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Frank Humphrey Sinkler Jennings was an English documentary filmmaker and one of the founders of the Mass Observation organisation. Jennings was described by film critic and director Lindsay Anderson in 1954 as "the only real poet that British cinema has yet produced".
Fires Were Started is a 1943 British film written and directed by Humphrey Jennings. Filmed in documentary style, it shows the lives of firefighters through the Blitz during the Second World War. The film uses actual firemen rather than professional actors.
Quentin James Reynolds was an American journalist and World War II war correspondent. He also played American football for one season in the National Football League (NFL) with the Brooklyn Lions.
The Lion Has Wings is a 1939 British, black-and-white, documentary-style, propaganda war film that was directed by Adrian Brunel, Brian Desmond Hurst, Alexander Korda and Michael Powell. The film was produced by London Film Productions and Alexander Korda Film Productions and 'was preparing the nation [for war] and shining a light on the power of the RAF'.
The Battle of Britain was the fourth of Frank Capra's Why We Fight series of seven propaganda films, which made the case for fighting and winning the Second World War. It was released in 1943 and concentrated on the German bombardment of the United Kingdom in anticipation of Operation Sea Lion, the planned German invasion.
Target for Tonight is a 1941 British World War II documentary film billed as filmed and acted by the Royal Air Force, all during wartime operations. It was directed by Harry Watt for the Crown Film Unit. The film is about the crew of a Wellington bomber taking part in a bombing mission over Nazi Germany. The film won an honorary Academy Award in 1942 as Best Documentary by the National Board of Review. Despite purporting to be a documentary there are multiple indicators that it is not quite as such: film shots include studio shots taken from the exterior of the aircraft looking into the cockpit whilst "in flight"; several stilted sections of dialogue are clearly scripted; on the ground shots of bombing are done using model trains; and several actors appear. The film does give a unique insight into the confined nature of the Wellington's interior and some of the nuances of day to day operation such as ground crew holding a blanket over the engine while it starts to regulate oxygen intake.
Harry Watt was a Scottish documentary and feature film director, who began his career working for John Grierson and Robert Flaherty.
The Bells Go Down is a 1943 black-and-white wartime film made by Ealing Studios. The reference in the title is to the alarm bells in the fire station that "go down" when a call to respond is made. The film is an ensemble piece that covers the period between 27 August 1939 and 9 September 1940, when World War II began and London was subjected to aerial bombing, and is a tribute to the solidarity of not just those engaged in service, but among the British people as a whole.
Millions Like Us is a 1943 British propaganda film, showing life in a wartime aircraft factory in documentary detail. It starred Patricia Roc, Gordon Jackson, Anne Crawford, Eric Portman and Megs Jenkins.
London Can Take It! is a short British propaganda film from 1940, which shows the effects of eighteen hours of the German blitz on London and its people. Intended to sway the US population in favour of Britain's plight, it was produced by the GPO Film Unit for the British Ministry of Information and distributed throughout the United States by Warner Bros. The film was directed by Humphrey Jennings and Harry Watt, and narrated by US war correspondent Quentin Reynolds.
The Foreman Went to France is a 1942 British Second World War war film starring Clifford Evans, Tommy Trinder, Constance Cummings and Gordon Jackson. It was based on the real-life wartime exploits of Welsh munitions worker Melbourne Johns, who rescued machinery used to make guns for Spitfires and Hurricanes. It was an Ealing Studios film made in 1941 with the support of the War Office and the Free French Forces. All of the 'heroes' are portrayed as ordinary people caught up in the war.
Listen to Britain is a 1942 British propaganda short film by Humphrey Jennings and Stewart McAllister. The film was produced during World War II by the Crown Film Unit, an organisation within the British Government's Ministry of Information to support the Allied war effort. The film was nominated for the inaugural Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature in 1943, but lost against four other Allied propaganda films. It is noted for its nonlinear structure and its use of sound.
A Ghost Story for Christmas is a strand of annual British short television films originally broadcast on BBC One between 1971 and 1978, and revived sporadically by the BBC since 2005. With one exception, the original instalments were directed by Lawrence Gordon Clark and the films were all shot on 16 mm colour film. The remit behind the series was to provide a television adaptation of a classic ghost story, in line with the oral tradition of telling supernatural tales at Christmas.
Stuart Legg was a pioneering documentary filmmaker. At the 14th Academy Awards in 1941, Legg's National Film Board of Canada film Churchill's Island became the first-ever documentary to win an Oscar.
Vickers Wellington LN514 was a Vickers Wellington bomber built in 1943 in record time, as part of a British propaganda effort during the Second World War.
Words for Battle is a British propaganda film produced by the Ministry of Information's Crown Film Unit in 1941. It was written and directed by Humphrey Jennings, and features seven sequences, each containing images of rural and urban Britain at war overlaid with audio commentary by Laurence Olivier, reciting passages from different English literary works and speeches.
Men of the Lightship is a short propaganda film produced by the Crown Film Unit for the British Ministry of Information in 1940, the year after the beginning of the Second World War. It dramatises the bombing of the East Dudgeon lightship by the Luftwaffe on 29 January 1940 and was designed to portray Germany as a barbaric enemy. An opening narration explains the traditional understanding of lightships as neutral vessels during war.
Builders is a 1942 British propaganda film, which outlines the importance of the work of builders during the Second World War. It was produced by Ian Dalrymple at the Crown Film Unit of the Ministry of Information and directed by Pat Jackson.
Britain at Bay is a 1940 British propaganda film produced by the General Post Office GPO Film Unit of the British Ministry of Information and distributed by the National Film Board of Canada. The film was written and narrated by noted author and political commentator J. B. Priestley.
London is a 1994 British essay film written and directed by Patrick Keiller, narrated by Paul Scofield.
References
- ↑ "Christmas Under Fire (1941) Synopsis". Screenonline . British Film Institute . Retrieved 9 May 2012.
- 1 2 Nicholas John Cull (26 September 1996). Selling War: The British Propaganda Campaign Against American "Neutrality" in World War II. Oxford University Press. p. 108. ISBN 978-0-19-988047-8 . Retrieved 7 May 2012.
- 1 2 3 4 "Christmas Under Fire (1941)". Screenonline . British Film Institute . Retrieved 7 May 2012.
- 1 2 Anthony Aldgate; Jeffrey Richards (2007). Britain Can Take It: British Cinema in the Second World War. I.B.Tauris. pp. 120–122. ISBN 978-1-84511-445-9 . Retrieved 7 May 2012.
- ↑ "U.S. Gift For Spitfires". The Times . 17 April 1941.
- ↑ "The 14th Academy Awards (1942) Nominees and Winners". oscars.org. Archived from the original on 6 July 2011. Retrieved 13 August 2011.
