ABSTRACT
The British film industry, like its other once world-leading European counterparts, emerged from the Great War into a very different set of economic and cultural conditions. Hollywood had risen to dominance, Chaplin was the most famous person in the world and the emerging American Studio System had created an indomitable global industry producing popular entertainment and stars. The depleted European industries simply could not compete. Audiences had developed a taste for American production values, genres and stars and were now loyal to Hollywood. Once world-leading and pioneering British director-producers like Cecil Hepworth and George Pearson, so significant in creating the early British film industry, found it hard to survive in this new era, with their low-key, domestic production outfits.
