ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the location production of the early Hollywood film A Daughter of the Gods (1916) in British colonial Jamaica using historical newspapers and magazines as sources and demonstrates the close ties between film, tourism and empire on the island in the early twentieth century. In so doing, the chapter reflects a twofold comparative perspective: between different histories and between different countries. Despite the rise of postcolonial cinema historiography, the early cinema histories of the Caribbean have remained largely unexposed. More specifically, Jamaica’s early film history has hardly been dealt with, particularly in relation to the island’s tourism and colonial histories. At the same time, the early relationship between Hollywood and the British Caribbean has not often been explored. All in all, this chapter seeks to contribute to the discussion of the connections between film, tourism and empire, and between Hollywood, the British Empire and Jamaica by revealing the colonialist film tourism practices and discourses of A Daughter of the Gods, one of the most important American moving pictures of the silent era and one of the most significant global imperial tourist films of the early twentieth century.
