A British director whose films distinguished themselves by their very
Englishness. Eldridge's documentaries and semi-documentaries have a
poetic quality rarely found elsewhere. They are the sons and daughters
of the British documentary movement of the 1930s and indeed Eldridge's
three feature films, all with rural or coastal settings, were made for
pioneer documentarist John Grierson's all-too-short-lived
Group 3 Productions. Eldridge started in films as an assistant editor,
but had begun making documentaries under his own steam by 1939. The
first of these to come into the national spotlight was Our Country (1944),
which received a big premiere at one of London's largest cinemas and
immediately polarised critical opinion.
But the Britons, along with the Russians, have always been among the foremost
poets of the cinema, and, in this remarkable picture of his country, Eldridge
was aided in the fulfilment of his aims by the commentary of a 'real' poet,
Dylan Thomas, sympathetic and uplifting music by William
Alwyn and admirable black-and-white photography by Jo Jago. Eldridge's style
was to make rounded characters from real people - more difficult than it sounds
- but achieved with real skill, from dancing West Indians, to Scots trawlermen,
cockney hop-pickers in Kent and Welsh schoolchildren. Eldridge also caught the
eye with Three Dawns to Sydney, which transcended the bounds of normal
travelogue in its story of the countries flown over by an aeroplane bound from
England to Australia.
After casting his poet's eye at Tyneside in North East Corner (1944),
and Edinburgh in Waverley Steps (1948), Eldridge moved into features,
wisely choosing Grierson's unit as the one in which his talents would
be best employed. These are gently humorous films, the first, Brandy
for the Parson (1952), about liquor-smugglers on the Kent coast; the
next, Laxdale Hall
(1953), back to Whisky
Galore! (1949) country, as Hebridean islanders cannily do battle
with bureaucracy; and the third and best, Conflict
of Wings (1954), with script co-written by the poet John Pudney
and sparkling Eastman Colour photography by Arthur Grant, slightly more
serious fare about a bird sanctuary, carefully acted and thought out
and a credit to all concerned, deservedly released as a main feature
in its native Britain. Unfortunately, Eldridge was already in poor health,
and it was to be his last film. Like other talents nurtured in the thirties
and early forties, he might have found nowhere to go in the industry,
as it progressed, but into television documentary. That we shall never
know.
