Jeffrey Richards – författare

For the authorities in medieval Europe, dissent struck at the roots of an ordered, settled world. It was to be crushed - initially by reason and argument, eventually by torture. Jeffrey Richards examines the wretched lives of heretics, witches, Jews, lepers and homosexuals and uncovers a common motive for their persecution: sexual aberrance.

This fascinating study of the genre of swashbuckling films received wide critical acclaim when it was first published in 1977. Jeffrey Richards assesses the contributions to the genre of directors, designers and fencing masters, as well as of the stars themselves, and devotes several chapters to the principal subjects if the swashbucklers – pirates, highwaymen, cavaliers and knights. The result is to recall, however fleetingly, the golden days of the silver screen. Reviews of the original edition:‘An intelligent, scholarly, well-written account of adventure films, this work is sensitive both to cinema history and to the literary origins of the "swashbuckler"….Essential for any library with books on film, it may very well be the definitive book on its subject.’ – Library Journal

Film is an important source of social history, as well as having been a popular art form from the early twentieth century. This study shows how a society, consciously or unconsciously, is mirrored in its cinema. It considers the role of the cinema in dramatizing popular beliefs and myths, and takes three case studies – American populism, British imperialism, German Nazism – to explain how a nation’s pressures, tensions and hopes come through in its films. Examining the American cinema is accomplished by analysing the careers of three great directors, John Ford, Frank Capra and Leo McCarey, while the British and German cinemas are studied by theme. The analysis of the British Empire as seen in film broke exciting new ground with a pioneering account of ‘the cinema of Empire’ when it was first published in 1973.With full filmographies and a carefully selected bibliography it is an outstanding work of reference and its lively approach makes it a delight to read.Reviews of the original edition:‘A work of considerable force and considerable wit.’ – Clive James, Observer‘…a work that is original, mentally stimulating and most pleasurable to read.’ – Focus on Film

The Mass Observation social research organisation (1937 to early 1950s), a pioneering independent effort aimed at education, specialised in material about everyday life in Britain and recorded material through a panel of around 500 volunteer observers who maintained diaries or replied to open-ended questionnaires known as directives.The collection of papers on film is one of the largest collections on a single theme produced by Mass-Observation but before this book was originally published in 1987 very little of the film material had been put into print. This anthology presents a selection from the Mass-Observation archive which offers unique insights into cinema-going trends, particularly in the years of the Second World War. This is a great reference work on the role of the cinema in national morale and other social effects during the war years with details of people’s behaviour at the cinema and their opinions of the films and the newsreels they saw at the movies.

In the preface the authors describe their approach, 'In examining the social history of railway stations we were concerned to treat them not as inanimate objects, but as living, breathing places which, better than any other building type of the last 150 years, reflected the societies around them, public buildings which people used in all sorts of ways and whose significance they instantly recognized when depicted in the theatre, the cinema, paintings, photographs, poetry, novels, and travel works. For this reason we have chosen to allow other voices to tell part of the story, to illustrate through quotation the central, but often differing, role of the station in so many societies and so many lives.'They succeed triumphantly in this aim. After the introduction aptly called 'The Mystique of the Railway Station' there are fifteen absorbing chapters covering: The Station in Architecture (three chapters); The Station and Society; The Station in Politics; Class, Race, and Sex; Some Station Types; The Station in the Economy (two chapters); The Station as Place of Work; The Station in Wartime (two chapters); The Usual Offices; The Station in Painting and Poetry, Postcard and Poster; and The Station in Literature and Film. The scope is comprehensive, the achievement magnificent.'written with great enthusiasm . . . packed with rich detail. This is real social history.' Asa Briggs'full of good quotations, and (the authors) write with the infectious enthusiasm of addicts, captivated by the romance of railways' Times Literary Supplement'remarkable . . . the railway station in all its aspects' A. N. Wilson.

Jeffrey Richards is a regular radio and television commentator on popular culture. Covers the period from Ealing Studios to Dad's Army. A great read.

For the authorities in medieval Europe, dissent struck at the roots of an ordered, settled world. It was to be crushed - initially by reason and argument, eventually by torture. Jeffrey Richards examines the wretched lives of heretics, witches, Jews, lepers and homosexuals and uncovers a common motive for their persecution: sexual aberrance.

Gregory the Great, whose reign spanned the years between 590 and 604 A.D., was one of the most remarkable figures of the early medieval Papacy. Aristocrat, administrator, teacher and scholar, he ascended the throne of St Peter at a time of acute crisis for the Roman Church. Consul of God, first published in 1980, revises the traditional picture of Pope Gregory. It examines how he organised the central administration of the Papacy and his unremitting war on heresy and schism. Gregory also pioneered a new pastoral tradition in learning, promoted monasticism, and trained the episcopate.Jeffrey Richards demonstrates that Gregory was both a conservative and a pioneer, and just as his reign looked forward to the medieval world it also looked back to a vanishing world of imperial unity. He was thus the last representative of those Roman senators whose fortitude and energy he emulated, earning the epitaph ‘Consul of God’.

Gregory the Great, whose reign spanned the years between 590 and 604 A.D., was one of the most remarkable figures of the early medieval Papacy. Aristocrat, administrator, teacher and scholar, he ascended the throne of St Peter at a time of acute crisis for the Roman Church. Consul of God, first published in 1980, revises the traditional picture of Pope Gregory. It examines how he organised the central administration of the Papacy and his unremitting war on heresy and schism. Gregory also pioneered a new pastoral tradition in learning, promoted monasticism, and trained the episcopate.Jeffrey Richards demonstrates that Gregory was both a conservative and a pioneer, and just as his reign looked forward to the medieval world it also looked back to a vanishing world of imperial unity. He was thus the last representative of those Roman senators whose fortitude and energy he emulated, earning the epitaph ‘Consul of God’.

There has been a tendency to the view the history of the early medieval papacy predominantly in ideological terms, which has resulted in the over-exaggeration of the idea of the papal monarchy. In this study, first published in 1979, Jeffrey Richards questions this view, arguing that whilst the papacy’s power and responsibility grew during the period under discussion, it did so by a series of historical accidents rather than a coherent radical design. The title redresses the imbalance implicit in the monarchical interpretation, and emphasizes other important political, administrative and social aspects of papal history. As such it will be of particular value to students interested in the history of the Church; in particular, the development of the early medieval papacy, and the shifting policies and characteristics of the popes themselves.

There has been a tendency to the view the history of the early medieval papacy predominantly in ideological terms, which has resulted in the over-exaggeration of the idea of the papal monarchy. In this study, first published in 1979, Jeffrey Richards questions this view, arguing that whilst the papacy’s power and responsibility grew during the period under discussion, it did so by a series of historical accidents rather than a coherent radical design. The title redresses the imbalance implicit in the monarchical interpretation, and emphasizes other important political, administrative and social aspects of papal history. As such it will be of particular value to students interested in the history of the Church; in particular, the development of the early medieval papacy, and the shifting policies and characteristics of the popes themselves.

The Mass Observation social research organisation (1937 to early 1950s), a pioneering independent effort aimed at education, specialised in material about everyday life in Britain and recorded material through a panel of around 500 volunteer observers who maintained diaries or replied to open-ended questionnaires known as directives.The collection of papers on film is one of the largest collections on a single theme produced by Mass-Observation but before this book was originally published in 1987 very little of the film material had been put into print. This anthology presents a selection from the Mass-Observation archive which offers unique insights into cinema-going trends, particularly in the years of the Second World War. This is a great reference work on the role of the cinema in national morale and other social effects during the war years with details of people’s behaviour at the cinema and their opinions of the films and the newsreels they saw at the movies.

Film is an important source of social history, as well as having been a popular art form from the early twentieth century. This study shows how a society, consciously or unconsciously, is mirrored in its cinema. It considers the role of the cinema in dramatizing popular beliefs and myths, and takes three case studies – American populism, British imperialism, German Nazism – to explain how a nation’s pressures, tensions and hopes come through in its films. Examining the American cinema is accomplished by analysing the careers of three great directors, John Ford, Frank Capra and Leo McCarey, while the British and German cinemas are studied by theme. The analysis of the British Empire as seen in film broke exciting new ground with a pioneering account of ‘the cinema of Empire’ when it was first published in 1973.With full filmographies and a carefully selected bibliography it is an outstanding work of reference and its lively approach makes it a delight to read.Reviews of the original edition:‘A work of considerable force and considerable wit.’ – Clive James, Observer‘…a work that is original, mentally stimulating and most pleasurable to read.’ – Focus on Film

This fascinating study of the genre of swashbuckling films received wide critical acclaim when it was first published in 1977. Jeffrey Richards assesses the contributions to the genre of directors, designers and fencing masters, as well as of the stars themselves, and devotes several chapters to the principal subjects if the swashbucklers – pirates, highwaymen, cavaliers and knights. The result is to recall, however fleetingly, the golden days of the silver screen. Reviews of the original edition:‘An intelligent, scholarly, well-written account of adventure films, this work is sensitive both to cinema history and to the literary origins of the "swashbuckler"….Essential for any library with books on film, it may very well be the definitive book on its subject.’ – Library Journal

The great director John Ford (1894-1973) is best known for classic westerns, but his body of work encompasses much more than this single genre. Jeffrey Richards develops and broadens our understanding of Ford's film-making oeuvre by studying his non-Western films through the lens of Ford’s life and abiding preoccupations. Ford's other cinematic worlds included Ireland, the Family, Catholicism, War and the Sea, which share with his westerns the recurrent themes of memory and loss, the plight of outsiders and the tragedy of family breakup. Richards' revisionist study both provides new insights into familiar films such as The Fugitive (1947); The Quiet Man (1952), Gideon’s Way and The Informer (1935) and reclaims neglected masterpieces, among them Wee Willie Winkie (1937) and the extraordinary The Long Voyage Home. (1940).

Of all the theatrical genres most prized by the Victorians, pantomime is the only one to have survived continuously into the twenty-first century. It remains as true today as it was in the 1830s, that a visit to the pantomime constitutes the first theatrical experience of most children and now, as then, a successful pantomime season is the key to the financial health of most theatres. Everyone went to the pantomime, from Queen Victoria and the royal family to the humblest of her subjects. It appealed equally to West End and East End, to London and the provinces, to both sexes and all ages. Many Victorian luminaries were devotees of the pantomime, notably among them John Ruskin, Charles Dickens, Lewis Carroll and W.E. Gladstone. In this vivid and evocative account of the Victorian pantomime, Jeffrey Richards examines the potent combination of slapstick, spectacle and subversion that ensured the enduring popularity of the form. The secret of its success, he argues, was its continual evolution.It acted as an accurate cultural barometer of its times, directly reflecting current attitudes, beliefs and preoccupations, and it kept up a flow of instantly recognisable topical allusions to political rows, fashion fads, technological triumphs, wars and revolutions, and society scandals. Richards assesses throughout the contribution of writers, producers, designers and stars to the success of the pantomime in its golden age. This book is a treat as rich and appetizing as turkey, mince pies and plum pudding.

The great director John Ford (1894-1973) is best known for classic westerns, but his body of work encompasses much more than this single genre. Jeffrey Richards develops and broadens our understanding of Ford's film-making oeuvre by studying his non-Western films through the lens of Ford’s life and abiding preoccupations. Ford's other cinematic worlds included Ireland, the Family, Catholicism, War and the Sea, which share with his westerns the recurrent themes of memory and loss, the plight of outsiders and the tragedy of family breakup. Richards' revisionist study both provides new insights into familiar films such as The Fugitive (1947); The Quiet Man (1952), Gideon’s Way and The Informer (1935) and reclaims neglected masterpieces, among them Wee Willie Winkie (1937) and the extraordinary The Long Voyage Home. (1940).

There's a folk memory of China in which numberless yellow hordes pour out of the 'mysterious East' to overwhelm the vulnerable West, accompanied by a stereotype of the Chinese as cruel, cunning and depraved. Hollywood films played their part in perpetuating these myths and stereotypes that constituted 'The Yellow Peril'. Jeffrey Richards examines in detail how and why they did it. He shows how the negative image was embodied in recurrent cinematic depictions of opium dens, tong wars, sadistic dragon ladies and corrupt warlords and how, in the 1930s and 1940s, a countervailing positive image involved the heroic peasants of The Good Earth and Dragon Seed fighting against Japanese invasion in wartime tributes to the West's ally, Nationalist China. The cinema's split level response is also traced through the images of the ultimate Oriental villain, the sinister Dr. Fu Manchu and the timeless Chinese hero, the intelligent and benevolent detective Charlie Chan.Filling a longstanding gap in Cinema and Cultural History, the book is founded in fresh research into Hollywood's shifting representations of China and its people.

This collection brings together studies of popular performance and politics across the nineteenth century, offering a fresh perspective from an archivally grounded research base. It works with the concept that politics is performative and performance is political. The book is organised into three parts in dialogue regarding specific approaches to popular performance and politics. Part I offers a series of conceptual studies using popular culture as an analytical category for social and political history. Part II explores the ways that performance represents and constructs contemporary ideologies of race, nation and empire. Part III investigates the performance techniques of specific politicians – including Robert Peel, Keir Hardie and Henry Hyndman – and analyses the performative elements of collective movements.

By the time of his death in 1973, John Ford was probably the most celebrated director of Hollywood’s golden age. The winner of four best director Oscars, he was the first filmmaker to be awarded his country’s highest civilian honour, the Medal of Freedom, and the man chosen by the American Film Institute to receive its first life achievement award.In his work, Ford returned regularly to the same themes, employed the same actors and had a visual style that was personal and distinctive. This volume explores his preoccupations throughout his long, garlanded career, showing how he attempted to come to terms with American history, with how America kept changing its relationship with history and with how many of the myths of the ‘West’ were just that – myths.

By the time of his death in 1973, John Ford was probably the most celebrated director of Hollywood’s golden age. The winner of four best director Oscars, he was the first filmmaker to be awarded his country’s highest civilian honour, the Medal of Freedom, and the man chosen by the American Film Institute to receive its first life achievement award.In his work, Ford returned regularly to the same themes, employed the same actors and had a visual style that was personal and distinctive. This volume explores his preoccupations throughout his long, garlanded career, showing how he attempted to come to terms with American history, with how America kept changing its relationship with history and with how many of the myths of the ‘West’ were just that – myths.

Of all the theatrical genres most prized by the Victorians, pantomime is the only one to have survived continuously into the twenty-first century. It remains as true today as it was in the 1830s, that a visit to the pantomime constitutes the first theatrical experience of most children and now, as then, a successful pantomime season is the key to the financial health of most theatres. Everyone went to the pantomime, from Queen Victoria and the royal family to the humblest of her subjects. It appealed equally to West End and East End, to London and the provinces, to both sexes and all ages. Many Victorian luminaries were devotees of the pantomime, notably among them John Ruskin, Charles Dickens, Lewis Carroll and W.E. Gladstone. In this vivid and evocative account of the Victorian pantomime, Jeffrey Richards examines the potent combination of slapstick, spectacle and subversion that ensured the enduring popularity of the form. The secret of its success, he argues, was its continual evolution.It acted as an accurate cultural barometer of its times, directly reflecting current attitudes, beliefs and preoccupations, and it kept up a flow of instantly recognisable topical allusions to political rows, fashion fads, technological triumphs, wars and revolutions, and society scandals. Richards assesses throughout the contribution of writers, producers, designers and stars to the success of the pantomime in its golden age. This book is a treat as rich and appetizing as turkey, mince pies and plum pudding.

There's a folk memory of China in which numberless yellow hordes pour out of the 'mysterious East' to overwhelm the vulnerable West, accompanied by a stereotype of the Chinese as cruel, cunning and depraved. Hollywood films played their part in perpetuating these myths and stereotypes that constituted 'The Yellow Peril'. Jeffrey Richards examines in detail how and why they did it. He shows how the negative image was embodied in recurrent cinematic depictions of opium dens, tong wars, sadistic dragon ladies and corrupt warlords and how, in the 1930s and 1940s, a countervailing positive image involved the heroic peasants of The Good Earth and Dragon Seed fighting against Japanese invasion in wartime tributes to the West's ally, Nationalist China. The cinema's split level response is also traced through the images of the ultimate Oriental villain, the sinister Dr. Fu Manchu and the timeless Chinese hero, the intelligent and benevolent detective Charlie Chan.Filling a longstanding gap in Cinema and Cultural History, the book is founded in fresh research into Hollywood's shifting representations of China and its people.

Cinema and radio in Britain and America, 1920–60 charts the evolving relationship between the two principal mass media of the period. It explores, for the first time in print, the creative symbiosis that developed between the two, including regular film versions of popular radio series as well as radio versions of hit films. This fascinating volume, now available in paperback, examines specific genres (comedy and detective stories) to identify similarities and differences in their media appearances, and in particular issues arising from the nature of film as predominantly visual and radio as exclusively aural. Richards also highlights the interchange of personnel, such as Orson Welles, between the two media. Throughout the book runs the theme of comparison and contrast between the experiences of the two media in Britain and America. The book culminates with an in-depth analysis of the media appearances of three enduring mythic figures in popular culture: Sherlock Holmes, Tarzan and The Scarlet Pimpernel.Students, scholars and lay enthusiasts of cinema history, cultural history and media studies will find this an accessible yet scholarly read.

At the outbreak of the Second World War, all cinemas in Britain were closed. Ten days later, they were opened again as a valuable way of boosting morale and a principal source of recreation for the nation at war. Feature films were not just escapist entertainment; they provided instruction and information, and over the next six years, some 300 feature films and thousands of short films and news reels were produced in what is now seen as British cinema's 'finest hour'. "Britain Can Take It" charts this momentous period through the eyes of thirteen key films. Aldgate and Richards make use of key resources, from scripts and box-office returns to official Home Office documents and censorship archives, to bring these films to vivid life. In telling their stories, the authors also recreate the society, the politics and war-time conditions in which they appeared and flourished. This new edition of "Britain Can Take It" features a new chapter on Launder and Gilliat's 1943 film on women factory workers, "Millions Like Us". It will be welcomed back by film scholars and historians, students and film lovers as essential reading.

This book offers a new, full analysis of the Ancient World epic and how this film genre continues to comment on modern-day issues.Few genres have been subject to such critical scorn as the Ancient World epic. Yet they have regularly achieved huge box office success. This book tells the history of the Ancient World epic from the silent screen successes of "Intolerance" and "The King of Kings" through the 'golden age of the epic' in the 1950s (Quo Vadis, Ben-Hur, Spartacus, Cleopatra etc) through to the 1990s revival with "Gladiator", its successors in cinema (Alexander, Troy, 300) and on television (Rome).Geoffrey Richards examines the cultural, social, economical and technological circumstances that dictated the rise and decline of each successive cycle of Ancient World epics, analysing each of the great films and assessing their critical and box office success or failure. He also seeks to tease out the hidden messages concealed in the narrative. For historical films are always as much about the time in which they are made as they are about the time in which they are set.Close examination reveals the recurrent use of the Ancient World to deliver messages to the contemporary audience about the present: messages such as hostility to totalitarian regimes both Fascist and Communist, concern at the decline of Christianity, support for the new state of Israel, celebrations of equality and democracy, and concern about changing gender roles. The whole adds up to a fresh look at a body of films that people think they know, but about which they will learn a good deal more.

The period between the two world wars is often named 'the golden age of the cinema' in Britain. This definitive and entertaining book on the cinema and cinema-goers of the era is herewith reissued with a new Introduction. Jeffrey Richards, described by Philip French as 'a shrewd critic, a compulsive moviegoer, and a professional historian', tells the absorbing story of the cinema during the decade that produced Alfred Hitchcock's thrillers, the musicals of Jessie Matthews and Alexander Korda's epics. He examines the role of going to the pictures in people's lives during a tough period when, in the sumptuous buildings that housed local cinemas, people regularly spent a few pence to purchase ready-made dreams watching Gracie Fields, Robert Donat and the other stars of the day. He scrutinizes the film industry, censorship, cinema's influence, the nature of the star system and its images, as well as the films themselves, including the visions of Britain, British history and society that they created and represented.

Sir Henry Irving was the greatest actor of the Victorian age and was thought of by Gladstone as his greatest contemporary. He transformed the theatre, in Britain and America, from a disreputable and marginal entertainment into a respected, civilising and uplifting art form. Irving's enthusiastic supporters, eager to see his every appearance, ranged from Queen Victoria to working men and housewives. At the Lyceum Theatre from 1878 to 1902, he set new standards in acting, often partnered by Ellen Terry, and in production. In 1895, he became the first actor to receive a knighthood. His tours to America brought a revolution in acting practice to the New World. In "Sir Henry Irvine: A Victorian Actor and his World", published to mark the centenary of Irving's death, Jeffrey Richards gives an account not only of Irving himself but also of his impact on the Victorian theatre and on Victorian life as a whole.