Ms Laraine Porter

Job: Senior Lecturer in Film

Faculty: Computing, Engineering and Media

School/department: Leicester Media School

Research group(s): Cinema and Television History Centre (CATH)

Address: De Montfort University, The Gateway, Leicester, UK, LE1 9BH

T: +44 (0)116 257 7995

E: lporter@dmu.ac.uk

W: http://www.britishsilents.co.uk

Close all sections

Open all sections

Personal profile

British silent cinema, silent cinema and live music, British Silent Film Festival, the BECTU Oral History Project, Women’s Film History, British cinema history, Cinema and World War I, British silent film comedy.

Research group affiliations

CATHI – Cinema and Television History Research History

Publications and outputs

“A game of hare and hounds with one small terrier puffing well in the rear”: working at the birth of British silent cinema music'.
dc.title: “A game of hare and hounds with one small terrier puffing well in the rear”: working at the birth of British silent cinema music'. dc.contributor.author: Porter, Laraine dc.description.abstract: The practice and performance of silent cinema music was an ephemeral art form that largely passed into memory with the arrival of the talkies in Britain in 1929. It had existed for two decades with the majority of Britain’s 4,500 cinemas playing up to sixty hours of music each week. As such it provided employment for tens of thousands of musicians and entertainment for the majority of the population who were cinemagoers. But despite its ubiquity, there are no extant recordings of cinema music performances from this period and researchers must rely on the traces left by those early practitioners; the sheet and library music that they used and annotated, the voices of the critics who described and debated the merits of cinema music and the autobiographical material of composers like William Alwyn and Louis Levy who forged their careers in cinema music from the silent period. Early instruction manuals hint at key developments in the art and language of film music and silent cinema musicians performing today offer audiences a strong impression of the experience of live music in cinemas. Some like Neil Brand research and publish on the history of their craft. This article uses these sources to consider the development of silent cinema music in Britain from 1909 to the coming of sound in the early 1930s, focussing on the role of the cinema music director, the music publishing industries and instruction manuals that supported their craft as the language of cinema music developed in tandem with film form and style before passing into history in the rush to embrace the talkies. dc.description: The file attached to this record is the author's final peer reviewed version. The Publisher's final version can be found by following the DOI link.
David Kennerley. Sounding Feminine: Women's Voices in British Musical Culture, 1780–1850
dc.title: David Kennerley. Sounding Feminine: Women's Voices in British Musical Culture, 1780–1850 dc.contributor.author: Porter, Laraine dc.description: Book review
All Singing! All Talking! All British! Musical Moments in Early British Sound Cinema 1929 to 1932.
dc.title: All Singing! All Talking! All British! Musical Moments in Early British Sound Cinema 1929 to 1932. dc.contributor.author: Porter, Laraine dc.description.abstract: British silent cinema transformed to sound in June 1929, slightly ahead of Europe and a year or so behind Hollywood whose popular Al Jolson Musicals The Jazz Singer (1927) and The Singing Fool (1928) had taken British cinemas by storm. Alfred Hitchcock’s murder story (Blackmail, Alfred Hitchcock, UK) was Britain’s first official talkie and like the majority of films that followed in its wake, contained a pivotal musical moment. This article analyses the use of song and music in early British talkies as they sought to forge a new ‘talkie film language’ by combining dialogue, music and plot. It argues that these early musical moments deployed the dramatic potential of synchronised music at pivotal moments in the plot as well as using them to delineate gender and sexuality and signalling differences in class and culture through the representation of musical tastes, styles and motifs. In some cases, music freed the performers from the tyranny of early spoken dialogue, stilted scripts and primitive microphone technology. Importantly, musical interludes also created commercial opportunities from sales of the ‘song-from-the-film’, exploiting links between early talkies and the lucrative domestic gramophone and sheet music markets. dc.description: open access chapter British Silent Cinema and the Transition to Sound 1927-1933
“Please the women or die”: silent cinema and the construction of female desire
dc.title: “Please the women or die”: silent cinema and the construction of female desire dc.contributor.author: Porter, Laraine dc.description.abstract: By the mid-1920s, the top echelons of the film industry on both sides of the Atlantic, were almost entirely dominated by men, despite women becoming the majority consumers of cinema. Male studio bosses, producers, directors and publicists interpreted women’s tastes and expectations throughout the silent period. In 1926, the film critic Iris Barry insisted that cinema ‘exists for the purpose of pleasing women’ (Barry, 59) who formed a significant majority of the British population from the 1910s. Women were also central to the burgeoning consumer cultures surrounding cinema including magazines, novels, fashion, beauty and leisure and their tastes and patterns of consumption steered the expansion of the cinema industry. But despite their increasing economic power as consumers, Barry also lamented Hollywood’s insistence on driving women to romance and marriage rather than adventure and independence (ibid.: 61). This article considers how cinema’s masculine power base was forced to accommodate and address feminine cultures despite repeated excoriation of young female cinemagoers by Britain’s intellectual elites. dc.description: The file attached to this record is the author's final peer reviewed version. The Publisher's final version can be found by following the DOI link
Structures of Feeling: Contemporary Research in Women's Film and Broadcasting History
dc.title: Structures of Feeling: Contemporary Research in Women's Film and Broadcasting History dc.contributor.author: Porter, Laraine; Ball, Vicky; Kirkham, Pat dc.description.abstract: This special issue is the second volume originaing from the 'Doing Women's Film and TV Histories III' International conference held at the Phoenix Cinema, Leicester, England in May 2016. It connects with concerns and questions of women's production histories related to the constructed nature of history and how we write a 'history from below' to foreground the hidden, marginalised or forgotten histories of our women ancestors. This collection captures something of the dominant 'structures of feeling' of womens' film and broadcasting history scholarship in the contemporary period ranging from consideration of women working in both above and below-the-line roles in film, television and radio, to those whose labour fell outside of mainstream cinema production, as in the instance of the amateur film in the UK between the 1930s and 1980. Together, these case studies span from 1926 to the contemporary period, providing particular flashpoints of women's history across the UK, North America, Italy and Australia.
'"The Film Gone Male:" women and the transition to sound in the British film industry 1929-1932'
dc.title: '"The Film Gone Male:" women and the transition to sound in the British film industry 1929-1932' dc.contributor.author: Porter, Laraine dc.description.abstract: Taking its cue from Dorothy Richardson’s essay, ‘The Film Gone Male’ written for the critical, Left-wing British film publication Close Up in 1932, this article looks at women working in the British film industry during the transition from silent to sound cinema between 1929 and 1932. It considers the effects of new sound technology on women’s roles in front of and behind the camera from production to reception and critique. It also questions whether sound technology further marginalised women as producers of cinema and interrogates whether synchronised sound masculinised film as Richardson asserted. dc.description: The file attached to this record is the author's final peer reviewed version. The Publisher's final version can be found by following the DOI link.
Okay for Sound? The reception of the Talkies in Britain 1928-1932
dc.title: Okay for Sound? The reception of the Talkies in Britain 1928-1932 dc.contributor.author: Porter, Laraine dc.description.abstract: The arrival of the talkies in Britain evoked mixed responses. While popular audiences enthusiastically embraced Hollywood musicals like the Al Jolson hit The Singing Fool (1928), the literati were often scathing of ‘mechanical’ music and dialogue. Hollywood dictated the speed of change and economics and public demand soon forced the British film industry to convert to sound, but critics, intellectuals, educators, artists, literary figures and musicians were openly hostile to the new art form, opening a chasm between popular taste and intellectual response. The cacophony of dissenting voices was joined by various official reports from bodies like the Trades Union Congress and the Federation of British Industries who predicted the deleterious effect of the talkies on everything from British jobs in manufacturing to diminishing Britain’s influence across its colonies and dominions. This article will map these discourses and examine attitudes to the introduction of the talkies in Britain between 1929 and 1932 as the new technology gathered momentum across the UK and film criticism developed as a distinct discipline.
Routledge Companion to British Cinema History
dc.title: Routledge Companion to British Cinema History dc.contributor.author: Hunter, I. Q.; Porter, Laraine; Smith, Justin dc.description.abstract: A 39-chapter edited volume that offers a comprehensive and revisionist overview of British cinema as both a commercial entertainment industry and a series of institutions centred on economics, funding and relations to Government. The volume places emphasis on areas where scholarship has been especially productive and influential, such as early and silent cinema, or promoted new approaches such as audience and memory studies.
‘Have You a Happy Voice?’ Women’s voices and the talkie revolution in Britain 1929-1932
dc.title: ‘Have You a Happy Voice?’ Women’s voices and the talkie revolution in Britain 1929-1932 dc.contributor.author: Porter, Laraine
Music, gender and the feminisation of British silent cinema 1909-1929
dc.title: Music, gender and the feminisation of British silent cinema 1909-1929 dc.contributor.author: Porter, Laraine

Click here for a full listing of Laraine Porter's publications and outputs.

Key research outputs

‘How Shall We Look Again? Revisiting the Archive in British Silent Cinema and the Great War’ in Hammond, M and Williams, M. (eds) British Silent Cinema and the Great War (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011).

‘From Slapstick to Satire: British Silent Film Comedy’ in Hunter I.Q and Porter L. (eds) British Comedy Cinema (London: Routledge, 2012).

Research interests/expertise

British cinema history
Silent cinema
Cinema comedy
British cinema
Women and cinema
The Transition between silent and sound cinema in the UK
UK cinema exhibition; policy, finance and practice
Independent cinema in the UK
Super 8 Film making in the 1980s

Areas of teaching

Film theory Film history
Film and documentary
Film genre
American cinema
Women and cinema

Qualifications

MA (Distinction)

Courses taught

Film 1000 Introduction to Film Studies
Cinema and Realism
Women and Cinema
American Film and Visual Culture

Membership of external committees

Trustee of Media Archive of Central England (MACE) since 2000-2012

Trustee of Ridewise Ltd, Nottingham – an organisation set up to work with local government, NGOs, Primary Care Trusts, schools and other public and private organisations in providing cycle training as part of transport plans etc. 2004-2011.

Membership of professional associations and societies

Women’s Film and TV History Network (Steering group member from 2009)

Conference attendance

Elizabeth von Arnim, The Princess Priscilla’s Fortnight and The Runaway Princess’ – presentation/paper at the Women’s Film History Network at BFI Southbank - 7 November 2009. Funded by DMU.

‘On the Category of ‘Women’ in Film Exhibition’ – paper give at the International Women’s Film History Network - Columbia University NY, 11-14 March 2010 (funded by AHRC Women’s Film History Project).

‘A Lass and a Lack: Women and British Silent Film Comedy’ paper given at the Women and the Silent Screen Conference, University of Bologna - June 2010. Funded by DMU Research.

‘The History of the Phoenix in Leicester’ – presentation given at the ‘From Silent Screen to Digital Screen’ conference at, Phoenix Square July 2010.

‘Women Musicians in Silent Cinema’ at Cine Sisters Conference 18 July 2011 at The Women’s Library London, funded by CATH, DMU.

‘Ruritanian Runaways, Vagabond Queens and Cockney Flower Sellers: Class, Comedy and Romance in British Silent Film’ 3 March 2011 as part of ‘RomCom Actually’, DMU Cultural Exchanges Festival’.

Other forms of public presentation

‘Archive Film and Sport’ presentation for Screen East/Cultural Olympiad as part of the Cambridge Film Festival, June 2008.

‘Rats, Ruffians and Rascals; The Globalisation of Crime in British Silent Cinema’, British Silent Film Festival April 2008, Broadway, Nottingham (Festival Director and presenter).

‘Music, Sound and the British Silent Film’ British Silent Film Festival June 2009, Barbican, London (Festival Director and presenter).

‘Hindle Wakes’ introduction to film and presentations on Archive Film at the Blackpool Festival, 19 -21 February 2010, in conjunction with National Fairground Archive at Sheffield University.

‘The World Before You, Exploration, Science and Nature in the British Silent Film’ Festival April 2010, Phoenix Square, Leicester (Festival Director).

‘Going to the Movies; Music Sound and the British Silent Film’ British Silent Film Festival April 2011 at Barbican in London (Festival Director and presenter).

BBC World Talking Movies – interview with Al Moloney – April 2011.

The 15th British Silent Film Festival – April 2012 at the Arts Picturehouse in Cambridge (Festival Director and presenter).

BBC Radio 4 Women’s Hour interview Friday 3 Feb (reprised Sat 4 Feb) on the effects of the transition to sound cinema on film stars in the 1920s.

See Hear feature on BBC 2 TV - interview on the use of deaf actors in silent cinema, broadcast on 7 March 2012.

Consultancy work

I was the Director of Broadway Media Centre in Nottingham between 1998 and 2008 and have expertise in all aspects of cinema and media exhibition, programming, policy, finance and practice and in venue management.

I am the Director of the British Silent Film Festival and have 15years experience in curating and staging film festivals.

Current research students

Vivienne Chadder PhD, 1st Supervisor
Sandra Frost PhD 2nd Supervisor

Externally funded research grants information

Tol’able David (1921) with Damian Coldwell, November 2009 Arts Council England c£4,500 for new music commission for silent film and performances in December 2009 at the Barbican and April 2010 at Phoenix Square.
British Silent Film Festival December 2009 EM Media/National Lottery £15,595.
British Silent Film Festival – January 2012 – Creative England - £7,500.

Internally funded research project information

RIF funds for The British Silent Film Festival 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012. The Festival is organised in collaboration with the British Film Institute.

Professional esteem indicators

Kember, Joe. Marketing Modernity: Victorian Popular Shows and Early Cinema. University of Exeter Press, 2009 reviewed for Journal of British Cinema and Television History – EUP published Dec 2010.

Case studies

1. British Silent Film Festival editorial and reviews in national, regional media.

TLS 26 June 2009

BBC East Midlands Today coverage of British Silent Film Festival broadcast 10 April 2010

The Independent on Sunday 11 April 2010

Leicester Link April 2010Leicester Mercury 17 April 2010

BBC Radio Leicester live interview 9 April 2010

BBC Radio 4 Film Programme April 2010

Guardian Guide 30 May – 5 June 2009, 10-16 April 2010

The Tribune Magazine 28 may – 3 June 2010

Guardian (Matthew Sweet) 8 April 2011

Guardian Guide 2-8 April 2011

T.H.E. Diary 7-13 April 2011

The Sunday Times: Critics’ Choice 20 March 2011

The Daily Telegraph April 2011

Time Out: Critics’ Choice x 2 4 April 2011

The Independent: Critics’ Choice April 2011

BBC Radio 4: The Culture Show– interview with Bryony Dixon/BFI April 2011

BBC Radio 4: The Film Programme – interview with Neil Brand) April 2011

BBC World TV (8 minute feature presented by Al Moloney Broadcast worldwide 12 April 2011

BBC Radio Cambridge interview with Laraine Porter 18 April 11am, 2012

BBC Radio Cambridge interview with Neil Brand 18 April 8.00pm, 2012

BBC TV ‘Look East’ Live from the Festival on 19 April 2012 –

BBC Radio 4 ‘The Culture Show’ interview with Bryony Dixon on Thurs 19 April, 2012

The Times Newspaper ‘What’s On’ 19 April, 2012

The Guardian online Festival review posted on 22 April, 2012

Take One Magazine Cambridge Arts Cinema publication, April 2012

British Silent Film Festival attendance figures

2008, Broadway Nottingham c. 700 attendees

2009, Barbican and BFI Southbank, London 3000 attendees

2010, Phoenix Square, Leicester 1940 attendees

2011 Barbican 3200 attendees

2012 Cambridge 2209

Public responses for the 2010 Festival – examples quoted below

‘Thank you for a wonderful Festival again. The whole thing was a joy, the location was wonderful, the fellowship amazing and the networking magic…’ David Williams MBE, Durham

‘...An absolutely 5 star event..it completely surpassed all my expectations as a member of the public attending for the first time..It was also excellent that members of the public, like myself could mix over lunch and the evening meal. In addition....very best wishes for the future of the Festival’. John Moloney, Leicester

‘Just a quick message to say what a great time my family and I had at the festival over the weekend. Between us all (me, husband, 18 month old daughter, mother and step father) we managed to see 5 of the screenings and thoroughly enjoyed them all. The accompaniment was fantastic for Tol'able David and Beggars of Life especially and really added to the experience. Great to see so many people for silent screenings too. Well done and thank you to everyone involved. Will it be back at the phoenix next year?’ Regards Charlotte Barton, Leicester

‘Thanks ..…I did see the very good piece on East Midlands today. Well done to every body involved in the very successful festival. I loved “The Sheik”!! Best regards Ted Cassidy