The quality of the research is impressively thorough, in relation to both the original plays and to the films derived from them, and the quality of the author's writing makes it accessible to non-specialists as well as to other academics.

Brian McFarlane, Adjunct Professor, Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne

In this engaging, wide-ranging and meticulously researched new study, David Cottis argues that in the 1930s and 1940s, celebrated British playwrights adapted the venerable form of the well-made play to transform the fortunes of British film. Cottis unearths the treasures hidden in a wealth of UK archives to show how dramatists including George Bernard Shaw, Noël Coward and Terence Rattigan, often in collaboration with leading directors such as David Lean and Anthony Asquith, created some of the enduring classics of British cinema.

Steven Price, Emeritus Professor in Literature and Film, Bangor University, UK

This is an important new study of British films and filmmaking, bringing a fresh perspective to the relationship between stage and screen, and offering expert commentary on key writers and classic films.

Mark Glancy, Professor of Film History, Queen Mary University of London, UK