Journey into Spring

Last updated

Journey into Spring
Journey into Spring film Opening titles (1958).png
Directed by Ralph Keene
Written by Laurie Lee
Produced by Edgar Anstey
Ian Ferguson
Narrated by Stephen Murray
Cinematography Patrick Carey
Edited byRalph Sheldon
Music by Edward Williams
Production
company
Release date
  • 1958 (1958)
Running time
28 minutes
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish

Journey into Spring is a 1958 British short documentary film directed by Ralph Keene, and made by British Transport Films. [1] It won the 1958 BAFTA Award for Best Documentary, [2] and was nominated for two Academy Awards: one for Best Documentary Short, the other for Best Live Action Short. [3]

Contents

The film, partly a tribute to Gilbert White, author of The Natural History of Selborne , features a commentary by the poet Laurie Lee, and camerawork by the wildlife cinematographer Patrick Carey.

Reception

The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote: "Selborne is shown at the beginning of spring, and the film explores the hedgerows, ponds and nests, showing the proliferating life there. Laurie Lee's commentary is preciously postic, the colour (by Technicolor) is good; but the note of wistful lyricism is spun out for rather too long." [4]

Kine Weekly wrote: "Delightful interest featurette, brilliantly photographed in Technicolor, dealing with animal, bird and plant life in Selborne, Hampshire, made famous by Gilbert White, the great 18th-century naturalist. Its close-ups and long shots are beautifully blended, and the result is screen poetry, understandable to all." [5]

Lindsay Anderson wrote in the New Statesman : "Journey Into Spring is undynamic, ordinary in conception, and without the slightest touch of personal feeling; it is ornamented by one of those terrible 'poetic' commentaries which tries to supplant the images on the screen with 'literary' fancies of its own (Mr Laurie Lee is responsible for this); in any real sense it is wholly unlyrical. All the same, by conventional standards of technique, it is a job well done: everything joins together nicely, the soundtrack is well laid [and] the photography is excellent. But it is still legitimate to ask – is this enough? These vernal moles, stained glass windows and shiny airliners – is this what the finest flower of the British Cinema (and I think it is legitimate to refer to the documentary movement in such terms) has been reduced to?" [6]

BFI Screenonline wrote: "This is one of BTF's loveliest films, and a valuable record of the teeming variety that lurks in Britain's ponds and hedgerows." [7]

Home media

The film is included in the BFI British Transport Films Collection DVD – Volume 5: Off The Beaten Track (2007). [7]

Related Research Articles

<i>The L-Shaped Room</i> 1962 British film by Bryan Forbes

The L-Shaped Room is a 1962 British drama romance film directed by Bryan Forbes, based on the 1960 novel of the same name by Lynne Reid Banks. It tells the story of Jane Fosset, a young French woman, unmarried and pregnant, who moves into a cheap London boarding house, befriending a young man, Toby, in the building. The work is considered part of the kitchen sink realism school of British drama. The film reflected a trend in British films of greater frankness about sex and displays a sympathetic treatment of outsiders "unmarried mothers, lesbian or black" as well as a "largely natural and non-judgmental handling of their problems". As director, Forbes represents "a more romantic, wistful type of realism" than that of Tony Richardson or Lindsay Anderson.

<i>Jeeves and Wooster</i> British comedy-drama television series (1990–1993)

Jeeves and Wooster is a British comedy-drama television series adapted by Clive Exton from P. G. Wodehouse's "Jeeves" stories. It aired on the ITV network from 22 April 1990 to 20 June 1993, with the last series nominated for a British Academy Television Award for Best Drama Series. Set in the UK and the US in an unspecified period between the late 1920s and the 1930s, the series starred Hugh Laurie as Bertie Wooster, an affable young gentleman and member of the idle rich, and Stephen Fry as Jeeves, his highly intelligent and competent valet. Bertie and his friends, who are mainly members of the Drones Club, are extricated from all manner of societal misadventures by the indispensable Jeeves.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Michael Anderson (director)</span> English film director (1920–2018)

Michael Joseph Anderson Sr was an English film and television director. His career spanned nearly 50 years across three countries, working at various times in the United Kingdom, the United States, and Canada. His most critically and commercially successful works include the World War II film The Dam Busters (1955), the dystopian sci-fi film Logan's Run (1976), and the comedy adventure epic Around the World in 80 Days (1956), which won the 1957 Academy Award for Best Picture.

Geoffrey Gilyard Unsworth, OBE, BSC was a British cinematographer who worked on nearly ninety feature films during a career that wound up spanning over more than forty years. He is best known for his work on critically acclaimed releases such as Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey, Bob Fosse's Cabaret and Richard Donner's Superman.

David Leland was a British film director, screenwriter and actor who came to international fame with his directorial debut Wish You Were Here in 1987.

Caught on a Train is a British television play written by Stephen Poliakoff and directed by Peter Duffell, based on an overnight train journey across Europe, and following the route of a journey that Poliakoff had himself made from London to Vienna. It was first shown, as part of the BBC2 Playhouse series, on 31 October 1980, and was re-shown in 2001 and 2006.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paul Rotha</span>

Paul Rotha was an English documentary film-maker, film historian and critic.

<i>Lets Go Crazy</i> (film) 1951 British film by Alan Cullimore

Let's Go Crazy is a 1951 British short comedy film directed by Alan Cullimore. It was written by and stars Peter Sellers and Spike Milligan playing multiple roles.

<i>A Diary for Timothy</i> 1945 British film by Humphrey Jennings

A Diary for Timothy is a 1945 British documentary film directed by Humphrey Jennings. It was produced by Basil Wright for the Crown Film Unit. The narration, spoken by Michael Redgrave, was written by Jennings and E. M. Forster and is an account of the progress of the war during the first six months of the life of a baby named Timothy.

<i>The Conquest of Everest</i> 1953 film by George Lowe

The Conquest of Everest is a 1953 British Technicolor documentary film directed by George Lowe about various expeditions to the summit of Mount Everest. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.

<i>The Gentle Sex</i> 1943 British film by Leslie Howard

The Gentle Sex is a 1943 British black-and-white romantic comedy-drama war film, directed by Leslie Howard and Maurice Elvey and narrated by Howard. It was produced by Concanen Productions, Two Cities Films, and Derrick de Marney. It was Howard's last film before his death.

<i>The Queen of Spades</i> (1949 film) 1949 British film by Thorold Dickinson

The Queen of Spades is a 1949 British fantasy-horror film directed by Thorold Dickinson and starring Anton Walbrook, Edith Evans and Yvonne Mitchell. It is based on the 1834 short story of the same name by Alexander Pushkin.

<i>Fenlands</i> (film) 1945 film by Ken Annakin

Fenlands is a 1945 British short documentary film directed by Ken Annakin for the Ministry of Information's Pattern of Britain series. It documents the Fenlands of East Anglia, and their change from swamplands to farmlands.

<i>The Blakes Slept Here</i> 1953 British film

The Blakes Slept Here is a 1953 British second feature ('B') short Technicolor film directed by Jacques Brunius and starring Harcourt Williams, David King-Wood and Dorothy Gordon. The screenplay was by Brunius and Roy Plomley.

<i>The Secret Place</i> (film) 1957 British film by Clive Donner

The Secret Place is a 1957 British crime film that was the directorial debut of Clive Donner. It stars Belinda Lee, Ronald Lewis, and David McCallum.

<i>Never Back Losers</i> 1961 British film by Robert Tronson

Never Back Losers is a 1961 British 'B' crime film directed by Robert Tronson and starring Jack Hedley, Jacqueline Ellis and Patrick Magee. It was written by Lucas Heller based on the 1929 novel The Green Ribbon by Edgar Wallace. It was one of the Edgar Wallace Mysteries series, produced at Merton Park Studios in the early 1960s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Edward Williams (composer)</span> British composer, born 1921

Edward Aneurin Williams was a British composer and electronic music pioneer, best known for his work on the BBC Television series Life on Earth, and as the creator of Soundbeam. Two of the documentaries he composed scores for were Academy Award winners, including Dylan Thomas (1961), which won an Oscar in 1963, and Wild Wings (1965), which won an Oscar in 1967.

Patrick Carey was an Irish–British filmmaker.

<i>Rock You Sinners</i> 1957 British film by Denis Kavanagh

Rock You Sinners is a 1957 British second feature black and white musical film directed by Denis Kavanagh and featuring early British rock and roll artistes, including Art Baxter and His Rock 'n' Roll Sinners, known for their song "Rock You Sinners".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sarah Erulkar</span>

Sarah Erulkar was a prolific and multi-award-winning Indian-born Jewish British filmmaker, specialising in sponsored documentary shorts.

References

  1. "Journey into Spring". British Film Institute Collections Search. Retrieved 3 December 2024.
  2. "Best Documentary 1958". awards.bafta.org. BAFTA Awards Archive. Retrieved 11 March 2023.
  3. "The 31st Academy Awards (1959) Nominees and Winners". oscars.org. Archived from the original on 6 July 2011. Retrieved 21 August 2011.
  4. "Journey into Spring" . The Monthly Film Bulletin . 24 (276): 143. 1 January 1957 via ProQuest.
  5. "Journey into Spring" . Kine Weekly . 486 (2620): 21. 31 October 1957 via ProQuest.
  6. Anderson, Lindsay (19 October 1957). "Very English" . New Statesman . 54 (1388): 494 via ProQuest.
  7. 1 2 Brooke, Michael. "Journey into Spring (1957)". BFI Screenonline. Retrieved 3 December 2024.