John Grierson

In this delightful fantasy adventure, a mild-mannered writer of adventure stories for girls finds himself presented with an intriguing proposition from an elderly fan. She suggests that they conspire to steal a secret whiskey formula from ruthless distillers, who themselves stole it from her family in years gone by. With the recipe back in hand however, it's not long before they attract attention from the Inspectors of Scotland Yard.

At Balloch Moss mine in Scotland, water comes through a seam bringing a torrent of mud into the mine and flooding the pit shaft, resulting in 118 men being trapped, with nine missing. The only means by which the rescue team can bring the men out is through some old abandoned workings which are now full of gas and thus will cause delays in any rescue attempt.

The history of Scotland and the factors that have shaped the character of its people.

An Irish "oracle" foretells the next day's track results to a newspaperman, resulting in a national uproar.

Ambitious documentary chronicling the cultural life and religious customs of the Sinhalese and the effects of advanced industrialism on such customs.

Ada Shore (Diane Hart) arrives at Skerryvore University in Scotland in search of her long-lost uncle Connell O’Grady (Joseph Tomelty), who was once a subversive Irish poet but is now working under an assumed name as a University porter. Ada is mistaken by Principal Archibald Asher (Patrick Barr) as his new secretary, and she goes along with the impersonation. Archibald and Ada fall in love, which incurs the disapproval of the puritanical Professor Hayman (Duncan Macrae).

A behind-the-scenes GPO Film Unit documentary (directed by Stuart Legg) that races from studio rehearsals and newsrooms to control rooms and transmitters, weaving speeches, music, and outside broadcasts—featuring voices like H. G. Wells and Ramsay MacDonald—into a kinetic portrait of how the BBC’s national “voice” is made.

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.

Short documentary showing the workings of a large London sorting office.

Trade Tattoo went even further than Rainbow Dance in its manipulation of the Gasparcolor process. The original black and white footage consisted of outtakes from GPO Film Unit documentaries such as Night Mail. Lye transformed this footage in what has been described as the most intricate job of film printing and color grading ever attempted. Animated words and patterns combine with the live-action footage to create images as complex and multi-layered as a Cubist painting. Music was provided by the Cuban Lecuona Band. With its dynamic rhythms, the film seeks (in Lye’s words) to convey “a romanticism about the work of the everyday in all walks of life."

Marionette parody of Charlie Chaplin.

Drama-documentary, reconstructing a real incident in which a trawler got into difficulties in a North Sea storm. Released 7th March 1938.

Developed from John Grierson's opportunistic recruitment of the well-known director and anthropologist Robert Flaherty, Industrial Britain provides a traditional picture of Britain as is interrupted by industrial stacks billowing smoke. A dramatic illustration of how the young British documentary movement grappled with the influence of the genre’s founding father, Flaherty's ethos was essentially that of a 19th-century conservative individualist, attracted to the elemental extremes of nature and suspicious of the mechanisation of the modern world.

Documentary about shipbuilding on the Clyde. In 1960, Glasgow and other towns and ports on the River Clyde, on the west coast of Scotland, were still one of the world's great centres of shipbuilding. The film gives an idea of the business of building a ship - the largest moving thing made by man - from the naval architects who design her to the workmen, the shipbuilders in the yard, through to a ship's launching.

A celebration of the importance of the British countryside.

“Catching up with gossip, inspecting new ducklings, clambering over gates, walking across meadows - the life of a postman appears idyllic, but this Devon postie has some startling ideas about improving efficiency... The inimitable Richard Massingham, a doctor turned actor and filmmaker, co-directed this film, and appears in it as the testy Mr Proctor. This film was produced by John Grierson, often hailed as the father of British documentary. It was made for the General Post Office (GPO) Film Unit, one of the most remarkable creative institutions that Britain has produced. It provided a springboard for many of the best-known and critically acclaimed figures in the British Documentary Movement.” - BFI

In this parody of Sherlock Holmes, the Great Detective goes to an opium den of inequity in the dangerous London district of London and challenges Tong assassins in order to rescue a woman.

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

This documentary short examines the special train on which mail is sorted, dropped and collected on the run, and delivered in Scotland on the overnight run from Euston, London to Glasgow.

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

Filmed in Uganda, Man of Africa was assembled by legendary documentary producer John Grierson. The film depicts the mass migration of the Bakija and Batwa tribes to a new territory after the natural resources of their native soil has been depleted. The pro-ecological message is always present, but never so much as to degenerate into fatuous speechmaking. As a means to introduce the semblance of a plot, writer/director Cyril Frankel concentrates on the trials and tribulations of clerk-cum-farmer Jonathan (Frederick Bijurenda) and his native sweetheart Violet (Violet Mukabuerza). Print quality in Man of Africa varies from adequate to murky.

The story of the North Sea herring fleets from Yarmouth and Lowestoft to Shetland.

The building and launch of a new long-wave radio transmitter - just as the TV age is about to be born.

A record of an educational experiment in the small town of Chesterfield in Derbyshire.