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A shot in the Dark:
A study of Music
in British Film
1929 - 1939
Rev. Merle K. Peirce

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December 12, 2005
Whilst examples of the sound film began appearing from1923,
using Lee DeForest's Phonofilm technology,where sound was
recorded directly onto the visual film strip, the first British feature
length sound films did not appear until 1929: British International
Pictures' Blackmail, which had been completed as a silent by
director Alfred Hitchcock, and which he reshot to take advantage of
the sound process. Blackmail, and Victor Saville's Kitty,also reshot a
short time before, relaunched sound in the British film industry,and
lead to the establishment of a separate British tradition for the use
of sound and music, which sometimes coincided with concurrent
Hollywood practices, but which for complex economic and cultural
reasons often did not. Indeed, this separate tradition remained in
force, with decreasing vigour until the final decline of the major
British studios in the 1950's.
Hollywood had vitiated British film production. It has been put
forward by some analysts that world War I put paid to the industry
and that Hollywood used that opportunity to increase its own

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influence. Rachel Low argues, however, that the fall of the British
film industry had been preordained and was merely made manifest
during the period of hostilities, for as she said, “the American
leadership was bound to come, if only for economic reasons.” 1
By 1918,however, Hollywood had come to dominate the British film
market. British films became substantially less popular and studios
began closing. This reached its nadir in 1924-1927, when the
production of British films dropped to less than one a week. It was
only through Parliamentary intercession in the form of the
Cinematograph Act of 1927, establishing quotas for the exhibition of
British films, that the industry was able to restart and reform.
According to film historian William Rotha,
In retrospect, three factors appear mainly to have hampered
the development of any truly national expression in the
British fiction film; the policies of American companies in
their British activities; the odd cosmopolitan character of
British studio personnel; and, ironically, the British
documentary film… 2

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While Rotha has documented the major influences on British film
in this period, he fails to identify or quantify two other factors - the
peculiarly stubborn nature of the British cultural ethos, and the
nature and influence of the British critical establishment. Indeed,
as one of the major critics of British film, he is himself a pernicious,
negative influence, the progenitor of an atmosphere of shame and
negative self image that has haunted British film since 1930, and
which, seventy-five years on, is only now starting to be dispelled.
For many years, British critics refused to acknowledge the many
excellences of British films, even as the rest of the world hailed
them, and instituted a tradition of self deprecation that is, perhaps,
best epitomised by Rotha's horrific comments:
The British film...rests upon a structure of false prestige,
supported by the flatulent flapdoodle of newspaper writers
and by the indifferent goodwill of the British people… 3
Operating independently from the Hollywood studio system, the
major British studios - Gainsborough Pictures, Gaumont British and
British International, developed a very different approach to the

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use of sound and music from that settled upon in America. In
Britain, the form which evolved was called the dialogue film. The
dialogue film constituted most of the production of these studios,
with the exception of a relatively small number of musicals such as
Salley in Our Alley (Maurice Elvey, 1931) and Sing As We Go (Basil
Dean, 1934) starring Gracie Fields; Walter Forde's classic Chu Chin
Chow (1934) or Sailors Three(1940). As in Hollywood, the decade of
the 1930's was the golden age of the British Musical, but the musical
has never appealed to audiences in Britain to the same extent that
it has in America.
Hollywood established a specific regimen for the use of music in
film. Under Erich Korngold's direction, it created musical themes
for individual characters using lush and dramatic romantic
melodies, while Max Steiner introduced the cartoon technique
Mikey Mousing as a tool to emphasise or signal actions. According to
Kay Kalinak,
...the classical score...was based upon a set of
conventions...which prioritized narrative exposition. These

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conventions included the use of music to sustain structural
unity...to illustrate narrative content...and the privileging of
dialogue over other elements of the soundtrack. 4
The British dialogue film score followed Hollywood's lead in
establishing and confirming the essential primacy of speech and
text. In Britain, however, it was carried to an extreme. While
Hollywood established techniques to let music trail off before and
return after dialogue, British directors banished music entirely so
that there might be no interference with plotting or performance.
Two studios, British International and Gaumont British, developed a
distinct set of conventions that governed the use of music in film.
During the years 1929-1935, there was very little deviation from this
fourfold pattern:
1. Music was used to announce the film name and credits with
a distinctive flourish, intended to evoke the viewer's interest
and participation.
2. Music was optionally used to cover important establishing
sequences for the main body of the film.

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3. Music was optionally used to dramatise the dénouement and
resolution of the film.
4. Music was used to accompany the film ending notice.
The British dialogue film operated very differently from its
Hollywood competitor. It did not make use of music to dramatise
action, or ease transitions, or even to identify characters.
Transitions became dependent on visual imagery and editing, or
rarely, through the use of diagetic sound which functioned in a
manner similar to Hollywood's, but was more logically restrained
and realistically constituted. It did, however, use music to titillate
the viewer and draw him into the film. For this reason, the opening
scores were nearly always lush and impressing, catching the
audience's immediate interest and sustaining it through the credits.
It even continues, as the establishing shots are played and
facilitates a transition to the work of dialogue and cinematic action.
However, from 1936 on, there was growing experimentation with
the use of music, not all of which could be judged successful and
which represented a backward step from the established standard.

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As Roger Manvell wrote in 1946, summing up the concerns both of
Britain's national critics and her xenophobic nationalists:
What matters is that British pictures should retain their
national integrity...We must not allow our nearly common
language to repeat the disastrous pre-War policy of trying to
copy Hollywood without the temperament or the resources to
do so...To stage a post- war sell-out...which in the end gave
Hollywood the whip-hand...would be a national and cultural
disaster. 5
Manvell and Rotha both gave voice to a typically British
obstinacy, evincing the nation's desire to remain independent of
Hollywood's orbit, and expressing a resentment of Hollywood's
control of the film distribution system. The new films struck out
decisively to demonstrate Britain's ability to embrace new
technology and use it in a uniquely British way. British film has
always exhibited a very strong influence of the theatre - especially
in adapting plays as source material. This has, as Stephen Guy
suggested in his essay “Calling All Stars” 6
, also been an influence in

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Britain's approach to the sound film. Thus the dialogue film score
became an expression of patriotism and support for the British way
of life.
As the new decade dawned, British directors experimented.
Blackmail and The Flying Scotsman, both produced in 1929 show
differing approaches to the use of the musical score. Blackmail is
clearly experimental, as Hitchcock plays with the use of both music
and sound. Taxi horns, as an example, are recorded at an unusually
loud level, and Hitchcock manipulates dialogue especially in the
famous "knife" scene, where conversation is muffled and inaudible
except for the clear repetition of "knife". The Flying Scotsman
begins with a continuous recorded score, as might typically be used
for a silent film. This is neither surprising nor inappropriate, as this
film, like Blackmail, is a transitional semi-silent, semi-talking
picture. While Hitchcock used the entirety of his film as a test bed
for the uses of sound, Castleton-Knight adopted a more
conservative approach. The original, silent portions of the film were
accompanied by continuous musical accompaniment, composed,

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arranged and conducted by band leader John Reynders, also the
musical director for Blackmail and Kitty. Indeed, The Flying
Scotsman was given a particularly strong score, with a Flying
Scotsman leitmotif, which recurs in the final scene as Moore Mariott
bids a sentimental good-bye to his engine. As the silent footage
passes to sound during a fight scene set in the company canteen,
The Flying Scotsman adopts the form of a dialogue film, setting a
pattern for years to come.
Hitchcock immediately takes to the form and uses it for his first
railway thriller, Number 17(1930). The dialogue score becomes the
hallmark both Hitchcock's suspense thrillers, and of British
International Pictures. When Hitchcock jumps to Gaumont British,
Britain's largest producer in 1927, he continues to follow this same
format, and produces its finest example in 1938,The Lady Vanishes,
also arguably his finest work. In the meantime, Gaumont has seen
the value of this approach to film scoring, and under Louis Levy
(1893-1957), its musical director, has been using it extensively.
Levy modifies the form slightly,encouraging an increased use of

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non-diagetic music. Hitchcock's mid-decade films, Sabotage and
The 39 Steps, show a very limited use of the musical score. In The
39 Steps, a non-diagetic melody signals Pamela' s realisation that
Hannay has been telling the truth. In this film, there is also a
musical phrase identified with Mr.Memory, a pivotal character in
the plot apparatus. Indeed, after 1936, we see British productions
using music over dialogue, an action virtually unthinkable in
Hollywood, and one which often detracts from the film itself. Dr.
Syn (1937) is such a film, one sadly under served by its score.
Britain has a tradition of light music, melodic and non-symphonic,
which is both intellectually and emotionally undemanding. It is this
particular type of music which Levy chose, but which is also, by its
very banality, extremely grating and annoying and, thus, by
extension, distracting. In Gainsborough's Good Morning Boys also
produced in 1937, there is a much more extensive use of music to
dramatise the boys' escape, to emphasise a drunken interlude, and
secondarily, as light occasional music similar to that used for Dr.
Syn.

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In substantial contradistinction to the practice of Gaumont
British and British International, Alexander Korda's London Films
pursued a policy of emulating Hollywood, and producing, in Britain,
films for an international market. To this end, he hired a great
number of foreign personnel, employing Ned Mann, American
special effects expert, designer Lazare Meerson, directors Rene
Clair, Jacques Feyder, James Wong Howe, William Howard, Josef
von Sternberg, cinematographers Harry Stradling, Georges Périnal,
and Charles Rosher. As Paul Tabori wryly noted, “...the five Union
Jacks flying over Denham Studios represented five British employees
- all the rest were Continentals." 8
Korda hired the noted conductor
Muir Mathieson for his musical director, and used casts of largely
British actors, resulting in the cosmopolitan mix that Rotha
condemns in Film Til Now.
...Alexander Korda achieved his aim of producing films
that could compete in quality and technical style on equal
terms with the best of Hollywood adventure films. 9
Korda's The Private Life of Henry the VIII (1931) was the first

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of a progression of films showing an increasing dedication to
quality. The Private Life of Henry the VIII, faithfully followed the
British dialogue film score. Yet by 1937, South Riding shows an
increasing amount of music, and 1940's The Thief of Bagdad is as
fine example of the Hollywood film score as one might expect to
find. In 1943, Korda's The Jungle Book, produced in Hollywood,
wins the Oscar for Best Musical Score, making London Films the
aesthetic equal of any Hollywood studio, and demonstrating that
British studios had the power, talent and ability to meet Hollywood
head on should they so choose.
By the end of the decade, the British dialogue film score was in
the process of being replaced by the Hollywood film score. British
films often adopted Hollywood practice outright, or used a modified
the dialogue score with more extensive use of music. Louis Levy,
Gaumont British's musical director, had started with the standard
British dialogue film score, begun tentative experimentation in 1936
on some of Hitchcock's films and continued until with Anthony
Asquith's Pygmalion of 1938, he had assimilated Hollywood's

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prohibition of music over dialogue, and even cautiously adopted
Max Steiner's Mickey Mousing techniques, which he used with great
and effective restraint. It was, as documentary director Pare
Lorenz said,
An exhibition of real movie making - of a sound score woven
in and out of tense scenes creating mood and tempo and
characterization. 10
Later films of the 1930's showed a growing tendency for British
studios to adopt the Hollywood musical score as the basis for the
use and placement of music in their film. However, the British
dialogue film score did not die in 1939 although its use became
more restricted and less universal. Alexander MacKendrick's 1951
Ealing comedy The Man in the White Suit, for example, followed
the form faithfully, departing only to institute a bubbly and risive
leitmotif identified with the chemical reaction which is the critical
plot element of the film. Although the salad days of the dialogue
score were over, it still survived in occasional use as an alternative
to the Hollywood score, and one which expressed British

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independence and integrity, in partial answer to Rotha's call for an
authentic and autochthonous British film culture.

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Appendix A
Annual UK Feature Film Production
(figures from British Film Institute)
1920 155
1921 137
1922 110
1923 68
1924 49
1925 33
1926 33
1927 48
1928 80
1929 81
1930 75
1931 93
1932 110
1933 115
1934 145
1935 165
1936 192
1937 176
1938 134
1939 84

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Reference Notes
1
Rachel Low, The History of British Film 1914-1918 (George
Allen & Unwin, 1973), 48.
2
Paul Rotha, The Film Till Now (London: Spring Books,1967),
544.
3
Ibid., 313.
4
Kathryn Kalinak, Settling the Score -Music and the Classical
Hollywood Film (Madison: University of Wisconsin
Press,1992),179.
5
Roger Manvell, Film, rev.and enl. (London: PenguinBooks,
1946), 139.
6
Stephen Guy, "Calling All Stars: Musical Films in a Musical
Decade",The Unknown 1930's: An Alternative History of British
Cinema (London: I. B.Taurus,2000), 101.
7
Rachel Low, Film Making in 1930's Britain (London: George
Allen & Unwin, 1985),119.
8
Paul Tabori, Alexander Korda (London: Oldbourne, 1959), 9,``
quoted in Roy Armes, A Critical History of the British Cinema,
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1978),120.
9
Roy Armes,A Critical History of the British Cinema,(New York:
Oxford University Press, 1978), 126.
10
Pare Lorenz, quoted in John Walter,ed., Halliwell's Film Guide
2004 (New York: Harper Resource, 2004),691.

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Bibliography
Armes, Roy. A Critical History of British Cinema. NewYork: Oxford
University Press, 1978.
Betts, Ernest. The Film Business. London: Pitman Publishing, 1973.
Low, Rachael. The History of the British Film 1914-1918. London:
George Allen & Unwin,1971.
___________. The History of the British Film 1918-1929. London:
George Allen & Unwin,1971.
___________. Film Making in 1930's Britain. London: George Allen &
Unwin,1985.
Hardy,Forsyth, ed. Grierson on Documentary. NewYork: Praeger
Publishers,1976.
Huntley, John. British Film Music. London: Skelton Robinson, n.d.,
repr. New York: Arno Press, 1972.
Kalinak, Kathryn. Settling the Score - Music and the Classical
Hollywood Film. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1992.
Manvell, Roger. Film. London: Penguin Books, 1946.
Richards,Jeffrey,ed. The Unknown 1930's: An Alternative History
of British Cinema 1929-1939. London: I. B.Taurus, 2000.
Rotha, Paul and Griffith, Richard. The Film Till Now. rev. and ent.
London: Vision Press, 1960, repr. London: Spring Books, 1967.
Walter, John ed.,Halliwell's Film Guide 2004.New York: Harper

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Resource, 2004.
Filmography
Blackmail, dir. Alfred Hitchcock, British International Pictures,
1929.
The Flying Scotsman, dir. Castleton- Knight, British International
Pictures, 1929.
The Ghoul, dir. T. Hayes Hunter, Gaumont British Pictures, 1931.
The Private Life of Henry Vill, dir. Alexander Korda, London Films,
1931.
Rich and Strange, dir. Alfred Hitchcock, British International
Pictures, 1932.
The Clairvoyant, dir. Maurice Elvey, Gainsborough Pictures, 1934.
Moscow Nights, dir. Anthony Asquith, London Films, 1935.
The Tunnel, dir. Maurice Elvey, Gaumont British Pictures, 1935.
The 39 Steps, dir. Alfred Hitchcock, Gaumont British Pictures,1935.
The Passing of the Third Floor Back, dir. Bernard Viertel, Gaumont
British Pictures, 1935.
Sabotage, dir. Alfred Hitchcock, Gaumont British Pictures, 1936.
Secret Agent, dir. Alfred Hitchcock, Gaumont British Pictures, 1936.
Things To Come, dir. William Cameron Menzies, London Films, 1936.
Bulldog Drummond at Bay, dir. Norman Lee, British International

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Pictures, 1937.
Good Morning, Boys, dir. Marcel Varnel, Gainsborough Pictures,
1937.
Pygmalion, dir. Anthony Asquith and Leslie Howard, Pascal Film
Productions, 1938.
The Lady Vanishes, dir. Alfred Hitchcock, Gaumont British Pictures,
1938.
The Spy in Black ,dir. Michael Powell, Columbia Pictures,1938.
South Riding, dir. Victor Saville, London Films, 1938.
Jamaica Inn, dir. Alfred Hitchcock, Mayflower Films, 1939.
Q-Planes, dir. Tim Whelan, London Films, 1939.
The Thief of Baghdad, dir. Michael Powell, Tim Whelan, Ludwig
Berger and Zoltan Korda, London Films, 1940.
Night Train To Munich, dir. Carol Reed,Twentieth Century
Productions, 1940.
The Man in the White Suit, dir. Alexander MacKendrick, Ealing
Studios, 1951.

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