Britain's First TV/ Film Crime Series and the Industrialisation of Its Film Industry, 1946-1964

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Year:
Pages:328
ISBN:0-7734-4763-6
978-0-7734-4763-9
Price:$219.95 + shipping
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The first study to date devoted to the genesis of domestic TV/Film production, this project presents for the first time an industrial and cultural history of the transformation of the lower reaches of Britain’s film industry during the period 1946-1964.

Reviews

“Mann’s textual and contextual archaeology also unearths other now buried or half-remembered traditions, including the exhumation and rehabilitation of Harry Lime in the BBC/Twentieth Century-Fox co-produced series The Third Man (1959-65), starring the debonair Michael Rennie. This was still the era of the debonair Englishman – the Danziger’s Mark Saber (1955-57) starring the one-armed Donald Gray or Robert Baker and Monty Berman’s The Saint (1962-69) with Roger Moore – able to rise to any challenge around the globe; Mann documents the key transition from domestic settings to international ones during this period.” – Prof. Andrew Spicer, University of the West of England

“[Mann’s] careful excavation of the (very different) contributions of Hannah Weinstein, a left-wing American exile who employed blacklisted Hollywood writers on her long-running television series Colonel March of Scotland Yard and The Four Just Men, and the Danziger brothers, who instituted cost-cutting American business practices to churn out low-budget films and television series, is exemplary. Most British film historians would know of the existence of these intriguing figures but like me would have concluded that they were destined to remain forever in the shadows.” – Prof. Robert Murphy, De Montfort University

“. . . [a] work of great originality which makes a substantial contribution to scholarship.” – Prof. Sue Harper, University of the West of England

Table of Contents

Foreword by Andrew Spicer
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Part 1: Overview
The transition from crime films to television series: a brief history
From Tempean and Kenilworth to New World: Robert S. Baker and Monty Berman
Murder ballads from Merton Park: dual purpose films
Part 2: American Arrivistes
Hannah Weinstein, HUAC and Colonel March of Scotland Yard
In whispers: the Danziger brothers and the industrialization of the crime narrative
Part 3: Cultural accommodations – domestic and foreign
The partisans of Park Lane: Ghost Squad
Sin no more: the resurrection, reformation and rehabilitation of The Third Man’s Harry Lime
Conclusion
Appendices
Bibliography
Index

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