ABSTRACT
Strangely enough, despite the many difficulties of production in wartime, the number of companies during these four years whose operations were of sufficient consequence to be noted in the trade Press actually exceeded that of similar companies during the previous eight years. It is true that several of the most important of the older companies suspended production for one reason or another, but several large new companies appeared to take their places. The war was certainly a time of difficulty for producers, but it was apparently not a time of such depression as to discourage new ventures, and British films appeared during this period under at least eighty brands and trademarks. For a time, at least, there were high hopes and great activity, rather than stagnation and decay. For since film imports were expected to fall, the beginning of the war seemed to offer British producers a big opportunity to expand and improve production, and capture their own home market. This expansion— or at least the improvement—proved hard to achieve. The possibility of capturing the home market became more and more remote as American film production grew. It has been stressed that the idea of Britain leading the world in film production until 1914, and losing its supremacy only because of American strides while Britain was preoccupied with the war, is false. The American leadership was bound to come, if only for economic reasons. And there is ample evidence of social factors, too, assisting cinema development in the United States. It is true that 1914 to 1918 were the critical years in this development and Britain emerged from the war with its film market indisputably dominated by American films. But to say that something took place during the war is not to say that it took place because of the war. There is no evidence that this state of affairs was caused, or even materially hastened, by Britain's war effort. In general the key people in British production were not affected by mobilization. The greatest difficulty likely to be suffered by a luxury producing industry of this nature in time of war is a shortage of capital. But the shortage of capital for British film production, its fundamental weakness, dated from before the war. There is no reason whatever to suppose that, had there been no war, British production would have been able to withstand the irresistible growth of the American output.
