World Film and Television Progress (1937-1938)

A Remarkable Film by LOUISE WATT AND SO TO WORK, a new short distributed by Kinograph, unobtrusively slipped into the programmes of several news theatres this month. So brilliant is this two-reeler and so much above the usual comedy of the same length that it has brought immediate recognition to its creator, Richard Massingham. But this name on the credit titles conveyed nothing to the film industry. Nobody had heard of Richard Massingham, nobody knew with which company he was connected. But World Film News, determined to introduce him personally to the public, eventually tracked him down to a most unexpected spot, the London Fever Hospital in Islington. Here we met Dr. Massingham, Resident Medical Officer, a large, good-natured looking person with a grin that explained at once his ability Dr. Richard Massingham for getting the maximum of humour out of an ordinary situation. With And So to Work Massingham has brought to the screen a record of one of the most primitive periods of present-day societj — the struggle for existence between 8.15 and 9 a.m. in any boarding-house. It follows the misadventures of a young man during that dreadful three-quarters of an hour with a shrewdness of observance that is devastating. Nothing is missed. The struggle to get up, the final awful determination, the somnambulant first tour of the room in search of dressinggown and slippers, the fearful calamity of blunt razor and gashed face, the whistler in the bathroom and the costive in the lavatory, the lost laundry, the eaten toast and sticky marmalade jar, all are screened with an ease and understatement that make the film a gem of comedy. It has the glorious effect of giving you a spyhole through which you affectionately watch someone being supremely natural. Never does an action or gesture suggest rehearsals or direction. The spontaneity of the film places it in the true comedy tradition. Richard Massingham, who qualified at University College Hospital thirteen years ago, experimented originally with a 16 mm. camera. But in 1934, with his first real shooting-script worked out, he bought an ancient hand-turned Newman Sinclair with one lens, a 2". With a 6" adapted from a still camera, and six 500-watt lamps, the film was completed in nine months. It was called Tell Me if it Hurts? and was the story of a broken tooth and a visit to the dentist. Shooting was done every Sunday in Massingham's own dentist's surgery, and the sound was recorded afterwards at Imperial Sound Studios. Russell Waters, then a student at the Old Vic, and now a leading-part player on tour, was the central character in both films. Tell Me if it Hurts? which has not yet reached the cinemas, shows the same biting observancy as And So to Work. The incidents are as commonplace and as funny, the direction and acting as unobtrusive and as powerful. It is, perhaps, a trifle too long but Massingham plans to re-cut and shorten it so that he can get distribution and enough money to make another. Massingham's expenses, compared with the studio two-reeler, are almost negligible. No lavish sets are required. He made And So to Work in his own hospital quarters when off duty. No stars needed, no laboriously built-up gags, no conventionally farcical situations to get laughs. Massingham's humour is analytic and his dissection of ordinary people doing ordinary things brings a breath of fresh air to a cinema public tired of redundant and unfunny comedies. Not only has Massingham shown that high-powered equipment, high-powered stars, and high-powered overheads are the least guarantee of a good film but he has again proved that it is the real people who are the best screen material. That stage situations, theatre acting, and vaudeville jokes cannot be lifted bodily from one medium to another and remain potent. Richard Massingham must be thanked as well for his object lesson to the film industry as for his two first-class contributions to cinema. And So to Work On taking the Waters On Bathing 1st Losing One's Collar Stud 29