British Cinema and the Middlebrow Culture in the Interwar Years

Through a fresh analysis of the relationship between the British film industry and such culture industries as radio, music recording, publishing, and early television, Lawrence Napper reevaluates the history of British cinema and culture between 1928 and 1939. Reappraising what has previously been considered a weak era in British filmmaking, Napper argues that the interwar period and its aesthetic were part of a specific strategy aimed at the rapidly expanding British lower middle class in order to differentiate this new generation of British film from movies produced by Hollywood.