Shakespeare Film Society Ltd. Papers

Demonstrating a widespread fear that the growing film industry would degrade Shakespeare’s work, the Shakespeare Film society planned to commission accurate productions on film, and to claim the role of censor, judging whether any new adaptation was, in their own words, ‘true Shakespeare’. Despite its Articles of Association, professional and attractive headed paper, and its stated desire to become ‘indisputably authoritative,’ the Society does not appear to have secured the cooperation of a single studio or director. Indeed, these papers appear to be the sole surviving archival trace of an organisation that failed after only a few months of existence; its demise may be explained by a report that it commissioned, included here, that found that the Society ‘had no practical value and its members no experience of film.’ The papers belonged to paranormal investigator Harry Price, who as an amateur film historian was a founder member of the Shakespeare Film Society Ltd.