Re-Viewing British Cinema, 1900–1992 is a collection of essays on British cinema history and practice. It offers both the casual reader and the film scholar a different view of British filmmaking during the past century. Arranged in chronological order, the book explores those areas of British cinema that have not been fully examined in other works and also offers fresh interpretations of a number of classic films. From the work of Frederic Villiers, the pioneering British newsreel cameraman who at the turn of the century brought home images of battlefield carnage, to essays on the British “B” film and the long-forgotten “Independent Frame” method of film production, to new readings of classics such as The Red Shoes, Passport to Pimlico, and Peeping Tom, the authors offer a look behind the scenes of the British film industry and engage the reader in some of the most compelling interpretational and historical issues of recent film history and critical theory. In addition, the volume contains a number of interviews with such key directors as Stephen Frears, Terence Davies, Wendy Toye, and Lindsay Anderson and also pays particular attention to the work of early twentieth-century British feminist filmmakers whose films have often been ignored by conventional film theory and history. It also offers new material on the British “film noir,” the English horror film, and the pioneering gay director Brian Desmond Hurst. Taken as a whole, this book presents an entirely new series of viewpoints on British film practice, theory, and reception and affords a fresh and vibrant view of the British film medium.

The first substantial overview of the British film industry with emphasis on its genres, stars, and socioeconomic context, British National Cinema by Sarah Street is an important title in Routledge's new National Cinemas series. British National Cinema synthesizes years of scholarship on British film while incorporating the author' fresh perspective and research. Street divides the study of British cinema into four sections: the relation between the film industry and government; specific film genres; movie stars; and experimental cinema. In addition, this beautifully illustrated volume includes over thirty stills from every sphere of British cinema. British National Cinema will be of great interest to film students and theorists as well as the general reader interested in the fascinating scope of British film.

Seventies British Cinema provides a comprehensive re-evaluation of British film in the 1970s. The decade has long been written off in critical discussions as a 'doldrums' period in British cinema, perhaps because the industry, facing near economic collapse, turned to 'unacceptable' low culture genres such as sexploitation comedies or extreme horror. The contributors to this new collection argue that 1970s cinema is ripe for reappraisal: giving serious critical attention to populist genre films, they also consider the development of a British art cinema in the work of Derek Jarman and Peter Greenaway, and the beginnings of an independent sector fostered by the BFI Production Board and producers like Don Boyd. A host of highly individual directors managed to produce interesting and cinematically innovative work against the odds, from Nicolas Roeg to Ken Russell to Mike Hodges. As well as providing a historical and cinematic context for understanding Seventies cinema, the volume also features chapters addressing Hammer horror, the Carry On films, Bond films of the Roger Moore period, Jubilee and other films that responded to Punk rock; heritage cinema and case studies of key seventies films such as The Wicker Man and Straw Dogs. In all, the book provides the final missing piece in the rediscovery of British cinema's complex and protean history. Contributors: Ruth Barton, James Chapman, Ian Conrich, Wheeler Winston Dixon, Christophe Dupin, Steve Gerrard, Sheldon Hall I. Q. Hunter, James Leggott, Claire Monk, Paul Newland, Dan North, Robert Shail, Justin Smith and Sarah Street.

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.

British Cinema: Past and Present responds to the commercial and critical success of British film in the 1990s. Providing a historical perspective to the contemporary resurgence of British cinema, this unique anthology brings together leading international scholars to investigate the rich diversity of British film production, from the early sound period of the 1930s to the present day. The contributors address: * British Cinema Studies and the concept of national cinema * the distribution and reception of British films in the US and Europe * key genres, movements and cycles of British cinema in the 1940s, 50s and 60s * questions of authorship and agency, with case studies of individual studios, stars, producers and directors * trends in British cinema, from propaganda films of the Second World War to the New Wave and the 'Swinging London' films of the Sixties * the representation of marginalised communities in films such as Trainspotting and The Full Monty * the evolution of social realism from Saturday Night, Sunday Morning to Nil By Mouth * changing approaches to Northern Ireland and the Troubles in films like The Long Good Friday and Alan Clarke's Elephant * contemporary 'art' and 'quality' cinema, from heritage drama to the work of Peter Greenaway, Derek Jarman, Terence Davies and Patrick Keiller.

BRITISH TRASH CINEMA is the first overview of the wilder shores of British exploitation and cult paracinema from the 1950s onwards. From obscure horror, science fiction and sexploitation, to art-house camp, Hammer's prehistoric fantasies and the worst British films ever made, author I.Q. Hunter draws on rare archival material and new primary research to take us through the weird and wonderful world of British trash cinema. Beginning by outlining the definitions of trash films and their place in British film history, Hunter explores topics including: Hammer's overlooked fantasy films, the emergence of the sexploitation film in the 1950s and 60s, the sex industry in the 1970s, Ken Russell's high camp Gothic and erotic adaptations since the 1980s, gross-out comedies, revenge films, and contemporary straight-to-DVD horror and erotica.

Through close textual and contextual analysis of British films spanning a century, this book explores how pupils, teachers and secondary education in general have been represented on the British screen. The author addresses a number of topics including the nature of public (fee-paying) and state schooling; the values of special, single-sex and co-education; the role of male and female teachers; and the nature of childhood and adolescence itself. From the silents of Hitchcock to the sorcery of Harry Potter, British cinema’s continued explorations of school life highlights its importance in the nation’s everyday experience and imaginary landscape. Beyond this, the school film, varying in scope from low-budget exploitation to Hollywood-financed blockbusters, serves both as a prism through which one can trace major shifts in the British film industry and as a barometer of the social and cultural concerns of the cinema-going public. This applies especially for gender, race and, in all senses, class.

The Last Bohemian offers the first extended, critical evaluation of all of Brian Desmond Hurst’s films, reappraising the reputation of a director who was born in 1895 in Belfast and died in Belgravia, London, in 1986. Pettitt skillfully weaves together film analyses, biography, and cultural history with the aim of bringing greater attention to Hurst’s qualities as a director and exploring his significance within Irish film and British cinema history between the 1930s and the 1960s. The director of Dangerous Moonlight (1941), Theirs Is the Glory (1946), and his best-known Scrooge (1951) made most of his films for British studios but developed an exile’s attachment to Ireland. How in the early twenty-first century has Hurst’s career been reclaimed and recognized, and by whom? Why in 2012 was Hurst’s name given to one of the new Titanic Studios in Belfast? What were his qualities as a filmmaker? To whose national cinema history, if any, does Hurst belong? Richly illustrated with film stills and other visual material from public archives, The Last Bohemian addresses these questions and in doing so makes a significant contribution to British and Irish cinema studies.

Until now, there hasn't been one single-volume authoritative reference work on the history of women in film, highlighting nearly every woman filmmaker from the dawn of cinema including Alice Guy (France, 1896), Chantal Akerman (Belgium), Penny Marshall (U.S.), and Sally Potter (U.K.). Every effort has been made to include every kind of woman filmmaker: commercial and mainstream, avant-garde, and minority, and to give a complete cross-section of the work of these remarkable women. Scholars and students of film, popular culture, Women's Studies, and International Studies, as well as film buffs will learn much from this work. The Dictionary covers the careers of nearly 200 women filmmakers, giving vital statistics where available, listings of films directed by these women, and selected bibliographies for further reading. This is a one-volume, one-stop resource, a comprehensive, up-to-date guide that is absolutely essential for any course offering an overview or survey of women's cinema. It offers not only all available statistics, but critical evaluations of the filmmakers' work as well. In order to keep the length manageable, this volume focuses on women who direct fictional narrative films, with occasional forays into the area of the documentary and is limited to film production rather than video production.

British cinema has been around from the very birth of motion pictures, from black-and-white to color, from talkies to sound, and now 3D, it has been making a major contribution to world cinema. Many of its actors and directors have stayed at home but others ventured abroad, like Charlie Chaplin and Alfred Hitchcock. Today it is still going strong, the only real competition to Hollywood, turning out films which appeal not only to Brits, just think of Bridget Jones, while busily adding to franchises like James Bond and Harry Potter. So this Historical Dictionary of British Cinema has a lot of ground to cover. This it does with over 300 dictionary entries informing us about significant actors, producers and directors, outstanding films and serials, organizations and studios, different films genres from comedy to horror, and memorable films, among other things. Two appendixes provide lists of award-winners. Meanwhile, the chronology covers over a century of history. These parts provide the details, countless details, while the introduction offers the big story. And the extensive bibliography points toward other sources of information.