film history | The British Newspaper Archive Blog - Part 2

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Hot Off The Press – New Titles This Week

This week you might just be able to witness steam coming off our presses, as we have added an impressive 343,381 brand new pages to The Archive, with 22 brand new titles joining us this week alone. Comprising of special interest titles devoted to music and the cinema, as well as to different spheres of employment, from postal work to pawnbroking, our new titles this week are an eclectic mix, comprising also the regional and the international, covering the latest from both China and

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Celebrating 75 Years Since the Release of ‘Brief Encounter’

75 years ago, on the 26 November 1945, Noël Coward’s enduring masterpiece Brief Encounter was released to cinema audiences. A classic of post-war cinema, Brief Encounter came to symbolise the British restraint that had got the nation through the Second World War, its popularity enduring to this day. In this special blog, using newspapers taken from the British Newspaper Archive, we will take a look at the contemporary reception of Coward’s film, and how it was received by cinema-goers across the country. Celia Johnson

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Anna May Wong and Her Surprising British Connection

Anna May Wong, born Wong Liu Tsong in Los Angeles in 1905 to second generation Chinese-American parents, is widely considered to be the first Chinese-American Hollywood star, and certainly the first Chinese-American actor to win international fame and attention. The Bystander | 27 May 1931 After gaining success in such films as The Toll of the Sea and The Thief of Baghdad in the 1920s, and fed up with the stereotyped roles she was given (the Coventry Evening Telegraph in 1961 remembers her as the ‘slinky

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Hot Off The Press – New Titles This Week

This week on The Archive we have added 63,650 brand new pages, giving us a total today of 39,709,184 pages, as we move ever closer to that spectacular landmark of 40 million pages available to view. With one brand new title added this week, covering the county of Somerset, we have updates to regional titles from across England, from Yorkshire in the north to Plymouth in the south, by way of Birmingham and Shropshire. So read on to find out which new title we have added this

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‘Luxury in Suburbia’ – Exploring the Golden Age of Cinema Going

In 1948 cinema attendance peaked with a staggering 1,650 million visits recorded in Great Britain throughout that year. This was the height of the golden age of cinema going, something that had begun in the 1920s and burgeoned throughout the 1930s and 1940s. The Regal, Altrincham, known as ‘the cathedral of cinemas’ | The Bioscope | 24 June 1931 In this special blog we will explore this golden age of cinema going and what contributed to its overwhelming success and popularity, using

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Hot Off The Press – New Titles This Week

This week has been another busy one here at The Archive as we have added 97,266 brand new pages to our collection – including one brand new title from Scotland. And it’s a lucky thirteen for our updated titles – with updates to newspapers from Rochester to Gloucester, from Ireland and Wales, as well as to some of our special interest publications. So read on to discover more about our brand new title – the Greenock Herald – and the other updates we have

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Hot Off The Press – New Titles This Week

This week at The Archive we are delighted to once more welcome an array of very special brand new titles, as we have added 150,218 brand new pages over the past seven days. From a new film title, to a new international one, via some extensive additions to both our regional and national titles, we are bringing you a variety of eclectic and exciting new pages this week. So read on to discover more about the Kinematograph Weekly and the British Australasian – as well

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From Best Seller to Best Picture: Daphne du Maurier’s ‘Rebecca’

To celebrate the release of Netflix’s new film Rebecca, starring Armie Hammer, Lily James and Kristin Scott Thomas, in this special blog we will be looking at the publishing phenomenon that was, and still is, Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca. Published in August 1938, Rebecca was Daphne du Maurier’s fifth novel, the author having already had success with her 1936 work Jamaica Inn. The daughter of Sir Gerald du Maurier, a famous actor, and the granddaughter of George du Maurier, a cartoonist and novelist, Daphne du Maurier had

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The Death of Geronimo – Apache Warrior and Chief

On 17 February 1909, the famous Apache warrior and chief, Geronimo, died of pneumonia (he had lain out in the cold all the previous night, following a fall from a horse) at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, aged 79. Despite being a prisoner of war since his surrender in 1886, Geronimo was still known and talked about across the Atlantic in Britain. Not long before his death, the Manchester Courier and Lancashire General Advertiser in 1908 celebrates the ‘Last Apache War Chief.’ Manchester Courier and Lancashire

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