The arrival of the telephone dialling system revolutionised telephone technology by replacing the need for switchboard operators to place calls manually by means of plugs and switches. This film deploys mesmerising and inventive abstract visual techniques to illuminate some of the complex processes involved in developing, testing and maintaining the dial system.
This is a film without a 'message' except in as much as the filmmakers convey, in its undertones, the vital strategic role played by the GPO's cable ships in keeping communications with the continent open. A fact that was about to become even more important as war loomed.
Granton Trawler follows the small fishing vessel, Isabella Greig, as it carries out its dragnet fishing along the Viking Bank off the Norwegian coast of the North Sea. Grierson used the film to teach budding directors how to analyze movement photographically and how to make use of sound for contrapuntal editing.
Charmingly combining a whimsical romantic tale, with practical information about the Post Office Savings Bank, and a gently experimental film-making technique, this film entertainly depicts some of the prospects opened up by having a savings account. John Atkins is a sensible clerk who lives in a typical suburban street, who conscientiously remembers to close the gate when he leaves home for work - as the narrator informs the viewer.
In the internet age it may be difficult to fully appreciate the historic enthusiasm of Air Post, which focuses on European and Empire air mail services, and represents work processes from receipt and sorting in London through to loading onto Imperial Airways planes at Croydon airport. Yet during the 1920s and 1930s many British newsreels, travelogues and documentaries celebrated new developments in imperial civil aviation. These ranged from celebrity exploration travelogues such as With Cobham to the Cape (1926) to documentaries such as The Future's in the Air (1937).
No point in summarising the plot of the GPO's second silliest flick. As with Pett and Pott it's a flimsy excuse for the kind of film-making fun, on-set and in the cutting room that nonetheless paid off in the Unit's increasingly confident handling of sound and picture. The film incidentally illustrates Cavalcanti's temperamental differences from Grierson, and it inadvertently prefigures a modern pattern in British advertising whereby the brand is sent up at the same time as being promoted.
Pett and Pott was made for the GPO Film Unit but, unlike many of the documentary films made there, it is a satirical comedy. The film, made to advertise domestic telephone sets, is based around two very different families. The Petts are conventional, happy and have children; the Potts are unconventional and unhappy, without children.
The GPO film unit came into possession of sound recording apparatus to the tune of £3,000 in the spring of 1934 and set about experimenting with various techniques. 6.30 Collection was one of their first successes at recording an orchestra. The orchestra consisted of one film rewinder (operated by Stuart Legg), one trumpet, two typewriters (operated by office staff), one empty beer bottle (blown for a ship's siren), one projector (by the projectionist), some conversation, two pieces of sand paper (Arthur Elton), the studio silence bell (Grierson), a pair of cymbals and a triangle (Basil Wright). Walter Leigh arranged and conducted and the result was the title music for 6.30 Collection.
At the time of its release in 1934, reviewers lauded Weather Forecast and its director, Evelyn Spice, for the documentary's original approach to sound and image. Made under the auspices of the General Post Office, Weather Forecast depicts the central importance of the GPO's telecommunications systems in bringing the latest weather reports to the country.
As the Empire Marketing Board film unit transferred to the GPO late in 1933, Wright went to Ceylon (Sri Lanka) for five months. Commissioned to shoot four travelogues.
Some earlier film-makers had experimented with painting or scratching, and the Italian Futurists Arnaldo Ginna and Bruno Corra made direct films around 1912, but these had been lost and forgotten. The arrival of A Colour Box in 1935 created a sensation in British cinemas because of its novelty and abstract style.
Coal Face (1935) was the first influential film to be made by the GPO Film Unit. It continued the experimentation with sound effects and music first initiated in Song of Ceylon (d. Basil Wright, 1934) and Pett and Pott (d. Alberto Cavalcanti, 1934), and was described in the Film Society programme of 27 October 1935 as "an experiment in sound".
The King's Stamp was commissioned by the GPO as part of the 1935 Silver Jubilee celebrations of King George V. Generally, the Jubilee sparked a massive, rather unexpected, outburst of popular celebration that perhaps prefigured the national unity evident during the Second World War. Specifically, the film focuses on the commissioning and production of the Silver Jubilee stamp, the first common colonial stamp designed for a reigning monarch's jubilee.
The most ambitious film yet attempted by the GPO Film Unit, BBC - The Voice of Britain was heralded by one reviewer as "by far, the most important 'documentary' that has yet been made. It was also the most expensive documentary to have been made costing more than £7000 and it was probably the first GPO film to use synchronised sound.
This little-known publicity film for the GPO telegram service is a product of the sandpit in which the young creatives of the Film Unit were allowed to learn their skills. More experiment than experimental, more playful than avant-garde, the film is nevertheless a highly imaginative, visually and aurally stimulating piece.
Sadly, very little is known about this title. It is thought that this was the last film to be actively directed by Grierson and as it was based on a subject so close to his heart, it is wholly appropriate that he narrates the film himself with a free-running unscripted commentary. It does not appear to be made up from left-over footage from either Drifters or Granton Trawler and therefore seems to indicate that a separate shooting trip had been carried out.
The 24-minute film from 1936 documents the nightly postal train operated by the London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS) from London to Scotland and the staff who operate it.