Movies: Humphrey Jennings

This experiment was a “prestige advertisement” for Shell Motor Oil. As conventional animation became dominated by Walt Disney, many European filmmakers turned to puppets as an alternative, and Lye enlisted the help of avant-garde friends such as Hum...

Documentary short by Humphrey Jennings...

A documentary by Humphrey Jennings about the modernization of coal mines in Cumberland....

British film written and directed by Humphrey Jennings, filmed in documentary style showing the lives of firefighters through the Blitz in World War II....

One of the last voyages of a commercial sailing ship on a trip from Cornwall....

How long-distance telephone calls are made, from the UK to the USA. We see operators, miles of wires, and the amplification of voice transmitted across the waters. Engineers of the Post Office describe how they are improving the service....

Shot in mid-1939 as S.S. Ionian (also shown as Her Last Trip), Humphrey Jennings’s GPO short follows the Royal Mail steamer on a last peacetime run through the Mediterranean—Gibraltar, Malta, Alexandria, Haifa—under the gaze of the Mediterranean Flee...

Documentary short by Humphrey Jennings...

As the subtitle of the film suggests - The Story of a Post Card from Manchester to Graffham - this journey is very much focused on the process of sorting, transporting and delivering the postcard in question....

The harvest of a pre-war British farm....

Short documentary on the use of the V-1 Flying Bomb during the German bombings of London....

A story of sacrifice, in which organised labour voluntarily relinquishes hard-won workplace rights after being asked "to give up by choice what Hitler takes by force."...

Rubber rooftops and bomber-size fly paper suspended in the sky? Gad Sir, bring on the Blitz! David Low’s success as a cartoonist in the 1930s is perhaps best demonstrated by the fact that Goebbels complained that he was souring British-German relatio...

A concert short spotlighting Dame Myra Hess performing the first movement of Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 23 in F minor, “Appassionata.” Filmed in an intimate hall setting, it focuses on her touch and phrasing, presenting the movement as a self-conta...

A Defeated People is a 1946 British documentary short film made by the Crown Film Unit, directed by Humphrey Jennings and narrated by William Hartnell. The film depicts the shattered state of Germany, both physically and as a society, in the immediat...

A concise museum short that traces the evolution of the steam locomotive, using the Science Museum (London)’s model railway collection to chart design leaps from early pioneers to mainline express engines....

The Heart of Britain (1941) depicts wartime life in the North and Midlands, contrasting tranquil countryside with the grit of industry. From Sheffield steelworkers and Lancashire cotton mills to ARP squads, concerts, and choirs, the film highlights r...

Documentary short by Humphrey Jennings...