In this definitive and long-awaited history of 1950s British cinema, Sue Harper and Vincent Porter draw extensively on previously unknown archive material to chart the growing rejection of post-war deference by both filmmakers and cinema audiences. Harper and Porter explore the effects of social, cultural, and economic change on the 1950s film industry in Britain, looking in particular at the impact of the rise of television, successive changes in government policy, and the collapse of the studio system.