Children and the Movies: Media Influence and the Payne Fund Controversy - Review

In All Pals Together, Staples traces 'the story of children's cinema' in the UK This subtitle hardly does justice to the breadth of themes encompassed within the volume The story of children's cinema deliver overs not only to film production aimed at the child audience, on the other hand is broadened by Staples to include a history of children's cinema bludgeons and matinee performances. Along the way, the author also casts an organ of vision over the development of legislation governing film production, distribution and exhibition in Britain, as well as the emerging see the verb of industry-sponsored regulation in the form of the British Board of Film Censors (as was). concern is also made to the constitution of the child audience and the changes it has undergone above the course of the first hundred of cinema. What is more, the work provides a very intimate portrait of the simple pleasures of going to the pictures as a child, fashioned from the testimonies of audience members from past generations and topped not upon with some insightful readings of film true copys popular in the periods examined. by means of and large, the author follows in weaving these threads together, on the other hand there are places where the reader is left wanting a little more cohesion in the account. However, this is a minor criticism for a work which demonstrates a scholarly attention to detail while remaining accessible and intelligible to a non-specialist readership.

The story gently meanders in a broadly chronological trajectory, beginning with an account of early cinemagoing experiences for young audiences before World War I. This was a time when the dangers of death or injury lie concealeded within the cramped confines of poorly operated film theatres. The story then takes in the post-war 'golden' age of children's cinemagoing, a time when efforts were made, by the agency of organisations like the Children's Film Foundation (CFF) to cater for children as a special audience in ne of the couple informative stimulation and protection from 'unsuitable' material. The main part of the work draws the narrative to a shut in the 1970s when cinema cudgels for children dwindled in number with falling attendances and the CFF's production schedule began to wind down.

Staples' account is well paced, although there are a brace of structural anomalies in the volume Chapter 11, which deals with the reception of the influential Wheare report into children and cinema, is too short (it is alone four pages in length) given the importance of the circumstances it chronicles. It ought either to have been expanded or other incorporated into the surrounding chapters. In addition, the material contained in the Epilogue is worthy of more detailed consideration. Here Staples tries to return the insights of previous chapters meaningful in the contemporary adjoining matter of multiplexes and multimedia. however no mention is made of the apparent displacement of children's films by means of 'family' films (those marketed as 'fun for all the family') in the 1980 and 1990 What is the significance of this shift and in what way does it relate to broader cultural debates about 'the family' in contemporary political discourse?

upon the positive side, the photographic illustrations are displayed well and lend the story an evocative visual dimension. It is interesting to compare pictures of child audiences from the 1900 onwards. Gazing at the faces in black and white, there is a surprising lack of outward change in 70 years. This is in stark contrast to the changes below the surface which Staples rightly identifies, greatest in quantity notably the increasing sophistication of the film-literate child audience.

I think readers' answers to this book will vary according to their hold recollections of children's cinema. Representatives of older generations will identify with the volume on an entirely different horizontal to those of subsequent generations. For younger readers (those below the age of 30 years), the evocation of inter- and post-war cinemagoing experiences will be of real historical rather than immediately personal interest, not least because many of the debates about children's relationships with entertainment media which were popular earlier this hundred are still in circulation today.

The greatest in quantity pervasive of these controversies, concerning the 'influence' of entertainment media upon young audiences, provides the link between All Pals Together and Children and the Movies. For while Staples motions towards the theme of 'media influences' as it come agains throughout the story of children's cinema, Jowett et al. make the issue central to their cast They provide an account of the earliest, recent mass communications research designed to tackle the question of 'media influence'--the so-called Payne capital Studies (PFS).

The longevity of debates about 'media influence' provide Jowett et al. and, to a inferior degree, Staples with justification for their backwards-looking accounts. For the one and the other sets of authors, the fact that this disputation continues unabated demands that we retain a special and balanced historical perspective upon matters. Children and the Movies follows in demonstrating just how little has changed in the marks of concerns voiced by well-meaning adults about children's viewing habits and in the emblems of research questions posed which address these concerns