This chapter considers British involvement in the war years. Although the French had worried about the Italians and the Germans before the war, the British and American governments ultimately emerged as a more daunting foe. The USA did not become a significant force until during the war, but already in 1936 the American press judged the British to be more dangerous to the French than the Italians, in spite of the latter's educational investment. The interaction of French and local actors with British cultural networks is visible in the arenas of cinema, publishing, and education. Each of these ventures involved multiple actors, including the Allied partners, foreign intermediaries, and local Levantine interlocutors. The French and the British generally managed to cooperate over the dissemination and censorship of cinema, yet reports by local mobile cinema team leaders display films as pawns in political struggles within the Syrian and Lebanese populations.
Urban Subversion and Mobile Cinema: Leisure, Architecture and the “Kino-Cine-Bomber”