This film is part of Free
Broadcasting Visualised
Rare footage of a silent British film in production, as newsreel cameras capture a BBC on-set radio broadcast.
Overview
There's a touch of MC Escher's impossible geometry about this media-traversing newsreel item, in the Gaumont Graphic newsreel visits sister company Gaumont-British's Lime Grove studios to film a BBC radio production of a film in production. The slightly uncanny feel is compounded by the appearance of the film's star, Fay Compton, talking for the benefit to radio listeners - but not, alas, for the audience of this silent newsreel.
This kind of behind-the-scenes footage of a British film from the silent era is a real rarity, making this short item something of a precious artefact. The film in question, The Whirlpool (released in Britain as London Love, in July 1926), is a silent melodrama also starring John Stuart, Miles Mander and Moore Marriott. Like so many British films from the silent era, it seems to be lost, so these few snatched images of Manning Haynes directing Compton, Stuart and Marriott in a tender scene are all the more valuable.
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