This film is part of Free

Boer War Drama

Brits and Boers battle it out... in Blighty

Drama 1900 1 mins Silent

Overview

It doesn't take long to figure out that this is not actuality war footage - as its audiences were surely well aware of at the time. Filmed in England, it's a staged representation of the ongoing war in South Africa, complete with theatrical death-falls.

This is an early work by Mitchell and Kenyon. For many years, the Blackburn-based firm was mainly associated with this kind of Boer War dramatisation. That all changed with the 1990s discovery of the Peter Worden Collection of Mitchell and Kenyon Films and its subsequent restoration by the BFI, revealing their bread and butter, and their ultimate legacy to the British nation, to be hundreds of local actuality films - all now available on BFI Player.