The Limits of Americanisation?: Hollywood Cinema and British Popular Culture in the 1960s

Abstract

This thesis presents a sustained analysis of Hollywood cinema and how it was received in 1960s Britain. The thesis focuses on the success of American films at the British box office, the promotion of stars in the media and the broadcast of Hollywood movies on television. In doing so, my research demonstrates the continued success of Hollywood cinema in Britain during the 1960s, which was achieved through the use of popular genres as well as the importance of Hollywood stars in presenting constructions of gender and national identity. My research also emphasises the significance of television in presenting Hollywood cinema to British viewers, as well as highlighting television as a site of direct interaction between American and British popular culture. Consequently, this thesis complicates the image of the 1960s as a liberalising decade in British society and culture due to the sustained popularity of American cultural forms, alongside the limited success of British popular culture in addressing the challenges of contemporary society as a response to American influences. Chapter One examines the popularity of films and stars on a national scale, utilising the annual surveys of the most successful films in British cinemas, emphasising the centrality of popular stars and genres to the endurance of Hollywood cinema in Britain. Chapter Two focuses on the fan cultures surrounding individual stars - using Julie Andrews and Paul Newman as case studies - and how their images were created in the British media and presented to the national public. Utilising pressbooks, fan letters and interviews and promotional features in fan magazines and newspapers, I consider how cinemagoers contributed to the formation of star images, as well as analysing how Andrews and Newman's images projected different iterations of gender and national identity. Chapter Three moves away from the cinema to focus on British television, and how Hollywood films were promoted to and received by British audiences between 1964 and 1971. By utilising viewing figures as well as promotional features in the listings magazines Radio Times and TV Times, the chapter demonstrates the centrality of scheduling and the utilisation of popular cinematic genres to the development of film transmissions on television becoming popular amongst viewers. Finally, Chapter Four examines the impact of the 'New Hollywood' movement in Britain by analysing the reception of one of its most prominent films, Bonnie and Clyde (1967). The chapter analyses the presentation of the film and its two stars, Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway, in the British media. It demonstrates how the film became synonymous with violent crime and social decay that reflected British cultural anxieties over Americanisation. However, for younger British cinemagoers, the film served as a source of self-identification with its protagonists and for engaging with the historical past of 1930s America as a release from the constraints of 1960s British society.

Date of Award	20 Jul 2023
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	The University of Manchester
Supervisor	Frank Mort (Main Supervisor) & Max Jones (Co Supervisor)