Hints and Hobbies No.11

1926
Silent
14m

Jiu-jitsu for ladies, how to get ink off a white apron and other life essentials courtesy of the 'Hints and Hobbies' team.

The 'Hints and Hobbies' series amused and enlightened 1920s cinemagoers with invaluable advice which, we can only hope, few actually tried at home. A highlight of this edition is the 'Hints to the Ladies on Jiu-Jitsu' - a long-lost chapter from the history of lesbian erotica perhaps? There's also a comedy of sorts that proves that mother-in-law gags were in circulation long before Les Dawson.

Other tips include a highly improbable technique for removing ink from a white apron; a 'hilarious' gag to amuse your guests; a guide to developing chest muscles; and how to accessorise one simple hat in half a dozen ingenious ways.

Queer Britain

This colourful and challenging collection explores screen representations of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender lives over the past century.

British cinema boasts a long history of carefully coded queerness, but for much of the 20th century explicit depictions of gay life in drama or documentary were more or less taboo. Gay men were subject to vicious state-sanctioned persecution, while lesbians were socially ostracised and the transgender community ignored and misunderstood. Cinematic and small-screen breakthroughs in the 1950s and 60s played their part in the public debate. Finally acting on the recommendations of the Wolfenden Committee a decade earlier, the 1967 Sexual Offences Act partially decriminalised male homosexuality in England and Wales, between two men over 21, in private. As those caveats suggest, the legislation remained problematic. But it was a step forward, paving the way for further battles - some yet to be won. From early glimpses of 'queer' characters, this collection charts the path towards '67 and beyond, through responses to the AIDS crisis to diverse reflections on queer life today.