Reframing the Long 1960s on British Screens

Estella Tincknell explores representations of gender, violence, race and desire in British crime films and television series made during or about “the long 1960s,” contending that our understanding of this period is marked primarily by tensions between nostalgic myths of masculinity, power and whiteness and modern interpretations that challenge those dominant narratives. Tincknell blends cultural analysis and original research with close reading to examine a wide variety of crime subgenres from police procedurals and heist films to gangster tales and thrillers, comparing the approaches of historic texts like Frenzy (1972) and The Sweeney (1975–1978) with those of contemporary period dramas like The Trial of Christine Keeler (2019) and Endeavour (2012–2023). By examining changing representations of the police and the criminal between texts made during that time and texts set during that time for a twenty-first-century audience, Tincknell identifies the intersections between text, genre, nostalgia and popular memory as she traces how myths about crime are represented and recirculated over time.