Picturing the Past: The Rise and Fall of the British Costume Film

by Sue Harper

This survey of British historical films of the 1930s and 1940s offers an account of the attitudes of official bodies, film-makers and audiences to the costume film. Archive records unearthed by Sue Harper reveal the extent to which government agencies and institutions attempted to influence the cinematic representation of history. This book goes on to contrast the work of a range of key producers and charts the vagaries of audience response.

Paperback

First published December 1, 1994

Reviews

[Ben Bergonzi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very informative, this book covers the period between 1933 and 1950 - from Korda's The Private Life of Henry VIII to Powell & Pressburger's The Elusive Pimpernel. In between are such highlights as Sixty Glorious Years, The Four Feathers, The Wicked Lady, Sarabande for Dead Lovers, and many more which are far less well-remembered. Harper provides an evaluation of the varying approaches and aims of three main producers - Alexander Korda, Michael Balcon and Herbert Wilcox as well comprehensively covering others. This is both a history and a rigorous book of film theory and the reader should have some awareness of the latter so as to get the most benefit. She also covers critical and audience views, as far as possible from the surviving literature. The films themselves are very well documented considering script and production design, rather less so as regards some of the other aspects, eg cinematography - I would be interested to know about how the rare Technicolor stock was allocated to films (I can understand its application to Sarabande for Dead Lovers, rather less so its use for Scott of the Antarctic.) Little new is said about the actors' roles in film production, other than such wry comments that Herbert Wilcox's uxorious approach to casting (Neagle in everything) was not always successful, and, uncharitably, that by the time she made The Cardboard Cavalier, Margaret Lockwood's decoletee was faded - this makes me want to see the film. Very well researched, the book would have benefited from more illustrations and possibly a fuller background of the social / economic and indeed war history against which the films were made. However no doubt the author was limited as to page length. The filmography of historical films released during the period is an excellent aide-memoire. Fortunately since this book was published, many of these old films have become accessible either through the ever-falling prices of DVDs, or through free release of 'whole videos' on the internet. A book I was glad to buy and read - recommended.