Ripping England! : postwar British satire from Ealing to the Goons / Roger Rawlings.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Rawlings, Roger, 1963- author.

Series:

SUNY series, horizons of cinema

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Ealing Studios--History--20th century.

Ealing Studios.

Comedy films--Great Britain--History--20th century.

Comedy films.

Comedy films--United States--History--20th century.

History.

Great Britain.

United States.

Genre:

History.

Physical Description:

x, 275 pages ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Albany, NY : State University of New York Press, [2017]

Summary:

Ripping England! investigates a fertile moment for British satire-the period between 1947 and 1953, which produced the films Passport to Pimlico, Kind Hearts and Coronets, and The Lavender Hill Mob, as well as the seminal radio program The Goon Show. Against the postwar background of fading empire, universal rationing, and the implementation of a welfare state, these satires laid the foundation for a new British cultural identity later fleshed cut by the Angry Young Men, the Movement poets, the Social Realists, and those involved in the satire boom of the 196Gs, which lives on even to this day. The peculiarity of these satires and the British identity they shaped is better understood when seen in relief against postwar cinematic cultures of Italy, France, and the United States. Roger Rawlings places postwar British film in the context of contemporaneous European national film movements and contrasts it with Hollywood's comedies and satires of the same period, British satires of the late forties and early fifties held up a mirror to a nation that was in the throes of change, moving from a colonial empire to an inward-turning island culture. Ripping England! looks at the all too often neglected miracle of postwar British cinema and popular culture. Book jacket.

Contents:

Introduction

A nation turns inward : the setting of economic and artistic postwar Britain

"Fog in channel, continent cut off": postwar British filmmakers look inward

The great bloodless revolution: the Ealing satires (to 1949)

The Ealing satires' annus mirabilus

Ealing at a turning point (1949 and after)

The special relationship: American satires of the 1940s

Postwar Britain faces its subconscious: Spike Milligan and the goons

The post-1950s satire boom: satire explodes into late 20th century

British popular culture

Epilogue: satire in postwar British and American popular culture.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Other Format:

Online version: Rawlings, Roger, 1963- Ripping England!

ISBN:

9781438467337

1438467338

OCLC:

982373376