Bringing ‘the whole world on to the British screen’: Back Projection and British Film Studios in the 1930s and 1940s

Back projection was a technique used particularly in the 1930s and 1940s to create the impression that film stars had been on location when in fact a camera recorded them in a studio acting in front of previously shot location footage projected onto a screen from behind. This article discusses its application in British studios, highlighting the contribution of key technicians to its development and refinement. Key examples are explored to show that a variety of approaches were used in different genres including thrillers, musicals and comedies. The technique’s novelty in films such as Rome Express (1932) and as used by Alfred Hitchcock in Young and Innocent (1937) brings out the multiple uses it could perform, as well as enabling theoretical reflection on reading sequences that deployed back projection. It is argued that back projection was one effect among many that were being developed and that in many cases these were mutually supportive. The article notes the keen contemporary interest in how films were made as studio correspondents recorded interesting cases of back-projected footage. In wartime and in the immediate postwar years the technique helped to cut costs and solve logistical problems while at the same time enabling films to present scenes that would otherwise have been highly difficult and even dangerous. Although travelling matte and other effects and processes subsequently superseded the use of back projection, its legacy remains as an enduring technical and aesthetic element of many classic and lesser-known British films.