Overview

Since broadcast television first emerged as a serious alternative to the cinema, more people have seen films on TV than by any other means. Feature films originally made for the big screen were initially withheld from TV by the film industry in the competition for audiences. Struggles between film and television interests settled into a truce in the mid-1960s, since when thousands of films have been shown on British terrestrial television each year. They assumed particular importance in the 1970s and 1980s, when cinema blockbusters became major TV events and themed seasons gave viewers access to many older movies. This book provides a comprehensive history and analysis of the ways in which cinema films have figured in TV programming in the UK and the role that British television has played in changing the consumption of film entertainment.

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9781399520133

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Reviews

"""Sheldon Hall's pioneering Armchair Cinema examines in forensic detail - with a wealth of fascinating archival material - the history of the often stressful relationship between broadcasters and the film industry, and of the changing status of film in television programming, in the process laying the foundations for a fertile new area of media studies. This is an important and absorbing book."" --Sir Christopher Frayling, Emeritus Professor of Cultural History Royal College of Art and Visiting Professor of Arts, University of Lancaster Often uneasy bedfellows, cinema and television have nonetheless always been in a relationship. InArmchair Cinema Sheldon Hall's meticulous archival research informs an illuminating history of where many films find their biggest audience - at home. This is the untold story of feature films on the small screen in Britain (1929-1981). --Justin Smith, Professor of Cinema and Television History, De Montfort University"

From scheduling to censorship, Hall covers plenty of ground, such as the first movie broadcast on British TV in 1937 - not The Student of Prague (1936), as often claimed, but western The Last of the Clintons (1935) - through to the start of the 1980s. I keenly anticipate the proposed second volume.--Pamela Hutchinson ""Sight & Sound, Editors' Choice: September 2024"" Hall packs his pages with so many compelling stories. Learn how the Carry On comedies doubled box office after broadcast, how sneaky U.S. distributors passed off Edgar Wallace and Sherlock Holmes flicks as TV shows to get around a limit, and why a UK exec was ""utterly revolted"" by 1933's King Kong. King Kong!--Rob Lott ""Flick Attack"" ""Sheldon Hall's pioneering Armchair Cinema examines in forensic detail - with a wealth of fascinating archival material - the history of the often stressful relationship between broadcasters and the film industry, and of the changing status of film in television programming, in the process laying the foundations for a fertile new area of media studies. This is an important and absorbing book."" --Sir Christopher Frayling, Emeritus Professor of Cultural History Royal College of Art and Visiting Professor of Arts, University of Lancaster Often uneasy bedfellows, cinema and television have nonetheless always been in a relationship. InArmchair Cinema Sheldon Hall's meticulous archival research informs an illuminating history of where many films find their biggest audience - at home. This is the untold story of feature films on the small screen in Britain (1929-1981). --Justin Smith, Professor of Cinema and Television History, De Montfort University

Author Information

Sheldon Hall is an independent scholar and freelance writer. Formerly Reader in Film and Television at Sheffield Hallam University, and before that a film journalist, he has contributed to numerous books and journals on British and American cinema. He is the author of Zulu: With Some Guts Behind It (2005/2014), co-author of Epics, Spectacles, and Blockbusters: A Hollywood History (2010), and co-editor of Widescreen Worldwide (2010) and Film Critics and British Film Culture (2024).

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