National heroes - Alexander Walker

Like HOLLYWOOD ENGLAND, NATIONAL HEROES has social change as well as mass entertainment as its focus. It picks up the story in the 'hangover years' of the early seventies, and takes it into the so-called 'renaissance era' of the eighties, showing the immense talent underpinning the search for profit and power.

Based on his outstanding knowledge of films and their makers, and many hours of interviews with the key players, Walker analyses the transition from the permissive society to one of increasing constraints. He discusses the violent cinema of GET CARTER and THE LONG GOOD FRIDAY, the taxation that drove directors, producers and stars out of Britain, and reveals what David Puttnam was really thinking when CHARIOTS OF FIRE won the Oscars.

Including sharp critical appraisals of a host of films and such talents as Glenda Jackson, John Hurt, Monty Python and many more, NATIONAL HEROES is a classic work on the British film industry in the seventies and eighties.