Welsh Journals

The 1930s, it has been convincingly argued, were years of economic and social paradox, a time when 'new levels of prosperity contrasted with the intractable problems of mass unemployment and the depressed areas'. One of the clearest expressions of this paradox can be found in the huge expansion of mass commercial leisure provision-radio (though broadcasting was conceived by the BBC at least as a public service), a plethora of mass-circulation newspa- pers, paperback books, syndicated dance halls, milk bars, brewing, and cafe and department-store chains; the rise of organized mass gambling in the form of greyhound racing and the football pools; the growth of mass spectator sport and 'spin-off' industries; increasing capital investment, employment and the use of marketing strategies in the changing character of many of Britain's seaside resorts-all were major developments combining to create a 'new world' of recreation accessible to greater numbers than ever before.2 Of all the forms of leisure and entertainment flourishing in Britain in the 1930s, undoubtedly the most important was the cinema. During these years of profound structural change at home and political upheaval and turmoil abroad, the emergence of the cinema as 'a powerful force in national life', an 'amazing platform for the dissemination of ideas good and bad', was, predictably, to be the cause of much debate amongst politicians, moral and cultural 'guardians', local authorities, religious bodies, intellectuals and social observers, even as it gave enormous enjoyment to millions of British people.3 As one of the many social surveys of the period typically concluded: The cinema, is, of course, the most frequented of all places of entertainment: thirty years have seen it rise from little more than a scientific toy and a sideshow at fairs to one of the most important social institutions of the country. Traditionally, the cinema had relied on the urban working class for the bulk of its audience. Whilst the plush new Odeons and Gaumonts rapidly springing up in the more prosperous suburbs were beginning to attract a growing number of regular middle-class patrons (especially women), the great mass of cinema- goers continued to be drawn from the established urban industrial base. The continuance of this relationship into the 1930s was solidly confirmed by the 1 John Stevenson and Chris Cook, The Slump: Society and Politics During the Depression (London, 1979). p 5. 2 See John Stevenson, British Society, 1914-1945 (Harmondsworth, 1986). 3 John Buchan, quoted in Jeffrey Richards, The Age of the Dream Palace: Cinema and Society in Britain, 1930-1939 (London, 1989), p. 46; Commission on Educational and Cultural Films, The Film in National Life (London, 1932), p. 9. 4 D. C. Jones (ed.), The Social Survey of Merseyside, vol. 3 (Liverpool, 1934), p. 279.