ABSTRACT
The discussion of national cinemas is very often parochial and insular – and the discussion of British cinema is no exception. British cinema is more than the sum of the films produced in Britain. Audiences at home, for instance, have for several decades watched American films as much as, if not more than British films. But British films have also had a life abroad. The circulation of films in export markets is a neglected aspect of Cinema Studies that has only recently begun to attract the attention of scholars. My purpose in this chapter is to begin a preliminary mapping of the role of British films in Continental Europe in the postwar years. My interest is in ascertaining which films did well at European box offices, whether the same films performed equally well in different countries, and how we might account for the various successes and failures. A full analysis along these lines would require detailed attention to matters of taste and audience preferences, matters that are very difficult to research. For the purposes of this chapter, I have relied upon the available statistics for cinema audiences, as well as press reviews and commentary. The latter, of course, can tell us something about taste, but it should be remembered that published reviews do not necessarily reflect spectators’ opinions.
