Although his film career extended from the early days of sound to the British New Wave and beyond, Sir John Mills is nonetheless remembered as the archetypal hero of the Second World War. Regarded as an English 'everyman', his performances crossed the class divide and, in his easy transition from below decks to above, he came to represent a newly democratic masculine ideal.But what was this exemplary masculinity and what became of it in the aftermath of war? John Mills and British Cinema asks how was it possible for an actor to embody national identity and, by exploring the cultural contexts in which Mills and the nation became synonymous, the book offers a new perspective on 40 years of cinema and social change. Through detailed analysis of a wide range of classic British films, John Mills and British Cinema exposes the shifting constructions of 'national' masculinity, arguing that the screen persona of the actor is a fundamental, and often overlooked, dimension of British cinema.

Idols of the Odeons examines British film stardom in the post-war era, a time when Hollywood movies were increasingly supplanting the Pinewood/Elstree studio system. The book encompasses the careers of sixteen actors, including Stanley Baker, Diana Dors, Norman Wisdom, Hattie Jacques, Peter Finch and Peter Sellers. Such extremely diverse careers provide the opportunity to explore overlooked films, in addition to examining how the term ‘star’ could apply to a stalwart leading man, a Variety comic, a self-created ‘Vamp’ and a character actor. Above all, this is a book that celebrates, with idiosyncratic humour and warmth, how these actors accomplished much of their best work during the transitional period between the Rank/ABPC roster of stars and the US domination of the British film industry.

The bestselling autobiography of one of Britain's best-loved actors - updated for this edition

For years there has been consensus about the merits of Britain’s ‘cult films’ — Peeping Tom, Witchfinder General, The Italian Job — but what of The Mark, Unearthly Stranger, The Strange Affair and The Squeeze? Revisionist critics wax lyrical over Get Carter and The Wicker Man, but what of Sitting Target, Quest for Love and The Black Panther? OFFBEAT redresses this imbalance by exploring Britain’s obscurities, curiosities and forgotten gems — from the buoyant leap in film production in the late fifties to the dying days of popular domestic cinema in the early eighties. Featuring essays, interviews and in-depth reviews, OFFBEAT provides an exhaustive, enlightening and entertaining guide through a host of neglected cinematic trends and episodes, including: • The last great British B-movies • ‘Anti-swinging sixties’ films • Sexploitation — from Yellow Teddy Bears to Emmanuelle in Soho • The British rock ‘n roll movie • CIA-funded British cartoons • Asylums in British cinema • The Children’s Film Foundation • The demise of the short as supporting feature • Val Guest, Sidney Hayers and the forgotten journeyman of British film • Swashbucklers, crime thrillers and other non-horror Hammers Now updated with more than 150 pages of new reviews and essays, featuring: • The Beatles in Colour! • The History of the AA Certificate • Ken Russell’s 1980s Films • Iris Murdoch’s A Severed Head • Curating Offbeat films in the Digital Age And much more!

In this definitive and long-awaited history of 1950s British cinema, Sue Harper and Vincent Porter draw extensively on previously unknown archive material to chart the growing rejection of post-war deference by both film-makers and cinema audiences. Competition from television and successive changes in government policy all forced the production industry to become more market-sensitive. The films produced by Rank and Ealing, many of which harked back to wartime structures of feeling, were challenged by those backed by Anglo-Amalgamated and Hammer. The latter knew how to address the rebellious feelings and growing sexual discontents of a new generation of consumers. Even the British Board of Film Censors had to adopt a more liberal attitude. The collapse of the studio system also meant that the screenwriters and the art directors had to cede creative control to a new generation of independent producers and film directors. Harper and Porter explore the effects of these social, cultural, industrial, and economic changes on 1950s British cinema.

One of the most celebrated filmmakers of all time, Francois Truffaut was an intensely private individual who cultivated the public image of a man completely consumed by his craft. But his personal story—from which he drew extensively to create the characters and plots of his films—is itself an extraordinary human drama. Now, with captivating immediacy, Antoine de Baecque and Serge Toubiana give us the definitive story of this beloved artist. They begin with the unwanted, mischievous child who learned to love movies and books as an escape from sadness and confusion: as a boy, Francois came to identify with screen characters and to worship actresses. Following his early adult years as a journalist, during which he gained fame as France's most iconoclastic film critic, the obsessive prodigy began to make films of his own, and before he was thirty, notched the two masterpieces The 400 Blows and Jules and Jim. As Truffaut's dazzling body of work evolves, in the shadow of the politics of his day, including the student uprisings of 1968, we watch him learning the lessons of his masters Fellini and Hitchcock. And we witness the progress of his often tempestuous personal relationships, including his violent falling-out with Jean-Luc Godard (who owed Truffaut the idea for Breathless) and his rapturous love affairs with the many glamorous actresses he directed, among them Jacqueline Bisset and Jeanne Moreau. With Fanny Ardant, Truffaut had a child only thirteen months before dying of a brain tumor at the age of fifty-two. Here is a life of astonishing emotional range, from the anguish of severe depression to the exaltation of Oscar victory. Based on unprecedented access to Truffaut's papers, including notes toward an unwritten autobiography, de Baecque and Toubiana's richly detailed work is an incomparably authoritative revelation of a singular genius.

A fresh, concise but wide-ranging introduction to and overview of British and Irish cinema, this volume contains 24 essays, each on a separate seminal film from the region. Films under discussion include 'Pink String and Sealing Wax', 'Room at the Top', 'The Italian Job', 'Orlando', and 'Sweet Sixteen'.

Both brawls and elaborate martial arts have kept movie audiences on the edges of their seats since cinema began. But the filming of fight scenes has changed significantly through the years--mainly for the safety of the combatants--from improvised scuffles in the Silent Era to exquisitely choreographed and edited sequences involving actors, stuntmen and technical experts. Camera angles prevented many a broken nose. Examining more than 300 films--from The Spoilers (1914) to Road House (1989)--the author provides behind-the-scenes details on memorable melees starring such iconic tough-guys as John Wayne, Randolph Scott, Robert Mitchum, Lee Marvin, Charles Bronson, Clint Eastwood, Bruce Lee, Chuck Norris and Jackie Chan.

Over half a century on, the 1960s continue to generate strong intellectual and emotional responses - both positive and negative - and this is no less true in the arena of film. Making substantial use of new and underexplored archive resources that provide a wealth of information and insight on the period in question, this book offers a fresh perspective on the major resurgence of creativity and international appeal experienced by British cinema in that dramatic decade. Transformation and Tradition in 1960s British Cinema is the first scholarly volume on this period of British cinema for more than twenty-five years. It provides a major reconsideration of the period by focusing on the central tensions and contradiction between novelty/revolution and continuity/tradition during what remains a highly contentious period of cultural production and consumption.

The new edition of The British Cinema Book has been thoroughly revised and updated to provide a comprehensive introduction to the major periods, genres, studios, film-makers and debates in British cinema from the 1890s to the present. The book has five sections, addressing debates and controversies; industry, genre and representation; British cinema 1895-1939; British cinema from World War II to the 1970s, and contemporary British cinema. Within these sections, leading scholars and critics address a wide range of issues and topics, including British cinema as a 'national' cinema; its complex relationship with Hollywood; film censorship; key British genres such as horror, comedy and costume film; the work of directors including Alfred Hitchcock, Anthony Asquith, Alexander Mackendrick, Michael Powell, Lindsay Anderson, Ken Russell and Mike Leigh; studios such as Gainsborough, Ealing, Rank and Gaumont, and recent signs of hope for the British film industry, such as the rebirth of the low-budget British horror picture, and the emergence of a British Asian cinema. Discussions are illustrated with case studies of key films, many of which are new to this edition, including Piccadilly (1929) It Always Rains on Sunday (1947), The Ladykillers (1955), This Sporting Life (1963), The Devils (1971), Withnail and I (1986), Bend it Like Beckham (2002) and Control (2007), and with over 100 images from the BFI's collection. The Editor: Robert Murphy is Professor in Film Studies at De Montfort University and has written and edited a number of books on British cinema, including British Cinema and the Second World War (2000) and Directors in British and Irish Cinema (2006). The contributors: Ian Aitken, Charles Barr, Geoff Brown, William Brown, Stella Bruzzi, Jon Burrows, James Chapman, Steve Chibnall, Pamela Church Gibson, Ian Conrich, Richard Dacre, Raymond Durgnat, Allen Eyles, Christine Geraghty, Christine Gledhill, Kevin Gough-Yates, Sheldon Hall, Benjamin Halligan, Sue Harper, Erik Hedling, Andrew Hill, John Hill, Peter Hutchings, Nick James, Marcia Landy, Barbara Korte, Alan Lovell, Brian McFarlane, Martin McLoone, Andrew Moor, Robert Murphy, Lawrence Napper, Michael O'Pray, Jim Pines, Vincent Porter, Tim Pulleine, Jeffrey Richards, James C. Robertson, Tom Ryall, Justin Smith, Andrew Spicer, Claudia Sternberg, Sarah Street, Melanie Williams and Linda Wood.