Arthur Elton

How the location and size of an oil field is measured. With animated explanations.

An uncredited Anthony Asquith is one of the directors of this WWII film (a joint UK/US production) which aims to explain British culture and character to the newly arrived American soldier. Starting with the ubiquitous pub visit, the film breezes through geography lessons, food and entertainment on the Home Front.

The problem of slum dwellings in the 1930s.

Shows the workings of Britain's Air Post service.

Documentary on oil exploration, the phase before drilling.

Documentary by Andrew Buchanan illustrating a time when faith lay at the heart of the British Experience.

Combining a whimsical romantic tale, practical information about the Post Office Savings Bank, and a gently experimental film-making technique, this film entertainingly depicts some of the prospects opened up by having a savings account.

Tomorrow is Theirs examines provisions for secondary school education during the war, arguing for the importance of maintaining excellent, thorough schooling in spite of wartime obstacles.

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.

Short World War II documentary showing examples of how skilled craftsmen of peacetime apply their skills to essential wartime production.

Geoffrey Bell’s Shell Film Unit short (produced by Arthur Elton) turns the history and physics of power transmission—from lever and pulley to the toothed gear—into a crisp lesson, blending live action with Francis Rodker’s animated diagrams to show how gearing underpins modern industry. Often cited as a model of clear scientific exposition.

Shadow on the Mountains (Arthur Elton, 1932) is a classic English pastoral, with impressionistic views of the English countryside as it expounds the virtues of farming and shepherding.

Public information film aimed at the unemployed, commissioned by the Ministry of Labour.