Air Outpost is a 1937 film produced by documentary maker Paul Rotha focusing on the Imperial Airways 'Empire Route' and highlighting a day at the aerodrome at Sharjah, then one of the Trucial States and now one of the United Arab Emirates. The film was made by Rotha for Strand Films and was one of three commissioned by Imperial Airways to showcase the Empire Route and highlight its efficiency and safety for passengers. [1]
Subtitled '24 Hours at the City and Airport of Sharjah', Air Outpost showcases the operation of Sharjah Airport and the Mahatta Fort, which formed the main building of the airport and provided accommodation both for overnighting passengers and Imperial Airways' permanent staff of three British expatriates. Mahatta, according to the film, was "built in the shape of a square fort as a precaution against possible but improbable raids by wandering tribes of Bedouin" [2] As it accommodated guests, the fort has been dubbed 'the first ever hotel in the UAE'. [3]
Sharjah was an overnight stop between Baghdad and Jodphur on the Imperial Airways Eastern Route from Croydon Airport, Croydon, United Kingdom to Eagle Farm Airport, Brisbane, Australia. It was the first British establishment on the Trucial Coast. [4] The route was originally flown by Handley Page HP42s, with two weekly flights landing in Sharjah on Sunday and Wednesday evenings on the outbound flight and Wednesday and Saturday evenings on the return flight. [5] The airport itself was, according to the film, "A mile away from the Arab city of Sharjah" although it is now a museum in the heart of the city.
Rotha visited Sharjah in 1932 while he was making another film for Imperial Airways, Contact. Impressed by the location, he decided to film Sharjah to make Air Outpost. [1] Rotha's initial 1932 visit was one month after the airway's inauguration and prior to the completion of construction on the Mahatta Fort, forcing him to spend the overnight stop in a tent. [6]
Air Outpost was intended to present a "dramatic but easily understandable microcosm of civil aviation's development". [7] Other films in the high-profile series commissioned by Imperial Airways included The Future's in the Air and African Skyways. [8] All three films had their premiere together at the Piccadilly Theatre in London on 12 November 1937 in front of an audience of 1,000 guests. [9] Air Outpost was unusual for Imperial Airways’ documentaries in that it is entirely devoted to a single airfield, and that a remote stop on the London to India route. [9] It was also unusual in that it provides unique footage of Sheikh Sultan II bin Saqr Al Qasimi, the Ruler of Sharjah in 1936, and of Sharjah Fort at the time. The fort itself was subsequently demolished and the footage taken for Air Outpost was used, together with other historical records and documents, in the 1997 reconstruction of the fort. [10]
Imperial Airways was not only an important sponsor of documentary film making in the 1930s, but also presented an important revenue stream for Strand and other British film makers, to the point where it was considered a descendant of the Empire Marketing Board, [11] and the leading commissioner of documentary films in Britain. [9]
Air Outpost is credited to Paul Rotha for production, John Taylor for direction and photography and Ralph Keene for direction and editing. [9] The film's score was composed by distinguished British composer William Alwyn. Alwyn's orientalist music for Air Outpost has been compared to Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade . [12]
The film tells the story of Sharjah Airport, showing preparations for the landing of the Handley Page HP 42 aircraft 'Hanno'. The station manager, a Scot by the name of Alistair Thomson, inspects the rooms together with his Indian major domo Abbas Khan, ensuring food and supplies of fresh water are available for guests. The 'Persian petrol boys' play cards waiting for the aircraft to arrive while the guards provided by the Ruler of Sharjah turn out to greet the incoming aircraft. With the guests enjoying their overnight stay, engineers work on the aeroplane's engines and staff take atmospheric measurements in order to calculate the wind for the following day's flight. The aircraft takes off on its onward journey, flying high above the airport and desert, watched by wondering Bedouin on horseback with falcons on their arms. [9]
Although there is no confirmation that the script for Air Outpost was written by British novelist Graham Greene (Greene worked on The Future's in the Air), parallels have been drawn between the style of Greene's work on the sister film and the 'clipped prose' in the script of Air Outpost itself. [9]
Copies of Air Outpost were among a collection of 13 British documentary films acquired by the film library of New Yorks' MOMA, the Museum of Modern Art, in 1939. [13]
The actual footage for Air Outpost was shot by Taylor and Keene working based at Mahatta (at the time, as Air Outpost's narrator points out, "one mile from the Arab town of Sharjah") for six days. During this time they secured the Ruler's permission to film in the town (Rotha had previously secured this permission in 1932 but had not used the opportunity) and also filmed not only Hanno but its sister aircraft Horsa – at one stage scheduling led to both aircraft being on the ground at Sharjah at once, leading to additional filming opportunities for the crew but also to continuity errors in the final film – including the orientation of the departing airliner leading to the film having to be reversed in order to show it flying East to India. This led to the final film showing Sharjah Airport and Mahatta Fort back to front. [9] Using a 35-millimetre Bell & Howell Eyemo and a British-made Newman Sinclair 35-mm cine camera, Taylor and Keene shot some 3,700 feet of film in all during their time in Sharjah. [9]
In one scene in Air Outpost, in which the inbound passengers disembark from Hanno after its late afternoon landing, one passenger is heard to exclaim, "the Coronation was marvellous", an unusual feat for a person filmed in 1936, as the Coronation of George VI did not take place until 12 May 1937, six months after filming had finished in Sharjah. This is taken by academics as confirmation the script itself was not finalised until long after shooting had taken place. [9]
Imperial Airways was an early British commercial long-range airline, operating from 1924 to 1939 and principally serving the British Empire routes to South Africa, India, Australia and the Far East, including Malaya and Hong Kong. Passengers were typically businessmen or colonial administrators, and most flights carried about 20 passengers or fewer. Accidents were frequent: in the first six years, 32 people died in seven incidents. Imperial Airways never achieved the levels of technological innovation of its competitors and was merged into the British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) in 1939. BOAC in turn merged with the British European Airways (BEA) in 1974 to form British Airways.
The Emirate of Sharjah is one of the emirates of the United Arab Emirates, which covers 2,590 square kilometres (1,000 sq mi) and has a population of over 1,400,000 (2015). It comprises the capital city of Sharjah, after which it is named, and other minor towns and exclaves such as Kalba', Al Dhaid, Dibba Al-Hisn and Khor Fakkan.
Sharjah International Airport is an international airport located 7 nautical miles east-southeast of Sharjah, United Arab Emirates. It is spread over an area of 15,200,000 m2. It has one runway, and is the only airport in Sharjah capable of international flights as of 2022.
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The Handley Page H.P.42 and H.P.45 were four-engine biplane airliners designed and manufactured by British aviation company Handley Page, based in Radlett, Hertfordshire. It held the distinction of being the largest airliner in regular use in the world upon the type's introduction in 1931.
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The Trucial States, also known as the Trucial Coast, the Trucial Sheikhdoms, Trucial Arabia or Trucial Oman, was the name the British government gave to a group of tribal confederations to the south of the Persian Gulf whose leaders had signed protective treaties, or truces, with the United Kingdom between 1820 and 1892.
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Sheikh Sultan II bin Saqr Al Qasimi was the Ruler of Sharjah, a Trucial State and now one of the United Arab Emirates, from 1924 to 1951. His father having ceded the rule of Sharjah to Khalid bin Ahmad Al Qasimi, Sultan found himself dispossessed and married the daughter of Abdulrahman bin Shamsi, the headman of Al Heera. Buoyed by Khalid's unpopularity and Abdulrahman's force of personality and arms, Sultan deposed Khalid and became Ruler of Sharjah. However, he found the interior of the country dominated by Bedouin tribes and the East coast increasingly dominated by the former Ruler, Khalid bin Ahmad, leaving Sultan the effective ruler of a cluster of coastal settlements, many of which constantly tried to secede from his rule. He is cited as having presided over a low ebb in the power of the Al Qasimi, formerly a powerful maritime federation.
Abdulrahman bin Muhammad Al Shamsi was the Sheikh, or head man, of the township of Al Heera, today a suburb of Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates. A highly influential and often divisive figure in regional politics during the early 20th century in the Trucial States, he was referred to by one British Political Resident as ‘a stormy petrel of the Trucial Coast, a man feared by everyone in and around Sharjah’.
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