List of Figures

List of Tables

INTRODUCTION
Rediscovering British and Colonial

PART I: BRITISH AND COLONIAL-A COMPANY HISTORY, 1908-1918

The Bloomfield Years: Period One at B&C, 1908-1912

McDowell in Charge: Period Two at B&C, 1913-1918

PART II: PLANT, STUDIOS AND THE PRODUCTION PROCESS

Making Films at East Finchley and on Location, 1911-1914

The Endell Street Plant and the Walthamstow Studio, 1913-1917

PART III: PERSONALITIES AND THEIR BIOGRAPHIES

On Screen: Performers and Picture-Personalities

Behind the Screen: Policy-Makers, Directors and Writers

PART IV: THE B&C FILM

Comics, Dramas and Series Films: The B&C Film in Period One

Spectacle, Sensation and Narrative: The B&C Film in Period Two

PART V: DISTRIBUTION, PROMOTION AND PUBLICITY

From the Open Market to the Exclusives System

Promoting B&C and its Films

CONCLUSION

Godal, Aspiration and Bankruptcy: Period Three at B&C, 1918-1924

Notes

Bibliography 

Index

This book sheds new light on the under-researched period of early British cinema through an in-depth history of the British and Colonial Kinematograph Company-also known as 'B&C'-in the years 1908-1916, the period when it became one of Britain's leading film producers. It provides an account of its films and personalities, and explores its production methods, business practices and policy changes.

Gerry Turvey examines the range of short film genres B&C manufactured, including newsworthy topicals and comics, and series dramas, and how they often drew on the resources of urban Britain's existing popular culture-from cheap reading matter to East End melodramas. He discusses B&C's first open-air studio in East Finchley, its extensive use of location filming, and its large, state-of-the-art studio at Walthamstow. He also investigates how the films were photographed and 'staged', their developing formal properties, and how the choice of genres shifted radically over time in an attempt to seek new audiences.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.47788/SGOE1157

Gerry Turvey has been involved in film education since the 1960s, including a Principal Lectureship in Film Studies at Kingston University, and a long association with the Phoenix Cinema Trust in North London. He continues to research early film.