Armchair Cinema
A History of Feature Films on British Television, 1929-1981
Sight & Sound's Editors' Choice: September 2024
A history and analysis of how films have figured in TV programming in the UK and the role that British television services have played in changing the nature of film entertainment
- Comprehensive coverage spanning the history of TV broadcasting in the UK
- New research utilising extracts from rare archival sources never previously published
- Original angle on the complex historical relationships between the film and TV industries
- Fresh case studies of how particular films and genres have been presented on British TV
Since broadcast television first emerged as a serious alternative to the cinema, more people have seen films on TV than by any other means. Feature films originally made for the big screen were initially withheld from TV by the film industry in the competition for audiences. Struggles between film and television interests settled into a truce in the mid-1960s, since when thousands of films have been shown on British terrestrial television each year. They assumed particular importance in the 1970s and 1980s, when cinema blockbusters became major TV events and themed seasons gave viewers access to many older movies.
This book provides a comprehensive history and analysis of the ways in which cinema films have figured in TV programming in the UK and the role that British television has played in changing the consumption of film entertainment.
List of Illustrations
Introduction: Meet Mr Lucifer – Cinema, Television and Films on TV
Part One: Organisations and Acquisition
Chapter 1: The Magic Box – Television, Tele-Cinema and Tele-Talkies (1929-39)
Chapter 2: The Smallest Show on Earth – Cinema versus Television (1945-52)
Chapter 3: Network – The BBC at Bay, ITV Begins (1952-58)
Chapter 4: The Empire Strikes Back – The FIDO Saga (1958-64)
Chapter 5: The Great Escape – Emptying the Vaults (1964-73)
Chapter 6: The Sound of Wind – Blockbusters on the Box (1973-81)
Part Two: Programming and Regulation
Chapter 7: Saturday Night and Sunday Afternoon – Scheduling Films on Television
Chapter 8: The Home and the World – Foreign-Language Films on Television
Chapter 9: The Rules of the Game – Regulating Films on Television
Chapter 10: Appointments with Fear – Horror Films on Television
Chapter 11: Abridged Too Far – Editing and Censorship of Films for Television
Chapter 12: Witnesses for the Prosecution – Report on Reports
Epilogue: Things to Come – Into the Eighties
Appendix 1: BBC Film Statistics
Appendix 2: ITV Film Statistics
Appendix 3: FIDO Filmography
Appendix 4: List of Abbreviations
Appendix 5: List of Personnel
Bibliography
Filmography
General Index
Often uneasy bedfellows, cinema and television have nonetheless always been in a relationship. In Armchair Cinema, Sheldon Hall’s meticulous archival research informs an illuminating history of where many films find their biggest audience – at home. This is the untold story of feature films on the small screen in Britain (1929-1981).
"Sheldon Hall's pioneering Armchair Cinema examines in forensic detail - with a wealth of fascinating archival material - the history of the often stressful relationship between broadcasters and the film industry, and of the changing status of film in television programming, in the process laying the foundations for a fertile new area of media studies. This is an important and absorbing book."
Hall packs his pages with so many compelling stories. Learn how the Carry On comedies doubled box office after broadcast, how sneaky U.S. distributors passed off Edgar Wallace and Sherlock Holmes flicks as TV shows to get around a limit, and why a UK exec was “utterly revolted” by 1933’s King Kong. King Kong!
From scheduling to censorship, Hall covers plenty of ground, such as the first movie broadcast on British TV in 1937 – not The Student of Prague (1936), as often claimed, but western The Last of the Clintons (1935) – through to the start of the 1980s. I keenly anticipate the proposed second volume.
Rigorously researched and illustrated with schedules and magazine-cover arts, it's a compelling vision of days of TV past.
There will be nostalgia here for those who grew up on late-night horror screenings in the 1970s or the black-and-white films that filled many a rainy weekend afternoon. It is an authoritative and impressive piece of research, presented with a dry wit, and comes highly recommended.
Entirely accessible with wry wit and occasional clearly-unresisted puns. (The chapter on editing films for television is called "Abridged Too Far".) If you have any interest in the subject, it's essential reading.
Armchair Cinema is full of gems, and demands a sequel covering the glory years of Channel 4 - and the retreat into English-language cinema during the 1990s.
Armchair Cinema is an expansive, detailed, richly illustrated and annotated (making full use of appended data) exploration of the connection between cinema, film and television, which will be of interest to many media scholars and social historians alike.
Armchair Cinema is an important – indeed, one might say monumental – work of scholarship that will command major intellectual currency in both British film and television studies [...] This book will be of significant interest to armchair cinephiles as well as teachers, researchers and students. A ‘sequel’ taking up the history from the arrival of Channel 4 in 1982 is promised and will be eagerly awaited.
