Quota Quickies

David Lean, John Mills, Laurence Olivier, Vivien Leigh, and a host of other famous names from British film surprisingly began their screen careers on 'Quota Quickies'. These low-budget second features of the 1930s have become notorious as the films that American distributors used to bring British cinema into disrepute and ruin its prospects of international expansion. But is this sorry reputation really deserved?

Steve Chibnall's carefully researched study questions the received wisdom about these modest films, which so often offered a slice of British life to audiences waiting for the Hollywood main course. It interrogates the conditions of their production, the politics of the attempts to censor and suppress them, and, by examining detailed evidence from one provincial city, supplies insights into their distribution and exhibition. The quickies emerge from this examination as a significant source of cultural representations, a vital training ground for actors and film-makers, and, occasionally, as innovative and even radical pictures in their own right.

About the Author:
Steve Chibnall is Professor of British Cinema at De Montfort University