In Racket Town: Gangster Chic in Austerity Britain, 1939-1953

TY - JOUR

T1 - In Racket Town

T2 - Gangster Chic in Austerity Britain, 1939-1953

AU - Roodhouse, Mark Cardwell

N1 - Published in a special issue of the journal dedicated to best papers from the IHR Winter Conference 2010.

PY - 2011/11/23

Y1 - 2011/11/23

N2 - The postwar cycle of ‘spiv’ films, which Robert Murphy first brought to scholarly attention, is widely regarded as a turning point in the history of British crime cinema. For the first time this cycle of films portrayed recognizably British criminals in familiar postwar settings. The films are seen as a creative response to black marketeering during and immediately after the Second World War. This simple narrative obscures the tangled relationship between the postwar British spiv film and the interwar American gangster film, and between film and crime. Although the direct influence of the gangster on the celluloid spiv has long been appreciated, his indirect influence on the spiv phenomenon has gone unremarked. This article tells the story of how young men, fans of the interwar gangster film, aped the style of their heroes Edward G. Robinson and James Cagney, giving the spiv, the latest incarnation of the working-class wide boy, an ‘American Look’ that influenced filmic portrayals. In doing so, this article enriches our understanding of the relationship between British and American crime cinema.

AB - The postwar cycle of ‘spiv’ films, which Robert Murphy first brought to scholarly attention, is widely regarded as a turning point in the history of British crime cinema. For the first time this cycle of films portrayed recognizably British criminals in familiar postwar settings. The films are seen as a creative response to black marketeering during and immediately after the Second World War. This simple narrative obscures the tangled relationship between the postwar British spiv film and the interwar American gangster film, and between film and crime. Although the direct influence of the gangster on the celluloid spiv has long been appreciated, his indirect influence on the spiv phenomenon has gone unremarked. This article tells the story of how young men, fans of the interwar gangster film, aped the style of their heroes Edward G. Robinson and James Cagney, giving the spiv, the latest incarnation of the working-class wide boy, an ‘American Look’ that influenced filmic portrayals. In doing so, this article enriches our understanding of the relationship between British and American crime cinema.

KW - spiv

KW - gangster

KW - film

KW - fashion

KW - austerity

KW - Britain

U2 - 10.1080/01439685.2011.620846

DO - 10.1080/01439685.2011.620846

M3 - Article

SN - 0143-9685

VL - 31

SP - 541

EP - 559

JO - Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television

JF - Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television

IS - 4

ER -