Movies

Part of BFI collection "If War Should Come."

Betty marries rich Allan out of interest and drives a wedge between him and his family.

Where he goes, he doesn't need luggage... A very talkative traveler settles in the only wagon occupied by a man with a strange diction. The train is...

The first months of WWII as experienced by the new young recruits - the 'young Berts' - of the British Army.

Correspondence between young lovers nearly ends in disaster through a mistake in postal district. Fortunately the GPO spots the error and all ends...

Spare Time is a 1939 British film directed by Humphrey Jennings for the GPO Film Unit, and made for the 1939 New York World's Fair. It is 15 minutes...

Documentary about the construction of telephone lines.

The production of King George V's Silver Jubilee (1910-1935) special postage stamp, and a brief dramatised history of the development of the penny...

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...

A re-creation of a bombing raid on Hanover, with the objective of promoting war savings bonds.

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...

1935 documentary about the hard working life of Welsh coal miners.

The first behind-the-scenes documentary in the film industry, from the making of a camera (Debrie) to studio shooting and directing, including...

A brisk GPO Film Unit promo for the Post Office Savings Bank: pub talk and daydream vignettes tout penny-by-penny thrift, peaking in a playful Norman...

The operation of a floating sea fort during WWII, and the lives of those who work on board.

A French-language Free French propaganda short made in wartime London: Germaine Sablon performs three resistance songs—most notably the first...

The laying of underground telephone cables.

Documentary following an Edinburgh fishing trawler, the "Isabella Grieg".

The author J.B. Priestley delivers a talk about cross-border trade and communications as a benign force, which he contrasts with the military...