Keechelus

Why is this DVD out of print in UK, but the USA Image DVD is still found new for half the price charged in Britain for used copies? OK for me in Canada, of course, but this is a British treasure.

I just got the Jennings wartime anthology of seven documentaries, with FIRES WERE STARTED (1943) as the 70-min centrepiece.

FIRES is a gripping docu-drama, but the marvellous shorter pieces WORDS FOR BATTLE (1941) and DIARY FOR TIMOTHY (1944) are astounding, as is the classic LISTEN TO BRITAIN (1942).

WORDS is so good, even after almost seventy years. British strength is portrayed in readings from Milton, Blake and Browning while effective visuals play; then Churchill and Abraham Lincoln are quoted at length. Laurence Olivier did the readings without excessive emotion, just as statements of fact.

"We will fight on the beaches, in the streets, in the hills ... we will never surrender" and "Government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from the earth ..." calmly spoken as truths. An inspiring work.

Keechelus

A gentle reminder (now that I have seen WORDS FOR BATTLE again), this 1941 Crown Film production was crying into the darkness.

Winston Churchill's defiant speech and the Jennings film pre-dated America's joining of the alliance by a few months. I can't imagine how dark those days were. France overrun, all of Western Europe conquered by the Nazis, and Stalin's Soviet Empire crouching on the horizon, still allied with Hitler.

I am glad not to have lived in those months, but I am grateful to Jennings for reminding me how one nation's spirit never failed.