British Films

British cinema has significantly influenced the global film industry since the 19th century.

The oldest known surviving film in the world, ''Roundhay Garden Scene'' (1888), was shot in England by French inventor Louis Le Prince. Early colour films were also pioneered in the UK. Film production reached an all-time high in 1936, but the "golden age" of British cinema is usually thought to have occurred in the 1940s, which saw the release of the most critically acclaimed works by filmmakers such as David Lean, Michael Powell, and Carol Reed.

Many British actors have accrued critical success and worldwide recognition, including Patrick Stewart, Julie Andrews, Michael Caine, Joan Collins, Sean Connery, Benedict Cumberbatch, Daniel Craig, Daniel Day-Lewis, Judi Dench, Olivia de Havilland, Audrey Hepburn, Anthony Hopkins, Glynis Johns, Vivien Leigh, Ian Mckellen, Peter O'Toole, Gary Oldman, Laurence Olivier, John Gielgud, Maggie Smith, Joan Plowright, Emma Thompson, and Kate Winslet. Some of the films with the largest ever box office profits have been made in the United Kingdom, including ''Harry Potter'' and ''James Bond'', the fourth and fifth highest-grossing film franchises of all time.

The identity of British cinema, particularly in relation to the cinema of the United States, has been the subject of debate. Its history has often been affected by its attempts to compete with the United States; the career of producer Alexander Korda was marked by this objective, which the Rank Organisation also attempted to do in the 1940s, as well as Goldcrest in the 1980s. British filmmakers such as Alfred Hitchcock, Christopher Nolan, and Ridley Scott achieved success primarily through their work in the United States, as did British performers such as Charlie Chaplin and Cary Grant.

In 2009, British films grossed around $2 billion worldwide and achieved a market share of around 7% globally and 17% in the United Kingdom. UK box office earnings totalled £1.1 billion in 2012, with 172.5 million admissions. The British Film Institute has produced a poll ranking what it considers to be the 100 greatest British films of all time. The annual BAFTA Awards hosted by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts are considered to be the British equivalent of the Academy Awards.

History

Origins and silent films

The world's first moving picture was shot in Leeds by Louis Le Prince in 1888 and the first moving pictures developed on celluloid film were made in Hyde Park, London in 1889 by British inventor William Friese Greene, who patented the process in 1890.

The first people to build and run a working 35 mm camera in Britain were Robert W. Paul and Birt Acres. They made the first British film '' Incident at Clovelly Cottage'' in February 1895, shortly before falling out over the camera's patent. Soon several British film companies had opened to meet the demand for new films, such as Mitchell and Kenyon in Blackburn. The Lumière brothers first brought their show to London in 1896. In 1898, American producer Charles Urban expanded the London-based Warwick Trading Company to produce British films, mostly documentary and news.

Although the earliest British films were of everyday events, the early 20th century saw the appearance of narrative shorts, mainly comedies and melodramas. The early films were often melodramatic in tone, and there was a distinct preference for story lines already known to the audience, in particular, adaptations of Shakespeare plays and Dickens novels.

In 1898, Gaumont-British Picture Corp. was founded as a subsidiary of the French Gaumont Film Company, constructing Lime Grove Studios in West London in 1915 in the first building built in Britain solely for film production. Also in 1898, Hepworth Studios was founded in Lambeth, South London by Cecil Hepworth, the Bamforths began producing films in Yorkshire, and William Haggar began producing films in Wales.

Directed by Walter R. Booth in 1901, ''Scrooge, or, Marley's Ghost'' is the earliest film adaptation of Charles Dickens's festive novella ''A Christmas Carol''. Booth's '' The Hand of the Artist'' (1906) has been described as the first British animated film.

In 1902, Ealing Studios was founded by Will Barker. It has become the oldest continuously operating film studio in the world.

In 1902, the earliest colour film in the world was made; capturing everyday events. In 2012, it was found by the National Science and Media Museum in Bradford after lying forgotten in an old tin for 110 years. The previous title for earliest colour film, using Urban's inferior Kinemacolor process, was thought to date from 1909. The re-discovered films were made by pioneer Edward Raymond Turner from London who patented his process on 22 March 1899.

In 1909, Urban formed the Natural Color Kinematograph Company, which produced early colour films using his patented Kinemacolor process. This was later challenged in court by Greene, causing the company to go out of business in 1914.

In 1903, Cecil Hepworth and Percy Stow directed ''Alice in Wonderland'', the first film adaptation of Lewis Carroll's children's book ''Alice's Adventures in Wonderland''. Also in 1903, Frank Mottershaw of Sheffield produced the film '' A Daring Daylight Robbery'', which launched the chase genre.

In 1911, the Ideal Film Company was founded in Soho, London, distributing almost 400 films by 1934, and producing 80.

In 1913, stage director Maurice Elvey began directing British films, becoming Britain's most prolific film director, with almost 200 by 1957.

In 1914, Elstree Studios was founded, and acquired in 1928 by German-born Ludwig Blattner, who invented a magnetic steel tape recording system that was adopted by the BBC in 1930.

In 1915, the Kinematograph Renters’ Society of Great Britain and Ireland was formed to represent the film distribution companies. It is the oldest film trade body in the world. It was known as the Society of Film Distributors until it changed its name again to the Film Distributors’ Association (FDA).

In 1920, Gaumont opened Islington Studios, where Alfred Hitchcock got his start, selling out to Gainsborough Pictures in 1927. Also in 1920 Cricklewood Studios was founded by Sir Oswald Stoll, becoming Britain's largest film studio, known for Fu Manchu and Sherlock Holmes film series.

In 1920, the short-lived company Minerva Films was founded in London by the actor Leslie Howard (also producer and director) and his friend and story editor Adrian Brunel. Some of their early films include four written by A. A. Milne including '' The Bump'', starring C. Aubrey Smith; '' Twice Two''; '' Five Pound Reward''; and '' Bookworms''.

By the mid-1920s the British film industry was losing out to heavy competition from the United States, which was helped by its much larger home market – in 1914 25% of films shown in the UK were British, but by 1926 this had fallen to 5%. A slump in 1924 caused many British film studios to close, resulting in the passage of the Cinematograph Films Act 1927 to boost local production, requiring that cinemas show a certain percentage of British films. The act was technically a success, with audiences for British films becoming larger than the quota required, but it had the effect of creating a market for poor quality, low cost films, made to satisfy the quota. The "quota quickies", as they became known, are often blamed by historians for holding back the development of the industry. However, some British film makers, such as Michael Powell, learnt their craft making such films. The act was modified with the Cinematograph Films Act 1938 assisted the British film industry by specifying only films made by and shot in Great Britain would be included in the quota, an act that severely reduced Canadian and Australian film production.

The biggest star of the silent era, English comedian Charlie Chaplin, was Hollywood-based.

The early sound period

Scottish solicitor John Maxwell founded British International Pictures (BIP) in 1927. Based at the former British National Pictures Studios in Elstree, the facilities original owners, including producer-director Herbert Wilcox, had run into financial difficulties. One of the company's early films, Alfred Hitchcock's ''Blackmail'' (1929), is often regarded as the first British sound feature. It was a part-talkie with a synchronised score and sound effects. Earlier in 1929, the first all-talking British feature, '' The Clue of the New Pin'' was released. It was based on a novel by Edgar Wallace, starring Donald Calthrop, Benita Home and Fred Raines, which was made by British Lion at their Beaconsfield Studios. John Maxwell's BIP became the Associated British Picture Corporation (ABPC) in 1933. ABPC's studios in Elstree came to be known as the "porridge factory", according to Lou Alexander, "for reasons more likely to do with the quantity of films that the company turned out, than their quality". Elstree (strictly speaking almost all the studios were in neighbouring Borehamwood) became the centre of the British film industry, with six film complexes over the years all in close proximity to each other.

By 1927, the largest cinema chains in the United Kingdom consisted of around 20 cinemas but the following year Gaumont-British expanded significantly to become the largest, controlling 180 cinemas by 1928 and up to 300 by 1929. Maxwell formed ABC Cinemas in 1927 which became a subsidiary of BIP and went on to become one of the largest in the country, together with Odeon Cinemas, founded by Oscar Deutsch, who opened his first cinema in 1928. By 1937, these three chains controlled almost a quarter of all cinemas in the country. A booking by one of these chains was indispensable for the success of any British film.

With the advent of sound films, many foreign actors were in less demand, with English received pronunciation commonly used; for example, the voice of Czech actress Anny Ondra in ''Blackmail'' was substituted by an off-camera Joan Barry during Ondra's scenes.

Starting with John Grierson's '' Drifters'' (also 1929), the period saw the emergence of the school of realist Documentary Film Movement, from 1933 associated with the GPO Film Unit. It was Grierson who coined the term "documentary" to describe a non-fiction film, and he produced the movement's most celebrated early films, '' Night Mail'' (1936), written and directed by Basil Wright and Harry Watt, and incorporating the poem by W. H. Auden towards the end of the short.

Music halls also proved influential in comedy films of this period, and a number of popular personalities emerged, including George Formby, Gracie Fields, Jessie Matthews and Will Hay. These stars often made several films a year, and their productions remained important for morale purposes during World War II.

Many of the British films with larger budgets during the 1930s were produced by London Films, founded by Hungarian ''emigre'' Alexander Korda. The success of '' The Private Life of Henry VIII'' (1933), made at British and Dominions Elstree Studios, persuaded United Artists and The Prudential to invest in Korda's Denham Film Studios, which opened in May 1936, but both investors suffered losses as a result. Korda's films before the war included '' Things to Come'', ''Rembrandt'' (both 1936) and '' Knight Without Armour'' (1937), as well as the early Technicolour films '' The Drum'' (1938) and '' The Four Feathers'' (1939). These had followed closely on from '' Wings of the Morning'' (1937), the UK's first three-strip Technicolour feature film, made by the local offshoot of 20th Century Fox. Although some of Korda's films indulged in "unrelenting pro-Empire flag waving", those featuring Sabu turned him into "a huge international star"; "for many years" he had the highest profile of any actor of Indian origin. Paul Robeson was also cast in leading roles when "there were hardly any opportunities" for African Americans "to play challenging roles" in their own country's productions.

In 1933, the British Film Institute was established as the lead organisation for film in the UK. They set up the National Film Library in 1935 (now known as the BFI National Archive), with Ernest Lindgren as its curator.

In 1934, J. Arthur Rank became a co-founder of British National Films Company and they helped create Pinewood Studios, which opened in 1936. Also in 1936, Rank took over General Film Distributors and in 1937, Rank founded The Rank Organisation. In 1938, General Film Distributors became affiliated with Odeon Cinemas.

Rising expenditure and over-optimistic expectations of expansion into the American market caused a financial crisis in 1937, after an all-time high of 192 films were released in 1936. Of the 640 British production companies registered between 1925 and 1936, only 20 were still active in 1937. Moreover, the 1927 Films Act was up for renewal. The replacement Cinematograph Films Act 1938 provided incentives, via a " quality test", for UK companies to make fewer films, but of higher quality, and to eliminate the "quota quickies". Influenced by world politics, it encouraged American investment and imports. One result was the creation of MGM-British, an English subsidiary of the largest American studio, which produced four films before the war, including '' Goodbye, Mr. Chips'' (1939).

The new venture was initially based at Denham Studios. Korda himself lost control of the facility in 1939 to the Rank Organisation. Circumstances forced Korda's '' The Thief of Bagdad'' (1940), a spectacular fantasy film, to be completed in California, where Korda continued his film career during the war.

By now contracted to Gaumont British, Alfred Hitchcock had settled on the thriller genre by the mid-1930s with '' The Man Who Knew Too Much'' (1934), '' The 39 Steps'' (1935) and ''The Lady Vanishes'' (1938). Lauded in Britain where he was dubbed "Alfred the Great" by '' Picturegoer'' magazine, Hitchcock's reputation was beginning to develop overseas, with a ''New York Times'' feature writer asserting; "Three unique and valuable institutions the British have that we in America have not. Magna Carta, the Tower Bridge and Alfred Hitchcock, the greatest director of screen melodramas in the world." Hitchcock was then signed up to a seven-year contract by Selznick and moved to Hollywood.

Second World War

Published in ''The Times'' on 5 September 1939, two days after Britain declared war on Germany, George Bernard Shaw’s letter protested against a government order to close all places of entertainment, including cinemas. ‘What agent of Chancellor Hitler is it who has suggested that we should all cower in darkness and terror “for the duration”?’. Within two weeks of the order cinemas in the provinces were reopened, followed by central London within a month. In 1940, cinema admissions figures rose, to just over 1 billion for the year, and they continued rising to over 1.5 billion in 1943, 1944 and 1945.

Humphrey Jennings began his career as a documentary film maker just before the war, in some cases working in collaboration with co-directors. '' London Can Take It'' (with Harry Wat, 1940) detailed the Blitz while '' Listen to Britain'' (with Stewart McAllister, 1942) looked at the home front. The Crown Film Unit, part of the Ministry of Information took over the responsibilities of the GPO Film Unit in 1940. Paul Rotha and Alberto Cavalcanti were colleagues of Jennings. British films began to make use of documentary techniques; Cavalcanti joined Ealing for '' Went the Day Well?'' (1942),

Many other films helped to shape the popular image of the nation at war. Among the best known of these films are '' In Which We Serve'' (1942), '' We Dive at Dawn'' (1943), '' Millions Like Us'' (1943) and '' The Way Ahead'' (1944). The war years also saw the emergence of The Archers partnership between director Michael Powell and the Hungarian-born writer-producer Emeric Pressburger with films such as ''The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp'' (1943) and '' A Canterbury Tale'' (1944).

Two Cities Films, an independent production company releasing their films through a Rank subsidiary, also made some important films, including the Noël Coward and David Lean collaborations '' This Happy Breed'' (1944) and '' Blithe Spirit'' (1945) as well as Laurence Olivier's '' Henry V'' (1944). By this time, Gainsborough Studios were releasing their series of critically derided but immensely popular period melodramas, including '' The Man in Grey'' (1943) and '' The Wicked Lady'' (1945). New stars, such as Margaret Lockwood and James Mason, emerged in the Gainsborough films.

Post-war cinema

Towards the end of the 1940s, the Rank Organisation became the dominant force behind British film-making, having acquired a number of British studios and the Gaumont chain (in 1941) to add to its Odeon Cinemas. Rank's serious financial crisis in 1949, a substantial loss and debt, resulted in the contraction of its film production. In practice, Rank maintained an industry duopoly with ABPC (later absorbed by EMI) for many years.

For the moment, the industry hit new heights of creativity in the immediate post-war years. Among the most significant films produced during this period were David Lean's ''Brief Encounter'' (1945) and his Dickens adaptations ''Great Expectations'' (1946) and ''Oliver Twist'' (1948), Ken Annakin's comedy '' Miranda'' (1948) starring Glynis Johns, Carol Reed's thrillers '' Odd Man Out'' (1947) and '' The Third Man'' (1949), and Powell and Pressburger's '' A Matter of Life and Death'' (1946), '' Black Narcissus'' (1947) and '' The Red Shoes'' (1948), the most commercially successful film of its year in the United States. Laurence Olivier's ''Hamlet'' (also 1948), was the first non-American film to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. Ealing Studios (financially backed by Rank) began to produce their most celebrated comedies, with three of the best remembered films, '' Whisky Galore'' (1948), ''Kind Hearts and Coronets'' and '' Passport to Pimlico'' (both 1949), being on release almost simultaneously. Their portmanteau horror film '' Dead of Night'' (1945) is also particularly highly regarded.

Under the Import Duties Act 1932, HM Treasury levied a 75% tariff on all film imports on 6 August 1947 which became known as Dalton Duty (after Hugh Dalton then the Chancellor of the Exchequer). The tax came into effect on 8 August, applying to all imported films, of which the overwhelming majority came from the United States; American film studio revenues from the UK had been in excess of US$68 million in 1946. The following day, 9 August, the Motion Picture Association of America announced that no further films would be supplied to British cinemas until further notice. The Dalton Duty was ended on 3 May 1948 with the American studios again exported films to the UK though the Marshall Plan prohibited US film companies from taking foreign exchange out of the nations their films played in.

Following the Cinematograph Film Production (Special Loans) Act 1949, the National Film Finance Corporation (NFFC) was established as a British film funding agency.

The Eady Levy, named after Sir Wilfred Eady was a tax on box office receipts in the United Kingdom in order to support the British Film industry. It was established in 1950 coming into effect in 1957. A direct governmental payment to British-based producers would have qualified as a subsidy under the terms of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, and would have led to objections from American film producers. An indirect levy did not qualify as a subsidy, and so was a suitable way of providing additional funding for the UK film industry whilst avoiding criticism from abroad.

In 1951, the National Film Theatre was initially opened in a temporary building at the Festival of Britain. It moved to its present location on the South Bank in London for the first London Film Festival on 16 October 1957 run by the BFI.

During the 1950s, the British industry began to concentrate on popular comedies and World War II dramas aimed more squarely at the domestic audience. The war films were often based on true stories and made in a similar low-key style to their wartime predecessors. They helped to make stars of actors like John Mills, Jack Hawkins and Kenneth More. Some of the most successful included '' The Cruel Sea'' (1953), '' The Dam Busters'' (1954), '' The Colditz Story'' (1955) and '' Reach for the Sky'' (1956).

The Rank Organisation produced some comedy successes, such as ''Genevieve'' (1953). The writer/director/producer team of twin brothers John and Roy Boulting also produced a series of successful satires on British life and institutions, beginning with '' Private's Progress'' (1956), and continuing with (among others) '' Brothers in Law'' (1957), '' Carlton-Browne of the F.O.'' (1958), and '' I'm All Right Jack'' (1959). Starring in '' School for Scoundrels'' (1960), the British Film Institute thought Terry-Thomas was "outstanding as a classic British bounder".

Popular comedy series included the "Doctor" series, beginning with ''Doctor in the House'' (1954). The series originally starred Dirk Bogarde, probably the British industry's most popular star of the 1950s, though later films had Michael Craig and Leslie Phillips in leading roles. The Carry On series began in 1958 with regular instalments appearing for the next twenty years. The Italian director-producer Mario Zampi also made a number of successful black comedies, including ''Laughter in Paradise'' (1951), '' The Naked Truth'' (1957) and '' Too Many Crooks'' (1958). Ealing Studios had continued its run of successful comedies, including ''The Lavender Hill Mob'' (1951) and '' The Ladykillers'' (1955), but the company ceased production in 1958, after the studios had already been bought by the BBC.

Less restrictive censorship towards the end of the 1950s encouraged film producer Hammer Films to embark on their series of commercially successful horror films. Beginning with adaptations of Nigel Kneale's BBC science fiction serials ''The Quatermass Experiment'' (1955) and '' Quatermass II'' (1957), Hammer quickly graduated to '' The Curse of Frankenstein'' (1957) and ''Dracula'' (1958), both deceptively lavish and the first gothic horror films in colour. The studio turned out numerous sequels and variants, with English actors Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee being the most regular leads. ''Peeping Tom'' (1960), a now highly regarded thriller, with horror elements, set in the contemporary period, was badly received by the critics at the time, and effectively finished the career of Michael Powell, its director.

Social realism

The British New Wave film makers attempted to produce social realist films (see also 'kitchen sink realism') attempted in commercial feature films released between around 1959 and 1963 to convey narratives about a wider spectrum of people in Britain than the country's earlier films had done. These individuals, principally Karel Reisz, Lindsay Anderson and Tony Richardson, were also involved in the short lived Oxford film journal ''Sequence'' and the " Free Cinema" documentary film movement. The 1956 statement of Free Cinema, the name was coined by Anderson, asserted: "No film can be too personal. The image speaks. Sounds amplifies and comments. Size is irrelevant. Perfection is not an aim. An attitude means a style. A style means an attitude." Anderson, in particular, was dismissive of the commercial film industry. Their documentary films included Anderson's '' Every Day Except Christmas'', among several sponsored by Ford of Britain, and Richardson's '' Momma Don't Allow''. Another member of this group, John Schlesinger, made documentaries for the BBC's ''Monitor'' arts series.

Together with future James Bond co-producer Harry Saltzman, dramatist John Osborne and Tony Richardson established the company Woodfall Films to produce their early feature films. These included adaptations of Richardson's stage productions of Osborne's '' Look Back in Anger'' (1959), with Richard Burton, and '' The Entertainer'' (1960) with Laurence Olivier, both from Osborne's own screenplays. Such films as Reisz's '' Saturday Night and Sunday Morning'' (also 1960), Richardson's '' A Taste of Honey'' (1961), Schlesinger's '' A Kind of Loving'' (1962) and ''Billy Liar'' (1963), and Anderson's ''This Sporting Life'' (1963) are often associated with a new openness about working-class life or previously taboo issues.

The team of Basil Dearden and Michael Relph, from an earlier generation, "probe into the social issues that now confronted social stability and the establishment of the promised peacetime consensus".Tim O'Sullivan
"Dearden, Basil (1911-1971)"
, BFI screenonline, citing the ''Reference Guide to British and Irish Film Directors''. '' Pool of London'' (1950). and ''Sapphire'' (1959) were early attempts to create narratives about racial tensions and an emerging multi-cultural Britain. Dearden and Relph's '' Victim'' (1961), was about the blackmail of homosexuals. Influenced by the Wolfenden report of four years earlier, which advocated the decriminalising of homosexual sexual activity, this was "the first British film to deal explicitly with homosexuality". Unlike the New Wave film makers though, critical responses to Dearden's and Relph's work have not generally been positive.

The 1960s

As the 1960s progressed, American studios returned to financially supporting British films, especially those that capitalised on the "swinging London" image propagated by ''Time'' magazine in 1966. Films like '' Darling'', '' The Knack ...and How to Get It'' (both 1965), '' Alfie'' and '' Georgy Girl'' (both 1966), all explored this phenomenon. '' Blowup'' (also 1966), and later '' Women in Love'' (1969), showed female and then male full-frontal nudity on screen in mainstream British films for the first time.

At the same time, film producers Harry Saltzman and Albert R. Broccoli combined sex with exotic locations, casual violence and self-referential humour in the phenomenally successful James Bond series with Sean Connery in the leading role. The first film '' Dr. No'' (1962) was a sleeper hit in the UK and the second, '' From Russia with Love'' (1963), a hit worldwide. By the time of the third film, '' Goldfinger'' (1964), the series had become a global phenomenon, reaching its commercial peak with '' Thunderball'' the following year. The series' success led to a spy film boom with many Bond imitations. Bond co-producer Saltzman also instigated a rival series of more realistic spy films based on the novels of Len Deighton. Michael Caine starred as bespectacled spy Harry Palmer in '' The Ipcress File'' (1965), and two sequels in the next few years. Other more downbeat espionage films were adapted from John le Carré novels, such as '' The Spy Who Came In from the Cold'' (1965) and '' The Deadly Affair'' (1966).

American directors were regularly working in London throughout the decade, but several became permanent residents in the UK. Blacklisted in America, Joseph Losey had a significant influence on British cinema in the 1960s, particularly with his collaborations with playwright Harold Pinter and leading man Dirk Bogarde, including '' The Servant'' (1963) and ''Accident'' (1967). Voluntary exiles Richard Lester and Stanley Kubrick were also active in the UK. Lester had major hits with The Beatles film '' A Hard Day's Night'' (1964) and '' The Knack ...and How to Get It'' (1965) and Kubrick with '' Dr. Strangelove'' (1963) and '' 2001: A Space Odyssey'' (1968). While Kubrick settled in Hertfordshire in the early 1960s and would remain in England for the rest of his career, these two films retained a strong American influence. Other films of this era involved prominent filmmakers from elsewhere in Europe, '' Repulsion'' (1965) and ''Blowup'' (1966) were the first English language films of the Polish director Roman Polanski and the Italian Michelangelo Antonioni respectively.

Historical films as diverse as '' Lawrence of Arabia'' (1962), '' Tom Jones'' (1963), and '' A Man for All Seasons'' (1966) benefited from the investment of American studios. Major films like '' Becket'' (1964), ''Khartoum'' (1966) and '' The Charge of the Light Brigade'' (1968) were regularly mounted, while smaller-scale films, including ''Accident'' (1967), were big critical successes. Four of the decade's Academy Award winners for best picture were British productions, including six Oscars for the film musical '' Oliver!'' (1968), based on the Charles Dickens novel ''Oliver Twist''.

After directing several contributions to the BBC's '' Wednesday Play'' anthology series, Ken Loach began his feature film career with the social realist ''Poor Cow'' (1967) and '' Kes'' (1969). Meanwhile, the controversy around Peter Watkins ''The War Game'' (1965), which won the Best Documentary Film Oscar in 1967, but had been suppressed by the BBC who had commissioned it, would ultimately lead Watkins to work exclusively outside Britain.

1970s

American studios cut back on British productions, and in many cases withdrew from financing them altogether. Films financed by American interests were still being made, including Billy Wilder's '' The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes'' (1970), but for a time funds became hard to come by.

More relaxed censorship also brought several controversial films, including Nicolas Roeg and Donald Cammell's ''Performance'', Ken Russell's '' The Devils'' (1971), Sam Peckinpah's '' Straw Dogs'' (1971), and Stanley Kubrick's '' A Clockwork Orange'' (1971) starring Malcolm McDowell as the leader of a gang of thugs in a dystopian future Britain.

Other films during the early 1970s included the Edwardian drama '' The Go-Between'' (1971), which won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival, Nicolas Roeg's Venice-set supernatural thriller '' Don't Look Now'' (1973) and Mike Hodges' gangster drama '' Get Carter'' (1971) starring Michael Caine. Alfred Hitchcock returned to Britain to shoot '' Frenzy'' (1972), Other productions such as Richard Attenborough's '' Young Winston'' (1972) and '' A Bridge Too Far'' (1977) met with mixed commercial success. The British horror film cycle associated with Hammer Film Productions, Amicus and Tigon

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