Women Subtitlers in the UK Film Industry, 1931-1949

Subtitling developed in the UK in the early 1930s. Among the first film subtitlers were three women: J.M. Harvey, Mai Harris and Julia Wolf. Their work, unlike that of male contemporaries such as Ivor Montagu and Paul Rotha, has been almost completely neglected. Harvey was Secretary of the Film Society (1925-1935) and subtitled films for the Academy Cinema including Sagan's 1931 'Mädchen in Uniform' (Porter 2010). Wolf subtitled films for the new Curzon Cinema from 1934. Harris began subtitling with Ophuls' 'Liebelei' in 1934 and was the most prominent subtitler in the UK until the 1960s. Between them, they subtitled many enduring film classics of the twentieth century. This project is innovative in that it will identify and analyse surviving film copies of the period in order to evaluate how the translation activity of Harvey, Harris and Wolf influenced foreign film distribution and reception in Britain.