Despite Soho’s rich cultural history, there remains an absence of work on the depiction of the popular neighbourhood in film. Soho on Screen provides one of the first studies of Soho within post-war British cinema. Drawing upon historical, cultural and urban studies of the area, this book explores twelve films and theatrically released documentaries from a filmography of over one hundred Soho set productions. While predominantly focusing on low-budget, exploitation films which are exemplars of British and international filmmaking, Young also offers new readings of star and director biographies, from Laurence Harvey to Emeric Pressburger, and in so doing enlivens discussion on filmmaking in a time and place of intense social transformation, technological innovation and growing permissiveness.
List of Illustrations
Foreword
Peter Bradshaw
Author’s Preface
Acknowledgements
Introduction: Soho, ‘The Forbidden City’
Chapter 1. Tracking Shot: Soho Square to Wardour Street, London’s ‘Film Row’
Chapter 2. Soho’s Bohemian-Cosmopolitans and Post-War British Cinema
Chapter 3. God Is Everywhere!’: Engineering the Immigrant Landscape of Miracle in Soho (1957)
Chapter 4. Soho-Hollywood: The Birth of the Soho ‘B’ Film
Chapter 5. Old Perils, New Pleasures: West End Jungle (1960) and the Birth of Commercial Vice
Chapter 6. ‘An’ I fort Jews were supposed to be lucky!’: Jewish Wide Boys, Johnny Jackson and Sammy Lee
Chapter 7. Soho Melodrama: Spaces of Sexual Blackmail, The Flesh is Weak (1957) and The Shakedown (1960)
Chapter 8. Subversive female sexualities and the Soho coffee bar: Beat Girl (1960) and Rag Doll (1961)
Chapter 9. Soho Strip Clubs (I): The Windmill Theatre and its Cinematic Legacy
Chapter 10. Soho Strip Clubs (II): The Stage and the Dressing Room
Conclusion: ‘Warm-hearted Tarts’ and the year ‘old Soho’ died: Campaigns, rebirth and The World Ten Times Over (1963)
Filmography
Bibliography
Index
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