Rob Roy: Britain’s First Feature Film

What was the potential for the development of a Scottish film industry? Current histories largely ignore the contribution of Scotland to British film production, focusing on a few amateur attempts at narrative film-making. In this chapter, Caroline Merz offers a richer and more complex view of Scotland’s incursion into film production,. Using a case-study approach, it details a production history of Rob Roy, produced by a Scottish company, United Films, in 1911, indicating the experience on which it drew, placing it in the context of other successful British feature films such as Beerbohm’s Henry VIII, and noting both its success in Australia and New Zealand and its relative failure on the home market faced with competition from other English-language production companies.

Depicting Scotland: Scotland in Early Films

This chapter by John Caughie addresses both fiction and non-fiction films, dealing with scenics made by international companies, and with the ways in which Scotland was represented in international feature cinema. Particular attention is given to the mapping of scenics and their relation to eighteenth- and nineteenth-century travel literature. With regard to the feature film, it follows the traditions of Scott and romanticism, the movement in the 1920s towards Barrie and domestic melodrama, and the perennial return to the comic characters of Scottish music hall. The chapter addresses the question of how it came to be that a country without its own film industry nevertheless secured a place in the international cinematic imaginary.

Filmography of Scottish-themed Fiction Films

A comprehensive filmography of Scottish produced and internationally produced films with significant Scottish themes or characters from 1896 to 1927. The filmography, compiled by John Caughie, is based on reviews and synopses in the main British and American trade journals, and is annotated with trade commentary to indicate how the trade perceived the ‘Scottishness’ of the films.

Early Municipal Cinema

In this chapter, Julia Bohlmann considers the ways in which different Scottish agencies tried to utilise early cinema for non-commercial purposes and so created an alternative social role for it. She offers a case study of the development of the municipal cinema in Kirkintilloch as part of a socialist experiment instigated by Labour councillor Thomas Johnston, following the principles of Keir Hardie, and seeking to establish cinema as a contributor to the Common Good. The chapter is significant in noting a commitment to promoting cinema as ‘rational entertainment’ with a positive social role.

Making a Living at the Cinema: Scottish Cinema Staff in the Silent Era

In this chapter, Trevor Griffiths focuses on the people who ran and staffed cinemas and who shaped the experience of going to the cinema. These were not simply the entrepreneurs who owned the cinema or the distribution companies but also the more publicly visible employees of the cinema such as the manager, the ushers and usherettes, the musicians and the projectionists who were central to the experience of going to a show. The chapter charts, through reference to the trade press and trade union records, developments in the employment experience of cinema staffs, and in particular traces the impact of growing levels of unionization and labour militancy from the First World War onwards.

Introduction

Cinema history has tended to be defined by metropolitan cultures and dominant nations. This introduction and the chapters that follow challenges that view. At a theoretical level, it engages with questions raised by what is now known as ‘new cinema history’ with its focus on issues of the social experience of cinema and its formative institutions. At the same time, it argues that a history of national representations is part of the social history of the experience of cinema At a methodological level, it addresses the challenges of historical digital humanities, of data gathering and of mapping early cinema. The introduction offers an overview of the particularities of early Scottish cinema, and suggests the importance for international cinema history of a more sophisticated understanding of cinema in small towns and small countries.

The Talkies Triumphant: Scottish Cinema and the Coming of Sound

A concluding chapter by Trevor Griffiths considers the end of the ‘early period’ and the effects on cinema production and cinema-going of the arrival of sound. The emergence of sound cinema raised fundamental questions about how film was presented to audiences, exposing to view many practices in the silent era, which more often than not pass without comment. The factors, both supply- and demand-driven, promoting the adoption of sound by Scottish exhibitors are considered through analysis of the trade press and associated business records and the chapter examines the pace and extent of the diffusion of sound exhibition from the end of the 1920s, tracing its spread across both metropolitan and small-town Scotland, consolidating the emphasis of preceding chapters.

Local Films for Local People: ‘HAVE YOU BEEN CINEMATOGRAPHED?’

While evidence of a national indigenous film production industry is weak, the archive is rich with evidence of local, ‘amateur’ film production largely intended for a local audience. These films provide a ‘life’ of the period, engaging with local festivals, local work, or simply local routines, and initiating an early form of the local documentary. This chapter by John Caughie and Janet McBain consider the significance of these local topicals for the history of early cinema.

Cinema and Cinema-going in Small Towns

This chapter, by John Caughie, is based on case studies of selected small towns in Scotland: for example, Bo’ness, Lerwick, Campbeltown, Oban, Hawick. Empirically, it demonstrates the variety of practices and preferences in early cinema exhibition, and the quite different ways in which the balance between live variety and cinema, or between civic and commercial entertainment was negotiated in areas with different cultural or economic formations. Theoretically and historically, it argues that the traditional concentration of cinema history on major cities and metropolitan areas misses some of the diversity of the experience of early cinema for a very significant part of the population.

Fixed-site Cinemas and the First Film Renters

In this chapter, Maria Vélez-Serna maps the establishment of dedicated exhibition venues from 1908 to 1915, considering the geographic and demographic factors affecting their location. It considers how the venues and exhibition practices changed through the 'transitional era' and into the 1920s with the prevalence of larger cinemas in the main cities and towns. The distribution networks that made this development possible are also outlined, alongside profiles of some of the main cinema circuits.