English Harvest

Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony in August, with scenes of the wheat from scythe to binder, in Dufaycolor.

London Can Take It!

Quentin Reynolds of Collier’s Weekly reports from the capital, five weeks into the Battle of London.

America is not in the war, he is a “neutral” observer.

Morale is high, he says, and Goebbels has it wrong.

A great director if ever there was one films all about, to bear witness.

Words for Battle

The English poets from Shakespeare to Kipling, with Churchill and Lincoln.

Very appositely filmed, very beautiful and modern, to raise one’s spirits in the Battle of Britain.

Listen to Britain

The unique tone of Britain during the war, adduced in a series of images and sounds.

A Canadian introduces the film to a wider audience, there is no secret per se.

Co-directed with Stewart McAllister.

I Was a Fireman

A day and a night at an Auxiliary Fire Service sub-station in London, the day is routine but a German raid is expected after dark.

It comes, a building is on fire, a ship loading munitions and artillery nearby is in danger.

The pump runs dry, water must be drawn from a wreck in the Thames at low tide. The sub-officer is injured, a fireman is killed.

When the siren sounds, the firemen return to the station, the ship sails.

The fireman’s funeral.

Fires Were Started, it’s also called. The personnel portray themselves or others like them.

Raleigh and Shakespeare are quoted on death and dogs, respectively.

Myra Hess

“Appassionata”, first movement, with the Victory motif.

A Diary for Timothy

Its twofold consideration is of the war’s last winter in Britain and the perils of peace, which latter it weighs rhetorically as worse than the Nazis, the better to dismiss them.