ABSTRACT
The development of the studios ran parallel with the growth of the cinemas. They fill in the story of expansion from the 1900s to the 1930s, by which time a dozen or more production centres from Elstree to Beaconsfield supplied films to hundreds of Odeons and Gaumonts and three or four thousand independent cinemas. Sound compelled a radical reconstruction of every important studio at immense cost and a revolution in filmcraft whose consequences could not be seen. Only the well-established companies could meet the expense, and they were few. British International became Associated British in 1931 and under the generic title of Elstree produced over 200 full-length features up to the year 1939. The personal factor is both the virtue and the vice of Denham studios which Alexander Korda set up in 1936. It was part of the glittering image of London Film Productions.
