In the fifties British cinema won large audiences with popular war films and comedies, creating stars such as Dirk Bogarde and Kay Kendall, and introducing the stereotypes of war hero, boffin and comic bureaucrat which still help to define images of British national identity. In British Cinema in the Fifties, Christine Geraghty examines some of the most popular films of this period, exploring the ways in which they approached contemporary social issues such as national identity, the end of empire, new gender roles and the care of children.Through a series of case studies on films as diverse as It Always Rains on Sunday and Genevieve, Simba and The Wrong Arm of the Law, Geraghty explores some of the key debates about British cinema and film theory, contesting current emphases on contradiction, subversion and excess and exploring the curious mix of rebellion and conformity which marked British cinema in the post-war era.

Acknowledgements Preface 1. The Experience of Picturegoing: Cinema as a Social Space 2. Modernity, the Modern and Fifties Britain 3. Rural Rebels and the Landscape of Opposition 4. Resisting Modernity: Comedies of Bureaucracy and Expertise 5. The Post-War Settlement and Women's Choices: Melodrama and Realism in Ealing Drama 6. European Relations: Sex, Politics and the European Woman 7. The Commonwealth Film and the Liberal Dilemma 8. Reconstituting the Family: 'It's for Children that I'm Worried.' 9. Femininity in the Fifties: The New Woman and the Problem of the Female Star 10. The Fifties War Film: Creating Space for the Triumph of Masculinity