WiseFilms

A mostly overlooked catagory of motion pictures -the under-four-reeler- is best exemplified in the UK by the following : 1. Huphrerey Jennings's 'Listen to Britain' 2. Richard Lester's 'The Running, Jumping, and Standing Still Film' 3. Mike Leigh's 'The Short and Curlies'. This is only one man's opinion, obviously...

DB7

Hard to arrange them into a top 3 but I do like The Stranger Left No Card and The Bespoke Overcoat.

JamesM

1) Le Petomane (1979)
2) Elephant (1987)
3) A Diary for Timothy (1945)

Steve Crook

There are loads of older shorts that I like. But for a more recent one, try The Call (2002)

Steve

WiseFilms

Good of you, DB7, to help fill in some of the gaps of my knowledge of British shorts. I love the macabre, and and will definately try to catch those two registered Halliwell Classics of the 1950's (Jack Clayton's 'The Innocents', I rank with the 1963 'The Haunting' and Elio Petrie's 'A Quiet Place in the Country' as my favorite modern ghost tales). Has anyone here seen the Lindsay Anderson shorts, any one of them? Since, James M., you put a Leonard Rossiter biographical comedy first, I'll have to go and find out who this Rossiter is...and 'Elephant' is a short?...huh! Here in the great "free market" , it's as hard to get my eyes on an Alan Clarke film (besides 'Scum' or 'Rita, Sue & Bob Too') as it would be for a Frenchman to see 'Hellzapoppin' during the war.

penfold

Short Shorts

Next.....Barry Purves, 1989 (Complete works of Shakespeare, performed solo by The Bard, in 5 minutes....stunning animation)
The Secret.....MOI short, 1918 (How to use grated root vegetables instead of suet in suet puddings...it's a comedic gem !! Stars and directed by Henry Edwards and Chrissie White)
Panorama of The River Avon to Portishead .....Ralph Pringle, 1902 (One of the Mitchell and Kenyon films that didn't make it on to DVD....breathtaking. Only two of their films of Bristol survive)

Medium Shorts

English Harvest...Humphrey Jennings, 1937
The Wrong Trousers....Nick Park
The Volunteer......Powell and Pressburger, 1943

Not wilfully obscure, I promise...the prewar ones all deserve to be better known...

Bit of a Bay Window, what??

Rob Compton

Can I have a top one? It has to be "A Diary for Timothy" (1945) which James mentions - it's a particularly lyrical piece of film-making, by a person with an absolute mastery of film as poetry.

rgds
Rob

Mark - I haven't come across either "English Harvest" or the P&P short? They both sound interesting...

penfold

English Harvest was made in (And I assume for) Dufaycolour in 1937 by Humphrey Jennings....in many ways it's a simple enough pastoral documentary about bringing in a harvest of wheat..... however...it's 1937 and the industrialised agriculture of the war years has not yet arrived in England...the opening shots are of an old farmer, belt and braces, scythe in hand, cutting just enough wheat to allow the gate to open, allowing the horse-drawn harvester into the field...all hands to the pump as it were, beer is doled out from a white enamel jug to all and sundry, including the boys who seem about thirteen, lunching on bread and cheese in the barn. Those with families might have a picnic brought to them, and we see a worker, wife and daughters picnicing in the stubble. Obvious enough material, but this pre-lapsarian vision is 1) in a slightly faded colour, instantly nostalgic, reminiscent of hand-tinted postcards and 2) with all the visual poetry of Humphrey Jennings.

The Volunteer is basically a recruitment poster for the Fleet Air Arm...in the same sense as any PnP film is basic...Ralph Richardson is playing Othello, comes off stage to be told that his faithful dresser has joined up...and he's tempted to join him....we see the theatrical milieu of the time, Denham Studio as well, and the interior of an Aircraft carrier, (Ark Royal???) Seafires being maintained and all... all carried off with humour and aplomb as you would expect, and The Lord only knows why this, An Airman's Letter etc, have yet to find their way as extras on the various PnP DVD's....

Bit of a Bay Window, what??

Rob Compton

Many thanks Mark, they both sound interesting, I'll look out for them. For more pastoral films of the past, I've recommended Historical and Nostalgic Documentary Films, UK - Panamint Cinema before, no connection, just a very satisfied customer. They also have a number of other short films, eg GPO Film Unit etc - see their web site.

rgds
Rob

Steve Crook

An Airman's Letter to His Mother (1941) is available as an extra on the US (Milestone) DVD of The Edge of the World (1937). But not on the British (BFI) DVD of the same film. Sometimes you just have to be a completist and collect everything.

Only 5 minutes, but it's a really powerful piece. An airman has been shot down and killed. Amongst his effects is a letter to his mother. The film shows this being delivered to and then read by his mother as she sits in his room (we hear it read by John Gielgud). The letter tells her not to mourn too long, this was a right and proper thing that he did. The most powerful part of it is that it was a real letter and not just a propaganda stunt.

The aircraft carrier in The Volunteer is actually HMS Indomitable.

Steve

Steve Crook

PaPAS

penfold

Indeed, I thought 'Airman' was available somewhere odd, why that release is a bit unfathomable....but not The Volunteer. Thanks for the info....I've only seen The Volunteer once, in a one-off double bill with 'Smith' in the basement of the BFI....The Volunteer is a mini masterpiece. 'Smith' is just mini... ;)

Bit of a Bay Window, what??

Steve Crook

The Volunteer is great fun, they do pack a lot into 24 minutes.
Including the wonderful impersonation of a goldfish by Larry Olivier!
And the "documentary within a short" showing de Gaulle and the seafires flying in reverse.

The Volunteer really did its job very well and there was a huge surge in people enlisting in the Fleet Air Arm after it was shown.

The BFI release of EotW did include some other things that weren't on the Milestone release. Like Powell's "home movies" of him & Bill Paton on a trip to Scotland, the travelogue St. Kilda - Britain's Loneliest Isle (1928) and a good biography of Joe Rock as well as of Micky. And the BFI DVD is from the better print, there's some sprocket slippage in a few places on the Milestone version (most unlike them). And the BFI version has subtitles for those that have difficulty understanding Scottish accents.

Steve

julian_craster

I liked some of the BRITISH TRANSPORT FILM shorts, especially..... JOURNEY INTO SPRING

Rob Compton

I have to agree there, julian - many BTF films are mini masterpieces. Look out for the BFI collections (I think there are two or three so far?). Helps if you like trains, of course, but there's far more about them than just that.

rgds
Rob

JamesM

Many thanks Rob for bringing Panamint to our atention. I am ordering something from them today.