2 - The Magic Box: What Is British Cinema?

Summary

In the final sequence of The Magic Box (John Boulting, 1951), William Friese-Greene, the British inventor, whom the film depicts as an unacknowledged pioneer of motion pictures, attends a meeting of film exhibitors in 1921. He pleads with them to support British producers rather than follow the economic logic that encouraged them to show more popular and less costly Hollywood films. After making his impassioned speech to no avail, Friese-Greene drops dead, creating a powerful allegorical ending that translates the story of an individual who lacks the practical sense to exploit his own invention into the depiction of a national culture that fails to support its own cultural industries.

The Magic Box was the film industry's contribution to the Festival of Britain, with many leading actors appearing in cameo roles, designed to mark “the contribution made by the cinema to the life of the nation.” It did indeed celebrate the life of a British film pioneer whose work had been overshadowed by other more famous inventors, such as the Lumiere brothers in France and Thomas Edison in the United States, somewhat distorting the historical record to make Friese-Greene's work seem more important than it actually was. However, a film about missed opportunity does seem a somewhat odd choice for such a celebratory occasion.

Raymond Durgnat compares this film with Scott of the Antarctic (Charles Frend, 1948) to support the idea that “the British could hardly respond to the idea of success without an aura of failure surrounding it.”