This film is part of Free

Video Player is loading.
Current Time 0:00
Duration 0:00
Loaded: 0%
Stream Type LIVE
Remaining Time 0:00
 
1x

Brought to Justice

Demonstrating extraordinary filmmaking skills, pupils at Ellerby Lane School reveal a time when the life of school children revolved around skipping, marbles, and comics.

Amateur film 1953 18 mins Silent

From the collection of:

Logo for Yorkshire Film Archive

Overview

This is a wonderful example of schools using film as part of their teaching, as well the talents of students who had failed the 11 plus, showing their filmmaking skills. A group of students at Ellerby Lane School in Leeds, 1953 produce, direct, do the camera work, and act in a story of their own devising: a thief stealing money that had been buried in a garden for the War. It has a great chase scene around the backstreets, prefabs, factories and wastelands of East Leeds.

This film was inspired by teachers at Ellerby Lane School: Dr Maurice Woodhouse, who taught film appreciation, John Uncles and ‘Chuck’ Holmes. Schools often made their own films during the 1950s and 60s, some involving teachers who were members of the Society of Film Teachers, founded in 1950 to promote the teaching of film appreciation (and founding the magazine ‘Screen’). Many of these films, including this one, found their way into the hands of film historian and archivist John Huntley, one time head of the BFI Education Department. The schoolgirl director of the film, Mary Milner, seen at the end, has written a marvellous booklet all about the film, Film History and Mystery at Ellerby Lane (VMM, 2010).