ABSTRACT
British cinema drew on a range of styles and traditions, particularly the London West End theatre and music hall.1 The West End provided the first film actors and scripts, and music halls were the earliest public arenas for cinema exhibition, as well as bequeathing a stock of variety comedy acts. Ambivalent in their response to the new medium, with its ability to reach millions and its relative permanence, both theatre and music hall were anxious to forge a symbiotic relationship with cinema. But as the above quotation shows, it was a relationship fraught with tension. This tension has been reflected in critical discourse about what constitutes a good British film: one which consciously displays its literary/theatrical origins, or one which transforms them into the cinematic. British cinema critics often exuded profound reverence for theatre as a medium capable of conferring cultural prestige on film, the immature ‘infant offshoot’. In nationalist terms, exploiting film’s theatrical origins was considered to be an essential element in fostering a British cinema which could be identified by its specific cultural heritage. On the other hand, links between British cinema and the London stage have been blamed for the alleged uncinematic quality of many British films, as Norman Marshall lamented in 1931:
This weakness of English directors for the pedestrian reproduction of stage plays on the screen is a symptom of their inability to realise that the film, even with the addition of sound, is essentially a visual art, and must express itself in movement.
