This film is part of Free
Coal Industry in Britain
The struggling UK coal industry is under the spotlight, together with the US liquor trade and the rise in trailer living.
Anthology 1937 20 mins
Overview
Black Areas, the final story in this issue of the American newsreel, visits South Wales, where "men have made their living for centuries by digging coal" but are not sharing in the UK's return to prosperity after the Depression. This item was directed by Edgar Anstey, a leading British documentary filmmaker, who also headed the London office of March of Time in the late 1930s.
Anstey is probably best known for co-directing the groundbreaking film Housing Problems (1935) and went on to become a prominent producer, notably as head of British Transport Films.
Related
The March of Time
Inside Nazi Germany
Documentary 1938 16 mins
A genuinely historic film, which caused much controversy at the time: the first commercially -released American motion picture to explicitly attack Hitler and Nazism.
Amoskeag
Anthology 1937 20 mins
A bankrupt mill-town, the evils of political patronage and Hawaii’s struggle for statehood. Three ways of looking at the same question: how to change society for the better?
Wish You Were Here
Documentary 1949 18 mins
Round-the-clock fun is the order of the day in this whirlwind survey of the tourist industry in 1949: from a mass Hokey Cokey at Butlin’s Pwllheli, to stand-up comedy in the Catskills.
It’s in the Groove
Documentary 1949 18 mins
Witness the rise of the record industry, from its primitive beginnings to the unveiling of the formats that would revolutionise the world of popular music: the LP and the single.
On Stage
Documentary 1949 18 mins
Drama on-stage and behind the scenes, from auditions to first night reviews, as The March of Time raises the curtain on the 1948 Broadway production of ‘Anne of the Thousand Days’.
General Douglas Macarthur; Geneva; The Invasion Of Ethiopia
Anthology 1936 20 mins
A sinister, bearded figure walks the streets of Paris at dawn. Follow French public executioner Pierre Deibler, as he travels with his guillotine, to perform his deadly trade.
New
Bamboozled
Comedy 1919 35 mins Silent
A protective father masquerades as an automatic doll in this bonkers interwar comedy.
Spirit of Mayday
1937 11 mins Silent
May Day – a significant day for the labour movement – is covered by the cameras of the Film and Photograph League.
Cornelius Cardew 1936-1981
Performance 1986 55 mins
An exploration of the life and work of the controversial British composer.
Circulation
1935 9 mins
Let it bleed? This exemplary education film gets to the heart of the matter.
U.A.B. (Workers Newsreel No.3)
Non-Fiction 1935 12 mins Silent
Punchy political film capturing mass protests against unemployment.
The Merry Month of May
1937 15 mins Silent
A spirited satire on the coronation of George VI made by members of the Film and Photograph League.