Where we Came In Seventy Years of the British Film Industry [Paperback]

Originally published in 1964, this book tells the history of the British cinematograph industry for the first time. It describes moments of splendid triumph and others of shattering failure. The mood switches from reckless optimism to demoralising pessimism, from years in which British films won the highest international awards to those when they were dismissed with scorn.

It recalls a score of productions still ranked among the world's best, and the stars whose reputation was established in them. Attention is focused on the directors, those who kept to the fore during two and three decades and those with only one major success to their name. Behind them the men are identified who strove, often to their considerable financial loss, to gain a worthy place for British films in the worlds markets.

Introduction: The Tough Un.  The Sequence of Events  1. The Inventors  2. A Showmans Industry  3. The Peoples Storyteller  4. Hepworth, Barker and Jupp  5. Europe Goes to the War and Hollywood Goes to the Pictures  6. The Black November of 1924  7. Getting to Grips with Hollywood  8. Breaking Out From Isolation  9. The Last of the Silent Years  10. The First of the Talkies  11. The Second Phase in the Thirties  12. Speculative Financing  13. The End of the Party: The Late Thirties  14. Europe at War Again: America Neutral  15. The Last of the War Years  16. Melodramas, Tough and Tearful  17. Much Less than was Hoped For  18. Swept Aside in the Flood  19. The Year when Everything Went Wrong  20. On the Wrong Side of Fifty  21. Losing the Cinema Heart  22. The Uncertain Future