Abstract
The scene is the sunny terracing of an English country house where, among the spectators, its owner Mr Ranalow (played by Felix Aylmer) is in conversation with Ivan Kouznetsoff (Laurence Olivier) from Nijni-Petrovsk. A historical pageant is about to be performed:
Ivan: But vhy do you hev it if you do not like it?
Ranalow: We English, my dear fellow, have a regrettable tendency to indulge in matters historical and so, this afternoon, you will see the Roman occupation of Britain, the Black Death, an Old English Fair, Welcome to Queen Elizabeth and the stagecoach bringing the news of Waterloo …
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Notes and References
P. Sorlin, The Film in History (Oxford, 1980) p. 80.
The film is discussed in Thomas J. Knock, ‘History with Lightning: The forgotten film Wilson (1944)’, in Peter C. Rollins (ed.), Hollywood as Historian: American film in a cultural context (Kentucky, 1983) pp. 88–108;
Leonard J. Leff and Jerrold Simmons, ‘Wilson: Hollywood Propaganda for World Peace’, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, 3 (1983) 1, 3–18.
Karol Kulik, Alexander Korda: The man who could work miracles (London, 1975) p. 249.
Michael Korda, Charmed Lives (London, 1980) p. 154.
A. Aldgate, ‘Ideological consensus in British feature films, 1935–47’, in K. R. M. Short, Feature Films as History (London, 1981) pp. 94–103;
Jeffrey Richards, The Age of the Dream Palace (1984).
N. Pronay, ‘The political censorship of films in Britain between the wars’, in N. Pronay and D. W. Spring, Propaganda, Politics and Film, 1918–45 (London, 1982) pp. 98–125;
Geoff Brown, Launder and Gilliat (London, 1977) pp. 104–5.
Herbert Butterfield, The Whig Interpretation of History (London, 1931) p.v.
Sir Geoffrey Butler, The Tory Tradition (London, 1957) p. 57.
Arthur Bryant, The Years of Endurance (London, 1942) p. ix.
Neville Chamberlain (ed. Arthur Bryant), In Search of Peace (London, 1938).
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© 1988 Philip M. Taylor
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Mace, N. (1988). British Historical Epics in the Second World War. In: Taylor, P.M. (eds) Britain and the Cinema in the Second World War. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-19317-2_7
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