COMING SOON

British Lions – The Story of the Boulting Brothers and Their Films
by Jack Watkins

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John and Roy Boulting, twins who’d shared a passion for cinema from early youth, were titans of the British film industry for decades. They were lynchpins of the British Lion studio, and stout defenders of independent film making in the post-war period at a time when domestic cinema circuit was being swamped by Hollywood productions. Far from being simply makers of comedies, their range and experience was vast.

Alternating directorial and production duties between them, after cutting their teeth on quota quickies in the 1930s, they graduated to socially concerned dramas and wartime documentaries, and then made one of Britain’s finest film noirs, the first screen adaptation of Graham Greene’s Brighton Rock.

The run of satires, via which they enjoyed their biggest commercial success, Private’s Progress, Lucky Jim and I’m All Right Jack among them, sent up a range of British institutions, and featured a virtual repertory company of great character comedians. The Boultings were astute spotters of talent, giving the likes of Richard Attenborough, Peter Sellers, Ian Carmichael and Terry-Thomas their first major screen roles. Of all the great British film makers of the 20th century, from duos like Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, and Frank Launder and Leslie Gilliat, to individuals like Carol Reed and David Lean, the story of the Boulting brothers, John and Roy, is the least familiar. And even though the term “Boulting Brothers Comedy” became something of a brand name in the late 1950s, in subsequent years, these films have never been accorded the reverential cult status of the Ealing Comedies or the Carry Ons. But they fully deserve such status.

This is the first book to be entirely devoted to the lives and work of one of British Cinema’s finest and most successful producer-director teams. It not only examines the Boulting comedies in context of the other near great screen comedy series, such as the Carry Ons, St Trinians, Doctor and Ealing films, but also places under the microscope their much overlooked earlier work, and later efforts to adapt to the more biting, “swinging sixties”. Including interviews with those who knew and worked with them, it offers a fascinating picture of two of cinema’s most immensely charismatic figures.