'Philippe, University of Antwerp' writes: >I'm looking for films & references on unions and labour movements. Any >suggestions? Industrial relations in Britain have provided inspiration for many film-makers and organisations over many decades, principally between the end of World War II and the mid-1960s. Following the General Strike of 1926 an unofficial but official relationship between the British Board of Film Censors and the Home Office conspired to expunge any reference to indigenous industrial disputes - though interestingly, Hollywood films depicting strikes were allowed to be shown without restriction, as the authorities believed that cinemagoers saw the United States as a 'foreign' political culture. This phenomenon is covered in Jeffrey Richards, 'The Age of the Dream Palace: Cinema and Society in 1930s Britain' (London, 1984). The earliest British feature film I know of which explicitly deals with labour disputes is 'Love on the Dole' (UK 1941, dir. John Baxter). There were some mainstream films from the 1930s which did deal with the effects of the depression (e.g. the Gracie Fields musicals), but references to unions and industrial disputes are notably absent. In addition, fringe groups such as Grierson's lot and the Co-operative Movement produced a variety of non-fiction shorts which did promote the role of trade unions, but the audiences for these were all political activists anyway. In other words, these films preached purely to the converted and in terms of popular culture, they were not significant (during the 1930s). The post-war period saw a quite rapid relaxation of political censorship. Probably the best-known feature film from the immediate aftermath of WWII is 'The Man in the White Suit' (1950, dir. Alexander Mackendrick), in which unions and management conspire to block technological progress on the grounds that both would financially suffer in the short term (reading Correlli Barnett, 'The Lost Victory: British Dreams, British Realities, 1945-50', London, 1995, will explain the political and economic context for this film very effectively). 'Chance of a Lifetime' (1950, dir. Bernard Miles) also deals with industrial relations, and is of interest mainly because the big UK cinema chains refused to show it and were forced to do so by the Labour government under recently introduced legislation. In the subsequent decade, 'I'm Alright, Jack' (1959, dir. John Boulting), starring Peter Sellers as the archetypal bolshy union baron, is also considered a classic dramatisation of how poor industrial relations hampered Britain's economic recovery in the1950s and '60s (classic line: 'All you ever talk about is your union. It's union this; union that; and if it ain't your union, it's the bleedin' Soviet Union!'). The treatment of unions and industrial relations in UK non-fiction film (e.g. national newsreels, industrial training and promotional films, privately produced political propaganda films) is a whole separate area - I presume your request was referring principally to fiction. Leo Dr. Leo Enticknap School of Arts and Media/Northern Region Film & Television Archive University of Teesside Middlesbrough TS1 3BA United Kingdom Tel. +44-(0)1642 384049 Fax +44-(0)8712 249151 ---- For past messages, visit the Screen-L Archives: http://bama.ua.edu/archives/screen-l.html