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Abstract
During the First World War, thousands of wounded and/or disabled soldiers were sent to hospitals and convalescent institutions across Britain to recover from both physical and psychological traumas endured whilst serving on the front. This article examines the role of the cinema within the context of soldier recovery and rehabilitation during the First World War, examining the practice of free/charity screenings for the returning wounded held in commercial cinemas, as well as the presence of non-theatrical exhibition in convalescent camps and hospitals. Drawing upon a wealth of contemporary historical evidence, this article outlines the many ways in which the medium intersected with the lives of those who returned from the front lines, demonstrating the cinema’s ability to offer escapism and comfort for those in attendance. Attention is drawn towards the perspectives of both the military and medical authorities which implemented the cinema as a form of entertainment for wounded men, as well as the first-hand experiences of the soldier spectators themselves. By analysing these views and experiences, this article highlights the ways in which the cinema was utilised beyond the commercial interests of conventional theatrical venues for the benefit of the British war effort during the nation’s time of crisis.
Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank Joe Kember, Debra Ramsay and Lisa Stead for their invaluable advice and feedback on the doctoral thesis chapter from which this article originated.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1 ‘Ceiling as a Screen’, The Kinematograph and Lantern Weekly, 22 August 1918, 49.
2 Ibid.
3 ‘Dr. Kinema’, The Era, 1 November 1916, 20.
4 J. G. Fuller, Troop Morale and Popular Culture in the British and Dominion Armies, 1914–1918 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1990); Michael Roper, The Secret Battle: Emotional Survival in the Great War (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2010).
5 Roper, The Secret Battle: Emotional Survival in the Great War, 6; Fuller, Troop Morale and Popular Culture in the British and Dominion Armies, 1914–1918, 118.
6 Deborah Cohen, The War Come Home: Disabled Veterans in Britain and Germany, 1914–1939 (Berkeley and London: University of California Press, 2001), 4.
7 For a selection of representative examples see: ‘Entertaining the Wounded’, Birmingham Daily Gazette, 17 November 1917, 6; ‘Wounded Soldiers Entertained.’, Dublin Daily Express, 8 September 1916, 3; ‘Helping Wounded Tommies’, Liverpool Echo, 8 July 1915, 7; ‘Wounded Soldiers at La Scala’, Aberdeen Evening Express, 7 August 1917, 2.
8 ‘Weekly Notes’, The Kinematograph and Lantern Weekly, 23 November 1916, 2.
9 ‘Entertaining the Wounded’, The Bioscope, 3 August 1916, 435.
10 Untitled, Exeter and Plymouth Gazette, 18 August 1915, 4.
11 ‘A Soldier’s Tea Party’, The Times, 13 December 1917, 12.
12 Leeds, Leeds University Library, Liddle Collection. MS Jock Dunning MacLeod LIDDLE/WW1/GS/1027, letter dated 30 November 1916.
13 H. R. Woolbert, ‘What the Indian Soldiers thought of Brighton’, The Pavilion ‘Blues’, 1 June 1916, 4.
14 ‘The Laughter of Courage’, The Times, 12 October 1915, 11.
15 ‘The Cinema Cure’, Pictures and the Picturegoer, 13 November 1915, 126. My emphasis.
16 ‘To and Fro’, The Ontario Stretcher, 1 September 1916, 4.
17 ‘Letter to Editor’, The Tittle Tattle Magazine: No. 1 Temporary Hospital, May 1916, 8.
18 T. E. Sandall, ‘Treatment of the Convalescent Soldier’, The Lancet 195, no. 5052 (1920): 1352–6 (1354).
19 Charles S. Myers, ‘A Final Contribution to the Study of Shell Shock. Being a consideration of unsettled points needing investigation’, The Lancet 193, no. 4976 (1919): 51–4 (54).
20 Julian M. Wolfsohn, ‘The Predisposing Factors of War Psycho-Neuroses’, The Lancet 191, no. 4927 (1918): 177–80 (180).
21 Ibid.
22 ‘Degraded Cinema Pictures’, The Observer, 17 September 1916, 14.
23 ‘To the Editor’, The Return: The Journal of the King’s Lancashire Military Convalescent Hospital, 23 June 1916, 17.
24 The National Council of Public Morals, The Cinema: Its Present Position and Future Possibilities, Being the Report of Chief Evidence taken by the Cinema Commission of Inquiry Instituted by the Cinema Commission of Inquiry Instituted by the National Council of Public Morals (London: Williams and Norgate, 1917), vii.
25 Paul Moody, ‘“Improper Practices” in Great British War Cinemas’, in Michael Hammond and Michael Williams (eds.), British Silent Cinema and the Great War (Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan, 2011), 49–63; Lise Shapiro Sanders, ‘“Indecent Incentives to Vice”: Regulating Films and Audience Behaviour from the 1890s to the 1910s’, in Andrew Higson (ed.), Young and Innocent? The Cinema in Britain 1896–1930 (Exeter: Exeter University Press, 2002), 97–110.
26 Allen Eyles and Keith Skone, London’s West End Cinemas (Swindon: English Heritage, 2014), 55.
27 Evan Strong, ‘War’s Black Mark. European Trade Strangled and Throttled – Britain Hopeful, But in Doubt’, The Moving Picture World, 12 September 1914, 1515.
28 ‘The Picture Theatres’, The Sunday Times, 4 April 1915, 4.
29 ‘News in Brief’, The Sunday Times, 2 July 1916, 11.
30 ‘A Generous Irishman’, Bedfordshire Times and Independent, 11 April 1919, 2.
31 Untitled, The Times 17 October 1917, 6; Untitled, The Times, 12 April 1918, 10; Untitled, The Times, 13 February 1919, 3.
32 ‘France’s Day’, The Times, 13 July 1916, 5; ‘Shamrock Day’, The Times, 18 March 1916, 5.
33 ‘Pay What You Please’, The Era, 8 August 1917, 17.
34 Untitled, The Observer, 31 October 1915, 14.
35 ‘St. Valentine’s Day’, The Era, 7 February 1917, 19.
36 ‘Weekly Notes’, The Kinematograph and Lantern Weekly, 15 February 1917, 2.
37 ‘Town Topics’, Fall In: The Duke of Cambridge’s Own Middlesex Regiment, 29 January 1916, 83.
38 Exeter, The Bill Douglas Cinema Museum. Item no. 18332, West End Cinema Programme, 14 May 1917.
39 ‘West End Cinema Theatre’, The Buzz: The Organ of the Bizzie Bees, 1 December 1917, xxi.
40 ‘A Cinema’s War Work’, The Times, 2 June 1919, 16.
41 ‘The West End Cinema Theatre’, The Quirk, 30 November 1918, 33
42 Leslie Midkiff DeBauche, Reel Patriotism: The Movies and World War I (Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press, 1997), xvi.
43 ‘Town Topics’, Fall In, 29 January 1916, 83.
44 DeBauche, Reel Patriotism, 78.
45 Ibid., 89.
46 ‘Our Hospital’, The Ontario Stretcher, 1 August 1916, 3.
47 Woking, Surrey History Centre, Papers of the Star and Garter Home. 8711/961/PP/19, Minutes of 42nd Meeting of Star and Garter Committee, 9 January 1918.
48 Star and Garter Papers, 8771/MHC/3, Minute Book, 9 March 1918, 147.
49 ‘For the Cot Cases and “Hoppies.”’, The Harefield Park Boomerang, 1 September 1917, 14.
50 ‘Filmland Gossip’, The Era, 2 May 1917, 19.
51 Reginald H. Brazier and Ernest Sandford, Birmingham and the Great War 1914–1919 (Birmingham: Cornish Brothers Ltd., 1921), 157.
52 William Herbert Scott, Leeds and Great War, 1914–1918. A Book of Remembrance (Leeds: Jowett & Sowry Ltd., 1923), 209.
53 ‘Matters Musical and Concert Notes’, The Summerdown Camp Journal, 20 September 1916, 5.
54 ‘Weekly Notes’, The Kinematograph and Lantern Weekly, 30 November 1916, 5.
55 Advertisements, The Summerdown Camp Journal, 13 December 1916, 8.
56 Ibid.
57 Advertisements, The Summerdown Camp Journal, 13 December 1916, 8.
58 ‘Camp Cinema’, The Summerdown Camp Journal, 14 March 1917, 5.
59 ‘The Tanks’, The Summerdown Camp Journal, 31 January 1917, 4.
60 Roger Smither, ‘“A wonderful idea of the fighting”: The Question of Fakes in “The Battle of the Somme”’, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television 13, no. 2 (1993): 149–168; Nicholas Hiley, ‘Hilton DeWitt Girdwood and the Origins of British Official Filming’, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television 13, no. 2 (1993): 128–148.
61 Chris Grosvenor, ‘“He Sees Now What He Looked Like”: Soldier Spectators, Topical Films, and the Problem of Onscreen Representation during World War I’, Film History 30, no. 4 (2018): 84–106.
62 Joanna Bourke, Dismembering the Male: Men’s Bodies, Britain and the Great War (London: Reaktion Books, 1996), 60.
63 ‘Motor Trips for Wounded’, The Times, 4 June 1920, 13.
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Chris Grosvenor
Chris Grosvenor holds a PhD in Film Studies from the University of Exeter. His doctoral thesis ‘Cinema on the Front Line’ examined the history of non-theatrical exhibition for British soldiers during the First World War. His research interests include silent cinema and British cinema history.