherson, Sandy 24, 38 Made For Each Other 22–3 Madin, John 171 Madonna of the Seven Moons 134, 202, 213 maintenance 164, 188–90 Majestic cinema, Aberdeen 100 Majestic cinema, Dundee 8 Manchester 12, 82, 102, 108, 131, 154 Manvell, Roger 13, 48, 212, 224 Mass-Observation 2, 9, 27, 36, 38, 40–2, 48, 66–7, 77, 134, 177, 207, 232 n. 84 Mears, H. P. E. 59, 67 Metropolitan Police 3–4, 27, 117, 145–6 Mickey Mouse Club 226 Millions Like Us 175, 213, 214, 222 Ministry of Food 71–4 Ministry of Information 1, 140, 64–70

Ministry of Labour 10, 61, 69, 128, 136–40 Ministry of Works 188–9, 235, 237 mobile projection units 198 n. 125 Model cinema, Cresswell 186 morale 1–4, 24, 25–6, 59, 60, 61, 68, 113, 116, 140, 200, 211, 240 Morrison, Herbert 61, 95 Morton Shand, P. 44 movement of population 223–4 see also evacuation Mrs Miniver 202, 216–7 Mr Smith Goes to Washington 181 Murdoch, Richard 24 Murphy, Robert 218 ‘Myth of the Blitz’ 113 My Two Husbands 115 National Association of Theatrical and Kinema Employees 81, 82, 130, 138, 140, 144, 150, 152 National cinema, Hull 103 National Savings Committee 69, 71, 182 National Screen Service 66, 180-1 National Service (Armed Forces) Act (1939) see conscription National Service (No. 2) Act (1941) see female conscription NATKE see National Association of Theatrical and Kinema Employees neon lighting 42, 43, 44–5, 47, 49 New Adelphi cinema, Liverpool 100 New Ritz cinema, Preston 184 newspaper advertising 83, 165, 177, 178–80, 179 newsreels 26, 59, 60, 66, 116, 119, 207, 222, 229 n. 26 New Survey of London Life and Labour 39 New Victoria cinema, London 184 night architecture 42–5, 44 Ninotchka 202 Norway 1, 173 Nye, David E. 235, 238–9 Oak House cinema, Pocklington 34 O’Brien, Tom 81, 138 Odeon circuit 30, 43, 89 n. 100, 151, 167, 168, 175, 209 Aberdeen 154 Bournemouth 168 Burnley, 160 n. 98 Epsom 33

264 264 Index Bibliography Odeon circuit (continued ) Exeter 46, 151 Isleworth 132 Kensington 237 Leicester 132 Leicester Square 4, 43, 154, 167, 176 Llandudno 162 n. 127 Portsmouth 183 South Chingford 34 Weston-super-Mare 44 Old Mother Riley Joins Up 34 Old Mother Riley’s Circus 142–3, 143, 173 Old Mother Riley’s Ghosts 202 operators see projectionists Palace cinema, Barnstaple 184 Palace cinema, Edinburgh 5 Palace cinema, Salford 160 n. 91 Palace cinema, Wolverton 85 n. 11 Palladium cinema, Milford Junction 80 Palladium cinema, Plymouth 100, 101 Panter-Downes, Molly 76, 97 Paper Control Order (1940) 176, 177 paper rationing 173–7 Paramount cinema, Newcastle 7–8, 43 Partners in Crime 64 Peake, Mervyn 212 personal appearances 182 Personal Points rationing see sweets rationing Picturegoer 174, 209–10, 223, 224 Picture Show 115, 174, 223 Pimpernel Smith 173 Playhouse cinema, Edinburgh 5, 165 Plaza cinema, Exeter 100 ‘pleasure culture of war’ 110, 207–8 Plymouth 73, 100, 235 Portman, Eric 71, 182 Portsmouth 10, 65, 95, 102, 106, 211 posters 167, 172–3, 174–7 changes to size 176 element of cinemagoing 176, 177 limitations on number and location 176 post-war reconstruction 235–9, 241–2 profiteering 83 projectionettes see female projectionists projectionists 137–41, 145, 150 see also female projectionists public houses 18, 37, 94, 108, 192 n. 31, 226

publicity 42, 46, 105, 154–5, 163–82 budgets 164–5 see also newspaper advertising; paper rationing; posters; publicity stunts; trailers publicity stunts 181–2 public transport 12–13, 40, 41, 49 Purchase Tax 75 Pygmalion 169 Radford, Basil 193 n. 43 Radio Centre cinema, East Grinstead 94, 109 Random Harvest 94 Rank, J. Arthur 117 ration book see sweets rationing raw stock see film stock Rayment, S. G. 95 Rebecca 120 recycling see salvage Redgrave, Michael 166, 168 Regal cinema, Cambridge 196 n. 96 Regent cinema, Bristol 100 Regent cinema, Portsmouth 72, 73, 123 n. 37, 165, 204 reopening of cinemas 24–31, 96 Aberystwyth 22, 26, 27 financial losses 28, 30 London 28–30 neutral and reception areas 27 reservation 138–40, 146 Rex cinema, Cambridge 28 Rex cinema, Coventry 100 Rhapsody in Blue 189 Rialto cinema, Hull 103 Richards, Jeffrey 15, 243 Ritz cinema, Birkenhead 100 Ritz cinema, Hastings 226 Ritz cinema, Leicester Square 18 n. 7, 82, 120, 203 Rogers, Ginger 207 Rowson, Simon 7, 8, 12, 80 Roxy cinema, New York 157 n. 26 Saludos Amigos 202 salvage 104, 173 San Demetrio London 222 Savoy cinema, Northampton 234 n. 104 Sayers, Dorothy L. 36 Scala cinema, Bath 105 schools 31, 103, 226 seats 184, 185–7

Index 265 seat slashing 186–7 Shaw, George Bernard 25 Ships With Wings 208 showmanship 45, 163–90 smoking 73–4, 87 n. 53 Song of Bernadette, The 213 Speakman, W. J. 82, 105 Spraos, John 242 Spy in Black, The 43, 46, 176 staff 28, 31, 61–2, 100, 128–9, 132, 136–55 changes to demographics 136, 142–3, 143, 145 Stars Look Down, The 143, 166–72, 171 State cinema, St Budeaux, Plymouth 235, 238–9 Stepney 146, 241 Stewart, James 22, 203 Stoll, Oswald 28–9 street lighting 36, 37, 38, 47–8 Sunday opening 12, 61–3 Sweet Rosie O’Grady 202 sweets rationing 71–3, 74, 239 taxation 74–5 see also Entertainments Tax; Excess Profits Tax; Purchase Tax Taylor, Stephen 3, 18 n. 4, 234 n. 113 theatres 27, 39, 63, 75, 117, 174, 226 This Happy Breed 202, 213–4 Three Silent Men 122 n. 24 ticket prices 74, 76–82, 78, 83, 241 ticket sales 4, 10–11, 32, 77, 105–6, 116, 117, 240 see also blackout; blitz Tivoli cinema, Sheffield 100 Tivoli cinema, Strand 28, 49 Tonight and Every Night 118 Tower cinema, Leeds 225 trade press 174 trailers 180–1 Treasury 61, 69, 74–84

Triangle cinema, Clifton 226 Trocadero cinema, Elephant and Castle 107, 145–6 Troxy cinema, Stepney 146 Undercover Man 93 uniforms 129–35, 149 Unpublished Story 109 usherettes 45, 133, 142–3, 143, 144, 145, 154 utility cinema 14–16, 244 utility clothing 15, 131, 134–5 utility furniture 15, 185–6 V. 1 118 V-1 rockets 34, 95, 116–8, 120, 136 V-2 rockets 34, 95 Van Dyke cinema, Fishponds 205 vandalism 186–7 VE Day 48–9, 239 Victory cinema, Glasgow 189 wages 11, 39, 72, 75–6, 79, 128, 142, 144–5, 151, 188 war bonus 82, 144–5 War Damage Commission 238–9 Warner cinema, Leicester Square 4, 49, 53 n. 58, 114 Waters, Elsie and Doris 182 Way to the Stars, The 121 n. 7, 213, 214 West End 3, 24, 27, 29–30, 80, 106, 178 West Ham 96 West, Mae 207 Whitehall cinema, East Grinstead 93–5, 102, 238 Windsor cinema, Smethwick 183 Withers, A. Jackson 235, 238–9 Wood, Kingsley 76 Woolton, Lord 235–6 Woon, Basil 113 World of Plenty 182