The Story of Tell England (1931) in Turkey: Transcultural Remakes and the Early Sound Era

Abstract

Tell England (1931), Anthony Asquith and Geoffrey Barkas’ film depicting the Battle of Gallipoli, unsurprisingly incited emotional responses from its audiences. In Turkey, at a time when memories of the war were still fresh, the feeling was that Tell England would benefit from the insertion of a few ‘local scenes’. Additional scenes were written by author, Ziya Şakir, who also appeared in the film alongside other Turkish actors. In January 1932, this new version of the film was screened under the new title, Çanakkale/Gallipoli. In order to meet the demand for the indigenous production of the talkies in Turkey at a time when the necessary resources and infrastructure were not readily available, Tell England served as a way of offering a film which could meet these demands, without having to produce an entire film. Although the arrival of the talkies has often been described as having posed a challenge to the transnational exhibition of cinema, in this article, we will consider the ways in which local exhibitors of the period employed a number of tactics in relation to Tell England and its adaptation for Turkish audiences. In addition to subtitling, dubbing and foreign language remakes, creative strategies like those used in the Turkish production of Tell England, demonstrate the ways in which film continued to be productively exchanged internationally, even in cases where ideological reframing was required to suit local and national contexts.