Documentary News Letter (1940)

DOCUMENTARY NEWS LETTER APRIL 1940 the Women's Institutes, she can learn to make lat she needs to her own design. These films have the difficult job of persuading -* i imen to do things which are outside their '■i dinary household routine. They are not in ided to take the place of teaching and Indira laal teachers will find them easy to adapt to <a bir own methods. :; I r'efpme Front. Production: Co-operative Society London. Direction: Jiri Weiss. Distribution: leatrical and Non-Theatrical. 35 mm. and 16 n. 19 minutes. ii WEISS is the Czech director of The Rape of '•echoslovakia, and Home Front is the first docu:ntary he has directed in Britain. To survey „ itish democracy under the auspices of the odon Co-operative Society was a good break ■:Hi t 10! ,r,:m • any beleaguered democrat, possibly too od, for the result is without sufficient logic to ing the reactionary into the line of thought sired by producers and director. There are too iny old symbols — the bloated profiteer, in rticular. Weiss's profiteer, however, is unique that at the words "Get Out", three times re,ted, he literally disappears. It is just as pretty jmwpwatch as Ali Baba saying "Open Sesame", but real life devils just don't vanish that way. '■■^ K\\ the same it is exciting to see Czech imaginan making whoopee with staid old documentfilm technique. At times the whoopee is shtly embarrassing, as when folk pour down an air raid shelter to the accompaniment of is)icBepulchral "War! War! War!" spoken in so s a voice as almost to be off" the record. But other times, especially when children are on screen (remember the children of Tlie Rape of icho-Slovakia?), and when, for example, a 3thei mming sugar-bowl is replaced by the statutory lumps, to the acute distress of a sweetAliii thed coff'ee-drinker, the fantasy combines eqiaa h real human understanding and is an object !sofli ion for most of us. fillllD » stwdon River. Production: British Films for ish Council. Distribution: Travel and Indus1 Development Association. 10 minutes. ''''" «iDON RIVER, the Port of the World, with its "^ y-five miles of wharves and quays, is that '■^ t of the Thames which begins at London Ige. This new film adds for full measure a if trip via the City to the Houses of Parliait, but, rightly enough, it does it almost "eptitiously, as if in concession to the overseas iences who will expect to see some of the :e familiar sights of the Metropolis. ondon River is unpretentious enough not to mpt to do anything more than give you a id run around. It never becomes so intimate 0 park you on the balcony of "The Prospect Vhitby" or to introduce you to the Rotherhie stevedores who are all-in wrestlers in their re time. It contents itself with meandering up down the river and showing you the docks e the various imports and exports are led, interspersed with a few well-known marks such as the Royal Naval College. e commentary is suitably detached, and [e is a continuous musical background. Sport at the Local. The Gift of Health. Production: Cameo Features Ltd. Direction: James Carr. Distribution: Theatrical. 20 minutes. OVER THE past few years there has been a trickle of little films about everyday life as the common man knows and enjoys it. Lowenstein's Reporter in Solio was a case in point. And now we have Sport at the Local, a film about pub games. The subject matter is charming ; one feels as if one were in the pub oneself, and there can be no higher praise than this. A. P. Herbert's commentary is informative and intimate. Unfortunately it is not balanced properly against the picture; simultaneous claims are made on the eye and the ear which are irreconcilable. The Gift of Health deals with the Papworth Settlement for after-treatment of tuberculosis, and shows the way in which convalescence from this disease can be associated with useful work. The film is to be distributed theatrically, but we hope that it will become available non-theatrically in due course. It would make a valuable addition to any film library on medicine and hygiene. Backyard Front. Production: British Films Ltd. Direction: Andrew Buchanan. Players: Claude Dampier and IVIr IVliddleton. Distribution: Theatrical. 20 minutes. By a farmer THIS KiLM — commissioned by the IVIinistry of Agriculture — has been made presumably to encourage householders to cultivate vegetables in their backyards, and to instruct unskilled cultivators in the best way to set about it. It may be stated clearly that it fails in both its objects. The idea of using two such popular figures as Claude Dampier and Mr Middleton is doubtless sound, but it is doubtful if the amateur gardener likes to be equated with the blithering idiot portrayed so charmingly by Mr Dampier, and it is regrettable that the chance to give information has been neglected for music-hall horseplay. Few people when digging their garden are liable to be seriously embarrassed by getting their gas masks entangled with a clothes horse, yet from the amount of time spent over it in the film one would imagine that this was one of the chief banes of backyard gardening. The same spirit of knockabout pervades the film, varied occasionally by incomplete and inaccurate information that is in any case so badly presented that no memory of it is liable to remain with the audience. It would be tedious to examine every error, but as an example one can cite the instance of the compost heap. Mr Middleton explains that we must have one as, owing to the lack of horse traffic, we cannot get the old-fashioned manure. This statement is not explained in any way and is, I imagine, me.iningless to many of the uninstructed who might justifiably ask why, if we lack horse traffic, we must have a compost heap, and require to be told what to do with it once we have it. No mention is made of the simple way of hastening decomposition by watering the heap with Condy's fluid; and when Mr Dampier exhibits his own heap composed mostly of broken crockery and worn out saucepans, it is not considered worth while to point out that these things should never on any account be thrown on the compost heap. Colloids in Medicine. Production : Merton Park Studios. Producer: Cecil Musk. Direction: M. F. Cooper. Photography: T. R. Thumwood. Distribution: British Colloids Ltd. 35 mm. and 16 mm. 20 minutes. By a teacher THE TITLE of this film is rather misleading. One would expect to see the medicinal applications of colloids; instead much of the film is devoted to the general preparation and properties of colloids. It opens with Graham explaining to a visitor the diff'erence between colloids and crystalloids. Following this are shown such phenomena as Brownian movement and the Tyndall cone effect. In connection with the former the principle of the ultra-microscope is briefly explained. Colloids are shown being prepared first by a "breaking-down" process — Bredig's method, and secondly, by a "building-up" process from solutions. The precipitation of colloids by electrolytes and oppositely-charged colloids is admirably presented. The use of colloidal medicines is illustrated by their ability, when injected into the blood stream, of remaining within the circulating system. The film concludes with views of the laboratory where these medicines are prepared and shows many of the prepared medicines themselves. Although it was made by a firm which prepares colloidal medicines, the propaganda is kept well to the background. The photography is good and the accompanying commentary leaves nothing to be desired. The experiments are well set out and labelled. Altogether a film that should interest all audiences and prove of great value in the teaching of colloids in schools. Planned Electrification. Production: Merton Park Studios. Direction: Marcus Cooper. Distribution: Non-theatrical. 16 mm. 30 minutes. By cm engineer THE FILM describes the replacement of an obsolete steam plant at a colliery pit-head by a completely electrical installation. After a few shots of the old system in operation, the new scheme is briefly outlined against the background of the contractors' works at TratTord Park. Subsequently the new scheme is recapitulated in some detail, particular emphasis being placed on the safety devices controlling skip and cage hoisting and on the operation of an II -ton flywheel, the kinetic energy of which supplies part of the peak torque required for rapid acceleration of the cage. Although the scientific principle underlying the operation of the latter unit is fairly well explained, the presentation might have been improved by gradually elaborating the detail of the unit from elementary diagrams. A similar criticism may be levelled against the demonstration of the electrical interlocking; one or two of these units described in detail from elementary principles would have been more valuable than the complete outline shown.