Offers a startling re-evaluation of what has until now been seen as the most critically lacklustre period of the British film history. Covers a variety of genres, such as B-movies, war films, women's pictures and theatrical adaptations; as well as social issues which affect film-making, such as censorship. Includes fresh assessment of maverick directors; Pat Jackson, Robert Hamer and Joseph Losey, and even of a maverick critic Raymond Durgnat. Features personal insights from those inidividually implicated in 1950s cinema; Corin Redgrave on Michael Redgrave, Isabel Quigly on film reviewing, and Bryony Dixon of the BFI on archiving and preservation. Presents a provocative challenge to conventional wisdom about 1950s film and rediscovers the Festival of Britain decade. -- .

F. R. Leavis was undeniably one of the great thinkers of the twentieth century. His work on literature exerted a profound and lasting influence on the teaching of English throughout the world. The story of his life, as recounted by Ian MacKillop, who was one of Leavis's students, is therefore a chronicle of the development of the study of modern literature. MacKillop charts the influences on Leavis's life and work, from I. A. Richards to T. S. Eliot and William Empson. He chronicles Leavis's famous public disagreement with C. P. Snow in the Two Cultures Debate; discusses the genesis and publication of Leavis's books; and looks at the development of both the influential magazine Scrutiny and the School of English Studies at Downing College. MacKillop paints an unforgettable picture of English village life as he chronicles this world of high tea, cloistered walks and bitter rivalries in great detail.