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The History of British Cinema: 1937

3/1 -

Marcel Varnel’s Oh! Mr Porter! Starring music hall comedian Will Hay, is released. [ADD]

Jan -

Harold D. Schuster's Wings of the Morning, starring Annabella, Henry Fonda and Leslie Banks, is the first three-strip Technicolor film shot in Europe. [ADD]

20/2 -

The Rank Organisation is incorporated. [ADD]

21/3 -

Alexander Korda abandons production of I, Claudius with only 20 minutes of film completed following a number of problems, including clashes between director Josef von Sternberg and lead actor Charles Laughton, a runaway budget, and a car crash suffered by Merle Oberon who plays Messalina. [ADD] 

9/4 -

Robert Flaherty and Zoltan Korda’s Elephant Boy is released.   It makes an international star of Sabu, former stable boy to a wealthy Indian maharajah. [ADD]

Apr -

The Chief Industrial advisor to the government initiates a report on film finance for the Governor of the Bank of England. [ADD]

Jun -

Cinema-Television Ltd’s plans to install large-screen televisions in Gaumont Cinemas is rejected by the Post Office and the BBC. [ADD]

10/9 -

Rene Clair begins filming Break the News with Jack Buchanan and Maurice Chevalier at Pinewood Studios. [ADD]

31/12 -

By the end of the year the Odeon cinema chain comprises of 220 cinemas. [ADD]

– Jacques Feyder’s Russian Revolution adventure, Knight Without Armour, is released.   Marlene Dietrich and Robert Donat star. [ADD]

– British International Pictures (BIP) becomes  Associated British Picture Corporation (ABPC) [ADD]

– Producer Maurice J. Wilson builds Highbury Studios in Islington to lease for independent productions.  [ADD]

– J Banberger’s MP Studios takes over the former Consolidated Studios at Elstree for the production of quota quickies. [ADD] 

– Julius Hagen’s JH Productions go into receivership, and its Twickenham studios are sold to Studio Holdings Trust before being leased back to Hagen. [ADD]

– Gaumont-British closes its Shepherd’s Bush Studio and moves to Pinewood in return for financial support from J. Arthur Rank. [ADD]

– Merton Park Studios is formed to own the Sound Services studio. [ADD]

– Actor Jack Buchanan buys Riverside Studios in Hammersmith, London. [ADD]

– MGM establish a studio at Denham. [ADD]

Other Key British Films of 1937

Dreaming Lips (Paul Czinner, Lee Garmes) [ADD]

Edge of the World (Michael Powell) [ADD]

Fire Over England (William K. Howard) [ADD]

Good Morning, Boys (Marcel Varnel) [ADD]

Victoria the Great (Herbert Wilcox) [ADD]

Young and Innocent (Alfred Hitchcock) [ADD]

The History of Cinema: 1937