To What Extent did the U.S Between 1930 and 1980 Increasingly Influence British Cinema Culture?

The British film industry began to take off in the 1920’s and as a result of advancing technology, family outings to the cinema became a favourite family activity.  However in America their film industry was already booming therefore it invested a lot of funds into British films.  Due to the films being funded by America many films adopted a partly American plot.  In 1927 the Cinematography Film Act was passed to say that 20% of the films shown in cinemas had to be produced by a British film company.  More British film companies emerged after this act was passed to ensure that they could meet the requirements.  Two companies in particular, British International Picture and Gaumont Picture Company emerged shortly afterwards to help provide the required number of British films.  As these British films had to be produced by a British film company, some of them were of low quality because they did not have funding from America.  British films therefore gained a reputation for being of low quality and generally poor.

However this changed leading up to and during the second World War when people increasingly went to the cinema to keep spirits high whilst everywhere else there was devastation.  The war became the golden age in British cinema despite cinemas being closed at first but reopening as a means of escape from life at the time.  The types of film that were shown ranged from comedies to thrillers such as Alfred Hitchcock’s The Thirty Nine Steps.  It was during this time that the government realised how much money could be made in the film industry and began to put more money towards making and producing films.  There were also a great deal of American films at this time but this was to change after the war. Britain put a tax on all American films to which America responding by not allowing their films to be shown in Britain.  This gave the British film industries a chance to flourish.  However, it did not have enough money or experience to expand.  As a consequence of this, the British film industry did not grow but managed only to gain itself a better reputation after producing films such as Great expectations in 1946.

During the fifties things began to pick up again for the British film industry as America began to invest in more and more films meaning that the storylines were partly American and partly British which appealed to both countries.  Films such as Bridge on the River Kwai are an example of this.  The fifties also saw the growth of television and as a result of it, family cinema trips were not  as common as they had been before.  More specific audiences emerged which the film industry now had to cater for also.  The beginning of the sixties saw the screening of the first in a long line of credible British films; the Bond films.  Although they received funding from America, these films were in no other way American and had a British theme.  These films were popular in America too which helped the reputation of the British film industry.  However by the time the seventies arrived there had been a decline in American funding meaning that Britain was forced to produce more low budget films.  Although this had happened this did not necessarily mean that the films became worse.  This was proved in the eighties when several British films did exceptionally well including the Oscar-winning Chariots of Fire in 1981.  It still remains today that British films become popular in America without being high maintenance and expensive to produce.  An example of this is The Full Monty.

The film industries of both Britain and America appeal to each other  because of the fact that they are very different but still both produce good films.  Britain as a whole likes American films because of the sheer scale and huge budgets and the heroism involved in them.  America likes British films because of the different sense of humour used in them and the fact that they deal with normal people and everyday life.  Both industries are good and appeal to each other for lots of different reasons.  Although America had a tremendous influence over the British film industry from the twenties until about the sixties, Britain still managed to develop it’s own style which makes the industries very contrasted and has made them more appealing to the American market.  It would be true to say that the USA had a big influence over the British film industry and still does today to some extent in that Americans who like British films will go to the cinema to watch them and therefore the industry gets more money to invest in other films.  Of course the USA is much larger than Britain therefore more people in America are going to see British films than in Britain itself meaning that the film yields more money.  Today American funding still exists but mainly due to how successful the British film is in America whereas before the funding was direct and therefore the influence of America was stronger.