The United Kingdom has had a significant film industry for over a century. While film production reached an all-time high in 1936, the "golden age" of British cinema is usually thought to have occurred in the 1940s, during which the directors David Lean, Michael Powell, and Carol Reed produced their most critically acclaimed works. Many British actors have accrued critical success and worldwide recognition, such as Audrey Hepburn, Olivia de Havilland, Vivien Leigh, Glynis Johns, Maggie Smith, Laurence Olivier, Michael Caine, Sean Connery, Ian Mckellen, Joan Collins, Judi Dench, Julie Andrews, Daniel Day-Lewis, Gary Oldman, Emma Thompson, Anthony Hopkins and Kate Winslet. Some of the films with the largest ever box office returns have been made in the United Kingdom, including the fourth and fifth highest-grossing film franchises.
William Friese-Greene was a prolific English inventor and professional photographer. He was known as a pioneer in the field of motion pictures, having devised a series of cameras between 1888–1891 and shot moving pictures with them in London. He went on to patent an early two-colour filming process in 1905. Wealth came with inventions in printing, including phototypesetting and a method of printing without ink, and from a chain of photographic studios. However, Friese-Greene spent all his money on inventing, went bankrupt three times, was jailed once, and died in poverty.
The British Film Institute (BFI) is a film and television charitable organisation which promotes and preserves film-making and television in the United Kingdom. The BFI uses funds provided by the National Lottery to encourage film production, distribution, and education. It is sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, and partially funded under the British Film Institute Act 1949.
Theatre 625 is a British television drama anthology series, produced by the BBC and transmitted on BBC2 from 1964 to 1968. It was one of the first regular programmes in the line-up of the channel, and the title referred to its production and transmission being in the higher-definition 625-line format, which only BBC2 used at the time.
Daniel Gordon Raffan Cruickshank is a British art historian and BBC television presenter, with a special interest in the history of architecture.
"The Year of the Sex Olympics" is a 1968 television play made by the BBC and first broadcast on BBC2 as part of Theatre 625. It stars Leonard Rossiter, Tony Vogel, Suzanne Neve and Brian Cox, and was directed by Michael Elliott. The writer was Nigel Kneale, best known as the creator of Quatermass.
The Lost World of Mitchell & Kenyon is a BBC documentary series produced in conjunction with the British Film Institute. Three one-hour episodes were broadcast on BBC One in January 2005 and released on Region 2 DVD soon after. The episodes are titled as follows: 1. Life and Times 2. Sport and Pleasure 3. Saints and Sinners
Several portions of the long-running British science-fiction television programme Doctor Who are no longer held by the BBC. Between 1967 and 1978, the BBC routinely deleted archive programmes for various practical reasons—lack of space, scarcity of materials, and a lack of rebroadcast rights. As a result, 97 of 253 episodes from the programme's first six years are currently missing, primarily from Seasons 3, 4 and 5, leaving 26 serials incomplete. Many more were considered lost until recovered from various sources, mostly overseas broadcasters.
The Magic Box is a 1951 British Technicolor biographical drama film directed by John Boulting. The film stars Robert Donat as William Friese-Greene, with numerous cameo appearances by performers such as Peter Ustinov and Laurence Olivier. It was produced by Ronald Neame and distributed by British Lion Film Corporation.
Gate Studios was one of the many studios known collectively as Elstree Studios in the town of Borehamwood, England. Opened in 1928, the studios were in use until the early 1950s. The studios had previously been known as Whitehall Studios, Consolidated Studios, J.H. Studios and M.P. Studios.
Claude Friese-Greene was a British-born cinema technician, filmmaker and cinematographer, most famous for his 1926 collection of films entitled The Open Road.
Aerofilms Ltd was the UK's first commercial aerial photography company, founded in 1919 by Francis Wills and Claude Graham White. Wills had served as an Observer with the Royal Naval Air Service during World War I, and was the driving force behind the expansion of the company from an office and a bathroom in Hendon to a business with major contracts in Africa and Asia as well as in the UK. Co-founder Graham-White was a pioneer aviator who had achieved fame by making the first night flight in 1910.
Andrew John Maxton Cruickshank was a Scottish actor, most famous for his portrayal of Dr Cameron in the long-running UK BBC television series Dr. Finlay's Casebook, which ran for 191 episodes from 1962 until 1971.
The Morecambe & Wise Show is a comedy sketch show originally broadcast by BBC television and the third TV series by English comedy double-act Morecambe and Wise. It began airing in 1968 on BBC2, specifically because it was then the only channel broadcasting in colour, following the duo's move to the BBC from ATV, where they had made Two of a Kind since 1961.
The Lost World of Tibet is a BBC documentary film produced in conjunction with the British Film Institute. The 90-minute film was broadcast on BBC Two in November 2006.
Ludwig Blattner was a German-born inventor, film producer, director and studio owner in the United Kingdom, and developer of one of the earliest magnetic sound recording devices.
Arthur Albert 'Esme' Collings was an English photographer, miniaturist and the first of the loose association of early film pioneers dubbed the Brighton School by French film historian Georges Sadoul. Collings, whose interest in cinematography may have stemmed from his business association with fellow film pioneer William Friese-Greene, was only active in film production for about a year, has left little trace and is, according to film historian Rachael Low, of local importance only.
Brighton School was a loosely associated group of pioneering filmmakers active in the Brighton and Hove area of England from 1896 to 1910. It was mostly a series of shorts and early projects made in the Brighton area.
The Open Road is a 1926 British travel documentary film series narrating a journey by motorcar from Land's End to John O'Groats to explore life on 'the open road' across the United Kingdom. The Guardian has called it the "first comprehensive colour tourism film" of Britain.
