Trawl in Action

An amazingly complex cinema ad, disguised as a trailer for a film that never existed

Super soft-sell Persil ad, in the guise of a lush Technicolor essay on colour itself.

Pratfalls galore in rib-tickling commercial for Bush radios.

This propaganda advert encourages housewives to use Persil, the powder that gives “longer life to your linens”.

A Co-op window dresser dreams of his mannequins coming to life in this musical fashion fantasy.

“There is nothing you can beat about the Bush”: the wireless wows in this stylish ad for Bush Radio.

Humphrey Jennings’ once-lost film, initiated as an experiment in the use of Dufaycolor, records one of the last voyages of a commercial sailing ship.

The director of a documentary about British funk pioneers Cymande joins the band at BFI Southbank to talk about the film.

Plotting world domination, Devil Doctor Fu-Manchu steals plans for a new aero-torpedo in this earliest surviving thrill-a-minute serial instalment.

Filmmakers Jane Giles and Ali Catterall discuss their documentary Scala!!!, revisiting the legendary and inspirational cinema venue and some of the most notorious films that screened there.

Long thought lost, this Powell-directed promotional short for a veteran’s charity was only rediscovered in 2003.

A poignant, stirring letter from a recently deceased pilot to his mother is read by John Gielgud.

Former Bristol Poet Laureate, Miles Chambers reads a poem specially commissioned for the 75th anniversary of the NHS.