A Yesterday's Witness special
Narrated by Benny Green who takes an affectionate look at the first 40 years of English cinema.
Pioneer film director George Pearson remembers the golden silence of the first British feature films.
Alfred Hitchcock tells how he broke that silence with Blackmail, Britain's first all-talking picture.
Alexander Korda recalls how he put British films on the international silver screen with The Private Life of Henry VIII.

And with a visit to one of London's handful of unspoilt 30s cinemas - organ and all - we, too, can enjoy 'a night at the pictures' as it used to be.