Richard Massingham

A bitter burglar, a prostitute and an elderly shoplifter spend their first day out of jail.

A trip to the theatre changes a meek bank clerk's life, as he undergoes hypnosis and leaves without being woken up. Suddenly, he believes he is the world's greatest lover and becomes a terrorizing Casanova.

Men from Scotland Yard and military intelligence build a dossier on a sabotage ring.

Government information film on how to get maximum wear from a man's suit, narrated by one such suit in the form of an autobiography.

The story of a family house through four generations

Short road safety film.

Describes the many by-products resulting from the carbonisation of coal.

A short comedy about dentistry by the doctor and (at this point) amateur film-maker Richard Massingham.

A provoking film on the place of women.

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 McLaren passage where household furniture springs to life—selling the idea that “many a little makes a lot.”

“During the Second World War, blackout regulations were imposed to make it harder for enemy aircraft to find their targets over Britain. This plunged parts of the country into darkness and made travelling by road especially dangerous. It was hoped that the resulting increase in road accidents could be curtailed, by encouraging road users to follow some of the featured safety precautions.” - BFI

“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

Comedy of the theft of a poodle by a villain and the chase after him.

National insurance made amusing by the eccentric Richard Massingham.

Another of Richard Massingham's films about the dangers of sneezing and germ transmission, and what to do with used handkerchiefs

This film explains how sneezing in public can spread disease, and shows how using a handkerchief can stop it.

The effortlessly comic abandons the stress of his city job to work on a farm.

Styles of architecture used in the 1951 South Bank Exhibition, London.

A man extols the enjoyment that can still be had in a bath restricted to the wartime allowance of five inches of hot water.

Filmed shortly after World War II," The Silent Order" records the lives of Trappist monks living inside the 12th-century Monastery of the Holy Cross, Roscrea, County Tipperary, as they quietly go about their business as farmers, scholars, artists, and writers—evoking 10 centuries of a shifting social, political, and religious landscape in the heart of Ireland. 

A brief documentary about the history of the Royal Mail.