Documentary News Letter (1947-1949)

42 DOCUMENTARY FILM NEWS NEW DOCUMENTARY FILMS Rhodesia — Is this your Country? G.B. Instructional for Southern Rhodesia Government. Written and directed: Alastair Scobie. Photography: James Allen, Frank Goodliffe and Ronald Shears. Editor: Oscar Percival. Distribution: Non-T. 16 and 35 mm. Theme. This is a film for emigrants, giving them an idea of the kind of opportunity in Rhodesia awaiting the skilled man or the man with capital. Comment. If the prospective immigrant notices nothing lacking in the content of this humdrum, superficial survey of a robust country, then it is likely that he is the kind of man for whom Rhodesia is looking. According to the film, Rhodesia offers sunshine, sport, plenty of food (and drink), no irksome chores (there is plenty of native labour to do all these), and a comparatively high standard of living (for the white man) to anyone prepared to work hard and ask no questions. But the discerning emigrant will spot a number of awkward things: that the enormously greater native population is confined to much less than half the area of the country: that, in spite of attempts in the film to cover it up, a suburban snobbishness emerges only too clearly: and, above all, that pursuits of the mind are wholly ignored — worse still there is no evidence in the film that anyone recognizes their absence. Creatures of Comfort. Realist for British Gas Council in association with Film Centre. Producer: Brian Smith. Director and camera: Alex Strasser. Music and Effects: Horace Somerville. Commentary: David Tree. Distribution: B.G.C. non-T. 18 mins. the thing which strikes one most about a high percentage of the Realist films is the wealth of visual imagination employed. One can usually see what the director has been trying to do and can see, too, that he has spent a great deal of time and thought and enjoyed himself in the process. Creatures of Comfort is a good example. It points a sly finger at the notorious discomforts of the English house. The quaintness but impracticality of the plumbing. The draughts that whistle round the back of one's neck while one's legs are being roasted by the fire. The film also gives a clear exposition of the principles which should be respected in heating and ventilating a house. Builders please note! The visual illustrations which are used to bring the story home are vivid and amusing. The commentary, too, has a dry humour. But the laugh in the end was on your reviewer, he went home after seeing the film to find the pipes in his own house well and truly frozen. Town Rats. Crown for Ministry of Food through COL Director: Geoffrey Innes. Camera: William Chaston. Sound: Jock May. Commentary: Deryck Guyler. Distribution: CFL. 20 mins. Theme. The habits of rats and how a local ratcatching department uses its knowledge of these to rid a small area of these pests. Comment. The modern rat appears to have no musical appreciation; so the problem of ridding a town, or even a small part of a town of its unwelcome and dangerous rat population is far more complex than that which faced the 'de-rodentator' of Hamelin. Today, a local authority approaches its rat menace much as Scotland Yard combats crime — with investigators, catchers and even an information room, complete with map of recent outbreaks. Not unexpectedly, however, the methods of catching the four-footed criminals are very different. Creatures of Comfort and it is doubtful if some of the scenes in this film would find their parallel in a film of our police force. The film is commendably clear and free from any pretence of being other than a straightforward account of a local problem and its local solution. That it chooses to localize its story is, perhaps, a disadvantage because if makes the rout of routs seem, if not easy, at least practicable; which from all reports is neither the case regionally nor nationally. This aspect aside. Town Rat should encourage I people to use the organization at their dis I posal and so help to keep within bounds a far greater menace than most people imagine. Much patience must have gone into the J making of this film. The unit is to be congratulated on having got such lifelike (and deathlike) performances from the main characters. Your Children's Sleep. Realist for Ministry of Health through COI in association with Film Centre. Written and produced: Brian Smith. Directed: Jane Massy. Music: William Alwyn: Camera: A. E. Jeakins. Theme. Why children can't sleep if they don't, and what they do with it if they can. Comment. There are all too many films these days which it is impossible to see without yawning, but the one film that might be expected to have a yawn in it is singularly free of any such effect. Your Children's Sleep steps out very firmly with the right foot almost before the opening titles are off the screen, so arousing the sympathy and interest of the audience from the outset. It carries these to the end of its friendly, simple account of typical children and some of their problems of sleeping and not sleeping. Imaginatively made, with a warmly human commentary, this is another of Realist's excellent series of first-rate broadly educational films which deserves to be shown everywhere. Space forbids the fuller review this film most certainly merits. They Travel by Air. Public Relationship for British Overseas Airways in association with Film Centre. Director: Richard Massingham. Camera: J. Burgoyne-Johnson. Editor: John Waterhouse. Script: Tony Roberts. Music: W. Lambert Williamson. Theme. A demonstration to the staff of BOAC of the importance of courtesy and control when dealing with air travel passengers. Comment. To say simply that this is a staff demonstration film is perfectly true. It is, however, as a piece of film-making, very much more than that. It contains in great abundance that quality so rare in the documentary cinema, the quality of intelligent humour. Dr Richard Massingham, whose work is so well known to us, has done his job — the job of persuading BOAC stewards and attendants that the passenger is always right — sincerely and thoroughly. And he has also succeeded in making the lesson extremely funny. From casting to cutting it is a gem. He has picked out the awkward people so familiar, the truculent and the talkative, the nervous and the nagging, and has handled them so well that they scarcely know we are laughing at them. And if, as usual, he appears in the film himself, he surely has every right because he is the best actor of the lot. 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