Documentary News Letter (1944-1945)

DOCUMENTARY NEWS LETTER 59 which gives some impression of what modern coal-mining can be like, but the coal problem is too serious for this kind of superficiality. If The New Mine is intended for general audiences, it may lead them to suppose that all mines are like this nowadays, and that the miner is continually grumbling about nothing. If it is intended for showing to miners and people in mining areas it is not technical enough, and its complacent commentary will convince nobody. So where does it get us? Your reviewer sat up and took notice when the film announced that output is 1,000 tons a day, but that the colliery was designed to produce 400 tons an hour. Why the discrepancy? And how to attract sufficient labour even to the most up-to-date mines in Britain was yet one more problem to which the film turned a blind eye. Vegetable Insects. National Film Board of Canada. Director: Evelyn Cherry. Distribution: Non-T. 16 mm. 20 mins. Shot on 16 mm. Kodachrome, with excellent colour values and great clarity, this is one of the best films of its type yet made. Evelyn Cherry (one of the pioneers of the documentary film movement and better known here as Evelyn Spice) has painstakingly and also imaginatively filmed the life and habits of most of the major insect pests, together with the main methods of destruction and control. Although the film was made for Canadian agricultural communities, much of it is highly relevant to this country, and all of it is fascinating. Photographically the film is striking; it depends more on ultra close-ups than on actual microphotography, and it must have involved endless patience to achieve the pin-sharp images of caterpillars, grubs, aphides, etc. Some of the sequences are dramatic in their impact, notably the fight between two parasites over an insect victim, and the devouring of a grasshopper by a praying mantis. It is a pity that the commentary is not up to the standard of the rest of the film, it tries to say too much in too short a time. But the visuals do most of the talking, and to very good effect. It is to be hoped that this film is only the first of a series. A film or films on fruit pests would be of great value and interest. Old Wives' Tales. Halas Batchelor. Director: John Halas. Music: Matyas Seiber. Distribution: C.F.L. 9 mins. This film sets out to expose three popular superstitions "Ne'er cast a clout till May be out"; "You've got to eat a peck of dirt before you die"; and "Night air is harmful". It tackles the job by means of cartoon and diagram, and is aimed at grown-up audiences in a spirit of "How ridiculous and old-fashioned are the people who believe these things — figures of a cartoonist's fun!" For this sort of approach to an audience the cartoon convention is good — far better than live acting could be. The main character is a small boy (reminiscent of a monochrome Pinnochio) on whose innocent person three old wives — Greataunt, Cook and Nurse — practice their harmful health principles. Greataunt swaddles him in mufflers under a blazing sun ; Cook discourages him from washing his dirty hands before a meal, and also leaves the food uncovered so that it is fouled by flies from the uncovered dustbin; Nurse closes the windows of his bedroom against the harmful night air. The grown-up cartoon figures, excellently original creatures owing nothing to Disney, are interrupted by the voice of Reason (played by Commentator), who explains with the aid of animated diagrams the virtues of dressing to suit temperature and activity; and of food cleanliness and fresh air at all times. Of these straight explanations the first is the least successful, as the diagram of the sweating skin is far too complicated and overloaded to be convincing. The second, which does not depart from the cartoon convention, is probably the best. "Night air is harmful" is the third hypothesis which has to be disproved; the film only shows that "Air is good", leaving it open to the half-educated to object, "Ah, but night air is different because flowers breathe out carbon dioxide at night." More films exposing erroneous contemporary accepted ideas, not only in the health sphere, would be welcome. Your Children and You. Realist Film Unit. Producers: John Taylor and Alex Shaw. Director: Brian Smith. Camera: A. E. Jeakins. Music: William Alwyn. Distribution: C.O.I. Non-T. 30 mins. It would be difficult to think of a trickier job than to make a film instructing parents on their relations and behaviour to their children ; parents are notoriously ready to be insulted or irritated on this question ("Mother knows best"), and the whole issue of the parental instinct vis a vis scientific discovery and knowledge is raised — more particularly since the field of child psychology is still at a very empirical stage. In this film Brian Smith has surmounted these problems with the greatest success. He has avoided the new-fangled and the old-fashioned with equal skill, and by dishing up his instruction with a mixture of real humour and salty commonsense, he has avoided all offence. Throughout the film the handling of both children and parents is directorially admirable, and it is one of the first occasions in which the camera has consistently been used to present everything from the child's point of view. The film diverts as well as teaches. Alwyn's score is exactly right, commenting, where necessary, with wit and sympathy, and effacing itself otherwise. Your Children and You, like the earlier films on Children's Eyes, Ears, etc., points to a whole field of production which has hardly as yet been scratched. It is to be hoped the job will go on. Catalogue of Films of General Scientific Interest. Compiled bv the Scientific Film Association — Aslib 1946. 5s. The Scientific Film Association is to be congratulated on its first major publication. This is the most ambitious film catalogue yet published in Britain. It lists just on six hundred titles. Each film is sypnosised, and a great many of them are critically appraised. No less than sixty-five sources of scientific films are listed and in a useful introduction, theS.F. A. cataloguing and appraisal system is explained. The films are listed in alphabetical order, and the titles are classified under subjects in a separate index. The Central Film Library has issued a supplementary list of films. This may be obtained, post free, from the Imperial Institute, London, S.W.7. It contains all films added to the Ministry of Information and Central Office of Information collections since the issue of the last catalogue in 1944. EAST AFRICAN SOUND STUDIOS LTD. BUCKLEYS RD., NAIROBI, KENYA HAVE THE FOLLOWING FACILITIES AVAILABLE: ■ SOUND-ON-DISC RECORDING M.S.S. Studio and Portable Equipment ■ CINEMATOGRAPHY 35 mm: B & H "Eyemo" Cameras synchronous— 400 ft., magazines 16 mm: Cine-Kodak "Special" ■ STUDIO ACCOMMODATION