Listen To Britain, from Netflix.
This is a 3 hours collection of short films by director Humphrey Jennings. All but one was filmed during WW2 and they were probably meant only for theater goers in England. The first, "London Can Take It", was made five weeks into the blitz and shows your average Londoner doing his best to carry on with normal life. Bombing attacks always take place at night so in the morning you try to go to work, surveying the latest damage as you go. The title film "Listen To Britain" is also a slice of wartime life for the average Englishman. There is no narration to this one, just a sound track of everyday sounds, factory and mine workers, dance halls, etc. Another film "A Diary For Timothy" was filmed very close to the end of the war. The essay is a letter from a soldier at the front to his newborn son in England. Things are returning to normal in England by then and we see the end of the blackout and crews clearing obstacles and mines from beaches. The narrator reading the letter muses long on what the end of the war will bring hoping to avoid the hard economic times that followed WW1.
I thought the most interesting of the films was "I Was A Fireman", which I hear also was called "Fires Were Started". This film follows the day of a fire house in the sector of London near the docks. The credits say there were no "actors" just real life fire men and women doing their real life jobs, but I'll tell you then they are all excellent actors too. It shows training and horsing around in the firehouse but as night falls so do the bombs. They answer a call at a large warehouse fire, next to a dock with a loaded ammunition freighter. Details of the operation are shown, from "spotters" who from rooftops note the location and conditions of fires that are starting and calling in to the fire service. Also shown is the managment of the fire houses by higher up departments since some of the fires are way too big for one house to fight. So men and equipment are brought in from other houses. This is not a documentary in the modern sense but a story of the fire fighters. They don't have an easy time fighting that fire but I won't give away the details.
Well the overall tone of the films is that the war was not won by David Niven alone, or even the soldiers, but by overall effort of the entire nation.
Jimski
This is a 3 hours collection of short films by director Humphrey Jennings. All but one was filmed during WW2 and they were probably meant only for theater goers in England. The first, "London Can Take It", was made five weeks into the blitz and shows your average Londoner doing his best to carry on with normal life. Bombing attacks always take place at night so in the morning you try to go to work, surveying the latest damage as you go. The title film "Listen To Britain" is also a slice of wartime life for the average Englishman. There is no narration to this one, just a sound track of everyday sounds, factory and mine workers, dance halls, etc. Another film "A Diary For Timothy" was filmed very close to the end of the war. The essay is a letter from a soldier at the front to his newborn son in England. Things are returning to normal in England by then and we see the end of the blackout and crews clearing obstacles and mines from beaches. The narrator reading the letter muses long on what the end of the war will bring hoping to avoid the hard economic times that followed WW1.
I thought the most interesting of the films was "I Was A Fireman", which I hear also was called "Fires Were Started". This film follows the day of a fire house in the sector of London near the docks. The credits say there were no "actors" just real life fire men and women doing their real life jobs, but I'll tell you then they are all excellent actors too. It shows training and horsing around in the firehouse but as night falls so do the bombs. They answer a call at a large warehouse fire, next to a dock with a loaded ammunition freighter. Details of the operation are shown, from "spotters" who from rooftops note the location and conditions of fires that are starting and calling in to the fire service. Also shown is the managment of the fire houses by higher up departments since some of the fires are way too big for one house to fight. So men and equipment are brought in from other houses. This is not a documentary in the modern sense but a story of the fire fighters. They don't have an easy time fighting that fire but I won't give away the details.
Well the overall tone of the films is that the war was not won by David Niven alone, or even the soldiers, but by overall effort of the entire nation.
Jimski
