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This chapter investigates a struggle within the National Council’s Broadcasting and Film Commission as the agency became attuned to Hollywood’s new freedoms and industrial structure. Two conflicting outlooks existed. A group centered in the Hollywood office wanted to imitate the Catholic approach by consulting with film producers and then promoting these Protestant-themed films with churchgoers. Others allied with the main office in New York would not be content with protecting the Protestant image in the media and rejected anything that smacked of censorial design. They advanced initiatives to address the industry’s new freedoms, challenges, and responsibilities, with the central issue being how to support free speech and still advocate appropriate restraints on film content. This state of affairs shaped the agenda for the Council’s next major initiative.

This chapter examines the technologies and the changing “limits of the possible” under which film musicians, recording engineers, music directors and film producers in Mumbai, India operated. It suggests that despite the limitations of technology there were instances when Mumbai musicians and engineers exceeded the technological limitations of their environment. In this way, technology has been the ground on which the professional and social structures of daily life were constructed and the primary determinant in a determinist history of this music culture.

This chapter has three sections. The first covers Greenwood’s life and writing from his birth in 1903 up until Jonathan Cape’s acceptance of his novel Love on the Dole in 1933 and his instant celebrity. The second covers his especially productive and famous years as a professional writer (and a film producer for Greenpark Ltd) between 1933 and 1944. The third section gives an account of the rest of his writing life and his continuing presence in the public eye from 1945 until his death in 1974. This includes discussion of his later work for theatre and his 1967 memoir of his life until the age of 33, There Was a Time, as well as the stage version, Hanky Park. The chapter is the fullest existing literary biographical account of Walter Greenwood, discussing many of his works which have not been discussed since the original reviews, and relating them to Love on the Dole.

This chapter provides an overview of Hammer Films. When Enrique Carreras and Will Hinds (stage name: Will Hammer) formed the distribution company Exclusive Films in 1935, they had no plans to become horror film producers. After a wartime hiatus, in 1947 they re-established their small independent production company Hammer Films, bringing their sons James Carreras and Anthony Hinds on board. In the immediate post-war period, it was inconceivable to consider a slate of horror films. In these early years, Hammer adapted renowned radio plays, mostly crime dramas, for the screen, tapping into pre-established markets. In 1951, Hammer moved into a large Gothic house in Bray, Berkshire, to save on production costs. With the introduction of the new X certificate, and the popularity of their science-fiction films, they soon turned to Gothic literature for inspiration.

Based on key players’ testimony and an extensive documented record, this chapter initially discusses the political background to the fraught merger talks between the BFI and the UKFC in 2009-2010, along with the uncertain role of the DCMS. It then turns to consider the shock decision to close the UKFC taken by Conservative ministers in the DCMS serving in the Coalition government elected in May 2010. Various possible reasons for closure are evaluated in considerable detail and the impact on the UKFC is described. The account analyses each of the steps taken by the DCMS to devise a new landscape of film support post-UKFC, with the BFI assuming many functions after extensive negotiation with ministers and civil servants. Next, the BFI’s new turn in film policy is considered. A range of views on the closure decision, both pro and con, is discussed.

This chapter describes the creators—or authors—of musical film, from directors to producers and choreographers. These include old-pro movie professionals like Michael Curtiz and those totally unsuited such as Cecil B. DeMille and producer David O. Selznick, and even the stage professional Joshua Logan. More successful stage newcomers include Rouben Mamoulian, Vincente Minnelli, Rob Marshall, and the daring choreographer Jack Cole. Producers Arthur Freed and (especially) Joe Pasternak made a specialty of musicals, to greater and lesser effect. The chapter ends by looking at the various audacities of Busby Berkeley and Baz Luhrmann (Moulin Rouge!), and creator/stars Gene Kelly (Invitation to the Dance) and John Cameron Mitchell (Hedwig and the Angry Inch).