The GPO Classics Collection: Britain at War -Under Fire

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Star Review

When war was announced in 1939, the GPO Film Unit under Alberto Cavalcanti and with directors such as Harry Watt and Humphrey Jenning in its ranks, was the organisation in prime position to document it. These two DVDs collect eight of the films made by the Unit up to Christmas 1940.

The First Days documents the early days of wartime Britain. It has a curious atmosphere. Though a war documentary, there is no gunfire. Instead, a city prepares for conflict during sunny autumn days. Countless sandbags are filled, shelters are constructed and children are evacuated. It is a picture of a patient, stoical populace for whom everything has changed.

The picks of the collection are the two eloquent films written and presented by Quentin Reynolds, American war correspondent for Collier’s magazine, Britain Can Take It! and Christmas Under Fire, the latter a sombre, world-weary despatch from an England ‘fighting for its life’ during the Blitz. The sound of carols from King’s College, Cambridge has never sounded so precious.

The other films are more crudely propagandist, as could be expected from a war still young and vigorous. The deeper humanism of Humphrey Jennings’ mid-war work required different circumstances to give it birth.

Graeme Hobbs on 20th October 2005

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Film Description

Five films from the GPO Film Unit in wartime. Features 'Britain Can Take It' (Jennings & Watt, 1940), which American journalist Quentin Reynolds took directly to President Roosevelt in the White House where it was used to swing public opinion behind Britain in the War; 'Britain at Bay' (1940), with a commentary written and spoken by J B Priestley; 'The Story of an Air Communique' (1940) made to show how the figures for destroyed enemy aircraft were compiled; Christmas Under Fire (Watt, 1941), which was Quentin Reynald's second despatch showing carols from Kings College Chapel, Cambridge during the Blitz and 'Men of the Lightship' (MacDonald, 1940), a reconstruction of the bombing of the Dudgeon lightship.

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