Review for World War II - The British Movietone Newsreel Years

Founded in 1929, British Movietone was the first sound newsreel service in Britain, shooting on 35 mm film. Hungry for news from the various war fronts during World War II, people flocked to cinemas to see as many news reports as they could.


Despite a shortage in film supplies, British Movietone News covered the home front and all the theatres of war: from the Western Front and Occupied Paris, to Africa, the Middle East and the Pacific.

This collection brings together many of these reels which have been re-mastered especially for this set – some clips which have been unseen by the public eye since they aired in cinemas during WWII.


The publicity that came with the sample disc describes the collection as ‘Sometimes heroic, sometimes sad, and sometimes hilarious; this collection is a testament of British spirit and humour that will delight both those who lived through the war and younger generations learning about this major event in British history.” I’d have to agree with that if Disc 3 is anything to go by.


Covering the war years in their entirety, as well as some of the early post-war years, it’s a veritable time capsule of the drama of war as it unfolded as well as a fascinating insight into how news was disseminated back in the day. It would be hard not to consider this propaganda (as that was undoubtedly what it was) but entirely forgivable too.


On Disc three there were a whole series of themed reports including a couple that were unexpectedly uplifting. In a section entitled ‘The Lighter Side’, for example, we can see Hitler and Mussolini played forwards and backwards, speeded up and slowed down to make them look ridiculous and to puncture their power to terrorise. Even today it’s laugh aloud funny in a surreal, Monty-Pythonesque way.

There was also a section entitled ‘Women’ which tracks the collective British realisation that ladies were every bit as capable of doing ‘men’s jobs’ in their absence. It’s a really great record of how a nation pulled together against formidable adversity with a common cause to selflessly work for the common good. No wonder the welfare state was born from such idealism – if only we had some of this humane and caring collective spirit today, without a World War to initiate it!



Although most of these clips are be available on You Tube (courtesy of The Gaurdian), some are not and many won’t be of the quality you see here. It’s also great to have them collected here in a single set.
 
DISC 1 The Early Years (1938-1940) Approx 160 mins
DISC 2 The Dark Days (1941-1942) Approx 180 mins
DISC 3 The Tide Turns (1943) Approx 160 mins
DISC 4 The Beginning of the End Part 1 (1944) Approx 150 mins
DISC 5 The Beginning of the End Part 2 (1944) Approx 150 mins
DISC 6 The End of War and The Aftermath (1945) Approx 120 mins