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Silent Britain [DVD]
 
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Silent Britain [DVD]

DVD ~ Matthew Sweet
5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
RRP: £19.99
Price: £12.98 & this item Delivered FREE in the UK with Super Saver Delivery. See details and conditions
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Frequently Bought Together

Customers buy this item with Piccadilly [1929] [DVD] DVD ~ Gilda Gray

Silent Britain [DVD] + Piccadilly [1929] [DVD]
Price For Both: £24.96

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  • This item: Silent Britain [DVD] DVD ~ Matthew Sweet

    In stock.
    Dispatched from and sold by Amazon.co.uk.
    This item Delivered FREE in the UK with Super Saver Delivery. See details and conditions

  • Piccadilly [1929] [DVD] DVD ~ Gilda Gray

    In stock.
    Dispatched from and sold by Amazon.co.uk.
    This item Delivered FREE in the UK with Super Saver Delivery. See details and conditions

What Do Customers Ultimately Buy After Viewing This Item?

Silent Britain [DVD]
48% buy the item featured on this page:
Silent Britain [DVD] 5.0 out of 5 stars (2)
£12.98
Piccadilly [1929] [DVD]
16% buy
Piccadilly [1929] [DVD] 4.4 out of 5 stars (5)
£11.98
Electric Edwardians - The Films Of Mitchell And Kenyon [1900] [DVD]
14% buy
Electric Edwardians - The Films Of Mitchell And Kenyon [1900] [DVD] 4.7 out of 5 stars (7)
£10.58
Early Cinema - Primitives And Pioneers [DVD]
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Early Cinema - Primitives And Pioneers [DVD] 4.0 out of 5 stars (4)
£12.88
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Product details

  • Actors: Matthew Sweet
  • Format: PAL
  • Language English
  • Region: Region 2 (This DVD may not be viewable outside Europe. Read more about DVD formats.)
  • Aspect Ratio: 1.77:1
  • Number of discs: 1
  • Classification: Exempt
  • Studio: Bfi Video
  • DVD Release Date: 5 Jun 2006
  • Run Time: 90 minutes
  • Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
  • ASIN: B000FIHLWC
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 17,974 in DVD (See Bestsellers in DVD)

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Synopsis

Matthew Sweet presents and narrates this documentary profiling in detail the British film industry from 1859 to 1929. Features archive film footage, interviews with historians and survivors from the period.

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Customer Reviews

2 Reviews
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 (2)
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Average Customer Review
5.0 out of 5 stars (2 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
26 of 26 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Blimey, I didn't know we were so good., 21 Sep 2007
By ICB "icb8" (Leeds, UK) - See all my reviews
I recently started rediscovering my love of silent movies, having seen a lot in the eighties on TV, and was intrigued by this title which I saw on Amazon.

My understanding of film history was that Britain didn't seem to have a silent era legacy worth mentioning. Our silent films seemed few and far between, not breaking into wider awareness in the way Metropolis or a whole litany of Hollywood films have. So with interest I read Sweet's book 'Shepperton Babylon' (the first part of which deals with the silent era) and then got this documentary. Both have completely changed my view of the British film industry of that time. There's so much out there waiting to be seen that is likely to wow us, be it 'The Rat', 'The Informer', 'The Lodger,' 'The Constant Nymph' (if ever it's found) and so many more. It was wonderful to see clips of films i never new existed which will, i'm sure, be fascinating to anyone with an interest in the silent era.

Britain had a thriving silent movie industry complete with stars who were mobbed as much as Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford were, stars who's faces might adorn Times Square on giant banners when their films were bought for showing in the USA (the original Sherlock Holmes films), directors who were bold and inventive, as well as tyranical at times. And why are the antics of the Keystone Cops remembered but not the Tilly Girls?

Sadly though a staggering 80% of British silent films no longer exist and many that do languish in the BFI vaults unseen by just about anyone in the last 75 years. Only a meagre few such as 'Picadilly' (which greatly impressed Martin Scorcese) have been released on DVD. And many film historians dismiss this era in Britain as unimportant or poor quality, a predjudiced view that has perpetuated down the decades without any basis in reality, the snide views of a few taken as an objective assessment of an entire creative industry

So it is of great credit to Matthew Sweet and the BBC for making this documentary and one i can wholeheartedly recommend to anyone who has an interest in this era of film making. The only reason this county's legacy of the silent era isn't noted isn't because there wasn't one but because it has been ignored and much of it lost. It is there, we just have to look.

I learnt a lot. Excellent DVD.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Facinating TV documentary about Britain's silent movie heritage, 21 Jun 2009
By Helen "hw" (England) - See all my reviews
I hadn't realised until seeing this documentary just how critics have rated our Silent history. Silent is in fact the word for it - mostly ignored. In this docu are heaps of gems of our masterly movie past that was pushed aside when American moguls took control of our cinemas, enforcing their movies as main features whilst most British moves were obliged, no matter how brilliantly made, to be shown as only second features. I often wondered when as a young person I was seeing the end of Britain's brief post-war movie successes why so many really excellent British movies were only second features and now I know why. It had nothing to do with quality, it was to do with money and the Americans had the money and control of most of our cinemas and we hadn't.

What's so strange is our indigenous critics etc also ignored our movie heritage until quite recently. It's the hard work of the British Film Institute in recovering so many great old movies from ancient worn prints that's now bringing our heritage to our attention with Hitchcock's early The Lodger being one of the most famous revivals but there are others too.

A simply fascinating docu, and a heartwarming discovery that our silent movie makers weren't inferior and a waste of celluloid but were innovators right up there with the best from other countries - Germany, France, USA, etc. I bought this sight unseen and I am so glad I did!

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