Muriel Box remains Britain’s most prolific female director and was also the first woman to win an Oscar for best original screenplay for The Seventh Veil (1945), shared with her husband Sydney Box, yet is little remembered today. Muriel Box: A Woman’s Take, programmed by BFI National Archive curator Josephine Botting, at BFI Southbank this May, will be a month-long season that seeks to right that wrong – illuminating audiences about a pioneering filmmaker who led the vanguard for women battling industry prejudice to become a director and used her position to convey her radical ideas about women’s place in society.
Women in post-war Britain were determined not to lose the freedoms gained during the conflict. A key screenwriter of the period with her husband Sydney, Box used her scripts to explore the domestic sphere, underscoring her belief that women could be strong and independent while retaining their femininity. Deftly couching her message in popular entertainment, she subtly shifted the way British cinema portrayed women, giving audiences much food for thought. Always pushing boundaries in her determination to bring controversial subjects to the screen, Box came into conflict with male-run authorities like the Home Office and the censors.
The BFI Southbank season selects 15 films celebrating Muriel Box’s powerful contribution to the British film industry, showcasing her screenwriting and directing talent from a body of work that explored new ways of representing women on screen and helping to shape British cinema through the 1940s and 50s..
The season kicks off with Muriel Box: The Odd Woman Out, on 2 May. In this introductory event, filmmaker Carol Morley, journalist Rachel Cooke and academic Melanie Williams will join season curator Josephine Botting to discuss Box’s career and reflect on the difficulties women still face in making their mark on the industry; despite her trailblazing career, 60 years after she directed her last film, Box’s 13-feature record as director has yet to be beaten.
Films screening in the season include The Seventh Veil (Compton Bennett, 1941), which saw Box become the first woman to win the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay (shared with her husband Sydney); Good-Time Girl (David MacDonald, 1947) on which Box locked horns with the Home Office when they tried to censor her script; Box’s official directorial debut The Happy Family (1952); and Street Corner (1953), which Box recalled as her most pleasurable directing job, employing nearly as many women behind the cameras as in front.
The season includes a Free Seniors’ Matinee: The Man Within (Bernard Knowles, 1947) on 22 May, a Technicolor period drama starring Richard Attenborough adapted by Muriel and Sydney Box from Graham Greene’s first novel plus in the regular Projecting the Archive screening slot on 23 May, 29, Acacia Avenue (Henry Cass, 1945) in which Muriel Box’s script gently pokes fun at the conventions of marriage and airs her more liberal views on pre-marital sex. Plus Member Exclusive: Library Lates Presents: Muriel Box on 15 May offers the opportunity to quietly discover, research and explore the extraordinary filmmaker’s career through a fantastic collection of books and artefacts.
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Muriel Box: A Woman’s Take runs at BFI Southbank throughout May.
