Documentary News Letter (1942-1943)

DOCUMENTARY NEWS LETTER MARCH 1942 NEW DOCUMENTARY FILMS Wood for War. Production: Canadian Army Film Unit. Direction: J. E. R. McDougall. Camera: George Noble. 10 minutes. Subject: One part of the work done by volunteer Canadians in the war effort. Lumberjacks, using their great experience and skill, are felling timber in Britain for vital use in the war. Treatment: By careful avoidance of overselling the subject the film has achieved an excellent balance. We are shown Canadian troops arriving in Britain and we see a special section of them being drafted to Scotland for timber work. Swiftly and efficiently the work is shown, making the quiet hillsides of Scotland look like a roaring lumber camp in an American toughie. Except that they, unfortunately, don't seem to do the leaps from log to log in the rapids any longer. It is always pleasant to see a good job superbly well done on the screen and we certainly see it here. It is a pity, though, that the men on the job are not brought to life a little more— they look interesting characters and the film might have shown something of them as human beings as well as tough technicians. There is a pub sequence, very nicely handled, at the end, but this does not quite satisfy the need for a more lively knowledge of these men who have come across an ocean to give us wood for war. Perhaps freer use of sound would have helped. But it's a nice job and we welcome this first film from the Canadian Army Film Unit. Propaganda: Excellent. People from overseas, working in this country, in close contact with its people and working in a common cause, is one of the best possible propaganda lines. Western Isles. Production: Merton Park Studios for the British Council. Direction: Terence , Bishop. Camera: Jack Cardiff. Sound: C. Tasto. ; Editor: C. Beaumont. Music: William Alwyn. Commentary: Joseph MacLeod. 14 minutes. Subject: This is a film of the making of Harris [ tweed which attempts also to depict the sterling qualities of the Hebrideansin the industry and to ; remind us of their contribution to the war effort. Since the importance of the manufacture of Harris tweed in a total war economy is not clear, [ the islanders' war effort is symbolised by the j heroic return to his Hebridean home of a young i merchant seaman whose ship has been tor1 pedoed in the Atlantic. Treatment. The film is in excellent Technicolor and shows in some detail the processes of tweed I making from the gathering of the wool to the washing of the finished material. The film centres round the work of a single family to which the returning seaman belongs. Scenes of the family making its tweed are cross-cut with shots of the | young sailor's journey home in an open boat. He is eventually thrown up, more dead than alive, on the coast near his parents' croft, having contrived— apparently by instinct— to steer himself « and his companions to the waters he knows best. This part of the story is less convincing than the | shots of the special skills and local rituals associ:,ated with the making of tweed. There are good traditional songs, well sung, and the acting of the principal characters is adequate on a somewhat I naive and wooden level, which does, however, manage to convey something of the dourness and stoicism of the Hebridean. Propaganda Value. Little propaganda good can surely come from suggesting to film audiences overseas that the tweed industry is one of our principal national concerns of the moment. Terence Bishop has, however, succeeded in counteracting in some measure the usual mistakes of British Council propaganda by introducing the shipwreck theme which at any rate admits the existence of a state of war. Wavell's 30,000. Production: Ian Dalrymple. Direction: John Monck. Camera: A.F.U. Commentary: Colin Wills. Music: John Greenwood. 50 minutes. Subject. This film tells the story of Wavell's advance into Libya. Treatment. The visuals consist for the most part of newsreel material and Army Film Unit footage with which we are already familiar. The film is given continuity and shape by the use of maps and the introduction of participants in the battle who describe the strategics in terms of their own roles. The resultant picture of the battle is not over clear and we are left with the impression of a number of separate engagements which do not integrate into any single tactical conception. This serious criticism would have been met by an overriding policy statement bv Wavell himself or some other qualified spokes Propagauda Value. Wavell's 30,000 does succeed in bringing the battle alive in terms of personal experience. It will help give the civilian a clearer conception of what actually is meant by mechansed warfare and it provides an excellent example of the extent to which newsreel material gains in significance if it is edited instead of just being joined together. Newspaper Train. Production: Realist Film Unit. Direction: Len Lye. Camera: A. E. Jeakins. Commentary: Merril Mueller. Recording: Ernst Meyer. M.O.I. 5 minutes. Subject. Newspaper Train shows how, during the period of the blitz, newspapers were regularly delivered to every part of the country. Treatment. The story is told by an American newspaper man and shows how, in spite of a series of bombs which one night cut off one London terminus after another, the Ramsgate newspaper train did eventually get away on its journey. The film is full of technical ingenuity. The raid itself is represented by explosions and severed lines on a railway map, accompanied by raid noises, and telephoned instructions diverting newspaper vans and loaders from one station to another as line after line is cut. In spite of the absence of actual raid scenes the effect is amazingly realistic. The exhaustion of the trainguards after they eventually leave London is neatly conveyed and their reaction to machine-gun attack by a German fighter is the real thing. Here, again, we do not see the raiding plane, but only its ominous shadow paralleling the track and then moving across the train as its machine-guns sound. The pay-off to the story takes place in the office of the editor of the Daily Express. A Ramsgate newsagent has sent in bullets found embedded in his batch of copies. Unfortunately, Mr. Christiansen and Mr. Mueller, the reporternarrator, appear to have been too much influenced by Hollywood newspaper films to give a convincing performance. Propaganda Value. There appears to have been no good reason for making this film at the present time. Even though, by an oversight, due credit was not given during the blitz to the heroisms which lay behind regular newspaper deliveries it is surely too late to do much about it now. It is high time that blitz-based propaganda were forgotten, and surely the M.O.I, has more immediately urgent uses to which to put its weekly five minutes? Keeping Rabbits for Extra Meat. M.O.I, for the Ministry of Agriculture. Production: Strand Film Co. Associate Producer: Edgar Anstey. Direction: Ralph Bond. Camera: Charles Marlborough. Commentary: Wilfred Pickles. Non-T. 10 minutes. Subject. This film is intended to persuade people that it is worth while keeping tame rabbits in order to increase the meat ration. It stresses the importance of choosing a healthy doe and gives concise information on breeding, the care of the young, types of hutches and how to make them, and the feeding of rabbits on kitchen waste and the official bran ration. The film comes to an abrupt end as a housewife brings a rabbit slew to the dinner table. Treatment. As an information film for the beginner in rabbit-keeping, it is practical and direct. Camera work and commentary are clear and unhurried. A little more information about feeding, and advice on how to deal with the disconcerting ailments which afflict rabbits and discourage the amateur would be welcome. The way to kill a rabbit is left out altogether — a serious omission. It is, however, better to give a little essential information efficiently than to overload a film of this kind with too many details, since its main purpose is to persuade people that to keep rabbits is quite a simple business. Propaganda value. The value of this film is one of direct instruction rather than to make people conscious that there is a real urgency in increasing our food production. It answers most of the queries which those who intend to take up rabbitkeeping might ask. The importance of Rabbit Clubs might have been stressed as they would follow up in greater detail the information which this film provides. Ferry Pilot. Production: Ian Dalrymple. Direction: Pat Jackson. Camera: H. F. Fowle. Editor: R. Q. McNaughton. Music: Brian Easdale. 35 minutes. Subject. The story of the work of the A.T.A. which provides personnel to fly newly completed aircraft from factory to Service airfield and in general moves aircraft across the country (or across the Atlantic) at such times as they are not in the hands of R.A.F. pilots. Treatment. The film first shows how ferry pilots' work is organised and establishes in dialogue sequences the variety and importance of their job. Then we see planes being ferried by men and women pilots and we are given some idea of the special problems which arise from the need to have pilots available in the right place at the right time— often at remote airfields at short notice. The film finishes with an unarmed bomber unwittingly escaping enemy attack by the skin of its teeth and this sequence, plus an earlier aero(Continued on page 46)