World Film and Television Progress (1938)

on Twenty-two years ago a film executive happened on a copy of White's History of Selborne. That executive was H. Bruce Woolfe, and his turning over the pages was the origin of the series of films, Secrets of Nature, renamed four years ago Secrets of Life. That these films should be based on Gilbert White's book is significant, because the spirit of "Selborne" remains very much the spirit of these short films. White knew a good deal, but he wanted to know more. His method was to watch, and note, and record, and finally to risk a deduction or raise a pertinent query. He was in no way didactic and, by nature, was averse to laying down the law. He wished to share with others the interest of the everyday world of nature that surrounded him, an interest which made his somewhat humdrum existence essentially exciting and colourful. In the same way the Secrets, though scientific in approach, are in themselves not at all instructional. They are not framed to teach, but only to give a record. To the recorders their work is fascinating and they lay it before the public with the hope that those who see it may look at the world about them with added interest, may make notes and, perhaps, read and study further. A printed book like "Selborne" can get to nature-lovers without difficulty, but twenty years ago there was only one way for a film to reach the public and that was through the cinema theatres. Even to-day, when there has been so great a development of non Out of Gilbert White's History of Selborne came the now famous G.B.I, series, Secrets of Life. How they grew up, and how they are made, is the subject of this article. ■» Top left: kK'm$s In Exile. Above : ' Tawny OwT 114