One evening I watched three documentaries on British film history: a standard cut and paste job on Rank called The Golden Gong, but it was not without some interesting tidbits.A sleazy and smart ass exploitation of film personality scandals in the 3os era called Shepperton Babylon that tells us little that is really useful about the background of that major studio.And then, ironically, a much much better documentary by the same Matthew Sweet who was involved with the Shepperton one, this time on British B movies.The program is well organized into categories showing which kinds of genres were popular at which time and for what reasons and makes a convincing argument that the viewer, if he or she can get ahold of some of these rarities, will get a more unvarnished and realistic idea of what England was like in the years between the 193os and 197os than in the more well known prestige pictures.There are an impressive number of fleeting clips from films you not only are unlikely to have seen but also may not even have heard of, though several films are discussed at greater length. I recommend watching this.
