Documentary News Letter (1944-1945)

102 DOCUMENTARY NEWS LETTER FILM REVIEWS Star in the Sand. Merlin for M.O.I. With UNRRA, the Yugo-Slav Camp Committee and the Yugo-Slav Central Choir conducted by Joseph Hatze. Story: Arthur Calder Marshall. Direction: Gilbert Gunn. Photography: Cyril Bristow. Editing: Robert Kemplan and Patricia Murray. Musical Score: Ivor Walsworth. C.F.L. 20 mins. Subject and Content: An UNRRA Camp Settlement in Egypt for Yugo-Slav refugees. A beautiful and at times deeply moving film has been made from what was admittedly superb story material. In January, 1944, 30,000 Yugo-Slavs, the young, the aged and the infirm, made the long journey from the Dalmatian Coast across the Mediterranean to the Sinai Desert. There, in a country of hot calm days and sudden blinding sand-storms, they were established in a group of UNRRA Camps. All arrangements were planned in a spirit of mutual respect and co-operation between UNRRA officials and Yugo-Slav Committee. Once the bulk supplies had been provided on behalf of UNRRA by the British Army, the task of creating a new community fell entirely on the Yugo-Slavs themselves. What followed was a magnificent tale of effort and achievement in the spirit of their slogans: "In work is salvation — in freedom, education". British veterans of Alamein taught them desert cooking and in the infertile desert they made little islands of green vegetation from soil improvised with wet tealeaves and cinders. Their only materials for constructing amenities were the scraps and litter of the battle-fields, but their craftsmanship and ingenuity won through. Within a week schools were opened, using teachers' memories as texts and the desert sand as exercise books. Within a year an elaborate system embodying primary to higher education had been evolved; a medical service with special clinics for eye, ear and other ailments and a central hospital with a maternity ward had been created; from a duplicated sheet a daily paper had grown; wall newspapers carried stories, poems, drawings and facts from home; the practice of the arts of music, painting and folk dancing enlivened their exile. The lyricism of music and camera gives this film a feeling of exceptional vitality. Ivor Walsworth's score and the sound track generally maintain a high quality. It is the best story yet to reach us of democratic rehabilitation. The commentary is sympathetic and finely spoken. The Story of D.D.T. Directorate of Army Kinematography. C.F.L. 23 mins. Subject and Content : The discovery, testing, largescale production and the war-time uses of D.D.T. The film opens with an effectively brief parade, with some photomicrography, of the chief disease-bearing insects. The German, Seiler, is seen discovering dichlor-diphenyl-lrichlorethane, unaware of its importance at a time when the role of insects as agents in the spread of epidemics was not understood. Research since then has produced many insecticides to help prevent epidemics and given us drugs as curatives. A uniformed M.O. explains how Japanese conquests deprived us of many sources of these preventatives and cures, but this was more than offset in one direction by the timely applications of Seiler 's seventy-year old discovery. The patient and carefully controlled researches carried out in British laboratories and under field conditions are related by a suitably diffident academic voice. The second part of the film deals with the mass production of D.D.T. in various forms and its use in Naples, in the liberation of Western Europe and in South-East Asia. The detail of experiment and trial — the gradual paralysis of the nervous system of the vectors (carriers), the R.A.M.C. men cheerfully eating, sleeping, living in the same impregnated shirts for a whole month, the aeroplanes spraying the D.D.T. and oil solution on English field and tropical bush with the same extraordinarily effective results — is all of it well done. The commentary is clear and unpretentious, but either through over-simplification or from false modesty, strangely underestimates the part played by the British in the control of the Naples typhus outbreak. Audience Value: Excellent for the citizenscientist. Within its limits, no film has conveyed in better or more simple terms the day-to-day aspects of modern research. Your Children's Ears. Realist Film Unit for M.O.I. Production: John Taylor. Direction: Bert Pearl. C.F.L. 15 mins. Content. The care of children's ears. A film for parents. The introduction arouses the interest by showing the difficulties involved in teaching deaf children — toddlers — to make sounds which are the beginnings of speech. The physiology of the ear is demonstrated by a well-conceived diagrammatic method; this is not pictorial, but a pleasing effect of roundness is provided by halftone shading of the various parts as they are mentioned. The method of working is shown very effectively by the group of sound waves approaching the ear, and each succeeding group takes the hearing process one stage further into the ear until finally the message flashes to the brain. The third part of the film deals with the ear troubles which are avoidable or capable of being minimised by proper care, quite rightly omitting mention of irreparable damage to the inner ear. Treatment: The film appears a little long, but the subject is developed by easy stages so as to make obvious the need for the proper treatment described both for general bodily health and for specific ear troubles. Audience Value: The early part by itself would make an instructional film for children. Good use was made of "Teacher's licence" in that the first few groups of sound waves did not convey the message through to the brain, but stopped short for purposes of exposition. For children this licence would have to be explained by the teacher. In the latter part the wrong and right methods of ear treatment were dramatically treated and an appropriate recapitulation these concluded the film. Your Children's Teeth. Realist Film Unit for the \ M.O.I. Production: John Taylor. Direction: Jane I Massey. C.F.L. 15 mins. Content: The care of children's teeth. A film for i parents. The care of a child's teeth begins with I care for the general and dental health of the ex \ pectant mother, for, like the troubles of Tristam j Shandy, those of the child's teeth begin before I he is born. At successive stages the growth of the I teeth is shown, with half-tone cut-away diagrams I to explain their development, and suitable diet is i mentioned. The structure of the tooth and the process of decay are made very clear in diagram, and shots of good and bad teeth emphasises i the value of care. Methods of prevention of de i cay include cleaning the teeth of starchy foods I by eating, for example, an apple, by using a tooth I brush and by regular dental inspection. The film concludes with a valuable recapitulation of important points. Audience Value: The film is suited only to its intended audience of parents and possible teachers; a different treatment would be required for a school teaching film, although many of the same shots could be used. Unity is Strength. World-Wide for A.E.UDirection: Ralph Bond. 33 mins. Subject: The history and war effort of the Amalgamated Engineering Union. Treatment: A straightforward, part commentary, part dialogue film made to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the amalgamation of the various engineering unions. Made from a good script, it is well directed and photographed. It is as good a film of its kind as you will see and undoubtedly it will be very useful. But it does raise the old question again of why Labour organisations are so backward in their planning of films. Why should the Unions stick to conventional, even threadbare, themes and leave it to commercial sponsors to make all the films such as The Harvest Shall Come and Words and Actionxl It is time the Unions and the Co-ops. and the Labour Party stopped making self-congratulatory films and started proper planned programmes of films for definite purposes. We suppose that we should congratulate the A. E.U., anyway, for being the first Union to make a film. But we hope that in future they will make full use of the opportunities that are open to them and that their example will be followed by the rest of the Labour movement. Audience Value: Very good, especially for nontheatrical. The Burning Question. World Wide for M.O.F. and Ministry of Fuel and Power. With Gillie Potter. Production: Ralph Bond. Direction: Ken Hughes. Photography: Geoff. Williams. C.F.L. 1 1 mins. This film carries a series of hints on the domestic aspects of fuel economy and shows how light, heating and power derive in the end from coal. It does this job well. But it also sets out to be a comic film, in which task it is hampered by the presence of a comedian who is essentially "A Voice". Mr. Gillie Potter is a considerable artist in radio. He is the Don who has strayed into the music hall. His humour is entirely \erbal and evocative. On this occasion, his journey from Hogsmorton to the recording studios was not, one feels, really necessary.