Reframing the Long 1960s on British Screens

Estella Tincknell is a visiting fellow in film and culture at the University of the West of England, UK.

• IntroductionPart One: “The long 1960s”, crime narratives, masculinity, modernity and myth1. Social cohesion, modernity and patriarchal authority in Dixon of Dock Green, Z-Cars and Special Branch2. A Jigsaw puzzle Frenzy: Compulsive heterosexuality, masculinity and sex crime 3. Whiteness, masculinity and the law: The Sweeney’s legacies4. Honest outlaws: Modernity, violence and masculinity in the “long 1960s”Part Two: Fantasy, nostalgia and styling “the long 1960s” 5. Annus mirabilis 1963 — robbers, showgirls and scandals: Reimagining Profumo and the Great Train Robbery 6. Not so Gentle Endeavours: 1960s nostalgia and modernized masculinity in the British period cop show7. Legends for lads: The nostalgic gangster film, Thatcherism and the authenticity of Whiteness 8. Annus mirabilis 1973 — Life on Mars, Prime Suspect 1973, and the myth of “the seventies”ConclusionBibliographyAbout the AuthorIndex

This is a well-written and welcome monograph. One may think that Britain’s screen media of the 1960s and early 1970s has been extensively examined, but Estella Tincknell’s illuminating study offers a fresh and distinctive perspective though its focus on power relations in police procedural and gangster narratives produced during or set in the period. Tincknell’s forensic investigation of film and television case studies – including excellent analysis of their soundtracks – uncovers compelling evidence that the era’s privileging of male authority, desire and agency endures in modern reimaginings, crime works that may promise a more enlightened and revisionist framing but ultimately reiterate a strongly masculinist discourse. It is an open and shut case that this original and authoritative volume will prove an important addition to the critical literature on British film and television.