Industrial Britain

Donald Calthorp - Narrator

Weary of the studio restrictions placed upon him in America, Robert Flaherty looked abroad for filming opportunities, and with the assistance of his wife was invited by John Grierson to photograph the British industrial landscape for the Empire Marketing Board Film Unit (EMB). The production ran into trouble with Flaherty going over-budget and exhausting his quota of film stock, never truly completing his ambitious tribute to the ennobled worker, leading documentary filmmakers Basil Wright, Arthur Elton and Edgar Anstey all stepped in, and Grierson himself completed the final edited version with Anstey's assistance.

The vibrant gem of a documentary details the manner in which the industrial revolution had effected Great Britain and its population, and demonstrated the lasting importance of craftsmanship, in a mass-producing machine age. The history of daily work in industrialised England is a history of "craftsmanship and skill for an emphasis on quality, which only the individual can give." However, by the 1930s, the new labourer might be a coal miner or glass blower or steelworker. England was becoming a nation of bridges and cranes, airplanes and locomotives and factories. The documentary deals with the worker and his immediate environment, and the pride a British craftsman takes in his work despite the onrush of mechanisation. The factual approach to the subject matter marks a turn toward more sophisticated documentary-type film production.