Plants of the Underworld

The film shows a cuckoo caught in the act of laying an egg in the nest of two titlarks. The egg is hatched by the foster-mother, and she and her mate feed and tend the young cuckoo, even to the detriment of their own chicks.

A short black-and-white silent documentary film featuring the life-cycle of the Barn Owl.

A short black-and-white silent documentary film featuring the conflict between two colonies of wood ants joined by a piece of tiber laid across a moat at a zoological garden.

The pictures show how the ailanthus silkmoth and the red admiral spin silk and weave a cocoon, and the way in which the change from caterpillar to moth is affected.

Beneath the waves are mountains, plains and valleys full of life: here the conger, the octopus, and the wrasse hunt for food; shrimps and prawns act as scavengers; sea anemones and starfish decorate the seafloor, and the spider crab assumes protective colouring by covering its back with pebbles.

A sign of approaching winter - the frost catches the leaves which begin to fall.

These pictures show the marvellous industry of the Bee, the ingenuity it exercises in making its home, and the ordered programme of life that it appears to follow.

Short documentary film using innovative filming techniques to show how moulds grow and germinate.

A short black-and-white silent documentary film featuring the sexual elements of pollenation in Dandelion, Globe thistle, Daisy, Cornflower, Carline thistle and Everlastings.

Time lapse photography of the broad bean flower unfurling. Released in a silent (1929) and sound (1930) version.

The film shows the birth, life and reproduction of sweet peas, a familiar and well loved plant of British gardeners.

The Strangler shows the life history of dodder, from its earliest stage as a seedling, to its parasitic stage feeding off its host.

The life cycle of the rose aphid (Macrosiphum Roseus).

Short film showing (with limited accuracy) the life-cycle of myxomycetes.

Short documentary showing infusoria in a wine-glass.

The poppy flower in its psychedelic glory.

The breeding cycle of the bittern, the cryptically plumaged relative of the herons.

The nightingale and its song, its habitat, nest eggs and young.

Short, anthropomorphically-inclined documentary showing the life-cycle of the common newt.

A short documentary study of hops, barley and yeast, and how they interact.

Mosses are seen on walls, old roofs and in hedgerows.

A wildlife film with a difference: it has A Message for any humans in the house. "The squirrel in the tree, the fox below, the birds, insects, all know that a time of plenty will not last forever". Austerity-stricken wartime viewers can learn from their economical feeding habits. An entertaining hybrid of public information and natural history from the makers of wildlife series Secrets of Life. Released in the BFI boxset Ration Books and Rabbit Pies: Films from the Home Front.

In England, two young friends, confronted with the outbreak of World War I, enlist together to serve in the same company on the battle-field.

The daughter of an American leather magnate is sent on a series of sightseeing tours in London with her father's business associate, but finds herself targeted by an opportunistic blackmailer.

A secondary mission in a new rocket, MR4, to the Moon takes off from Buchan Island. This time Henderson takes the lead role as pilot accompanied by Professor Wedgwood's oldest son Geoff as radio operator, Professor Mary Meadows, Henderson's niece Margret along with Hamlet. However one of the crew turns out to be science writer named Harcourt Brown who has plans to divert the ship to Mars determined there is life on the planet. Brown succeeds in getting MR4 to Mars, but with the length of the journey, the crew decide that the only way to get home is to find water on Mars.

A brisk visual summary of the changing faces of the English town throughout the ages, from the ancients and their hill-forts to the Second World War -- enlivened by the appearance of ghostly denizens to defend their eras against the narrator's various strictures!

Returning from their unexpected trip to Mars the crew of MR4 intercept a distress signal from Captain Wilson, a U.S astronaut, and must change course for Venus to attempt a rescue in space. However, through the space periscope, Brown sees what appears to be a settlement or a city of some sort. Desperate to investigate, Brown edits Wilson's message and tricks the crew into landing Venus so as they can rescue him.

Flock to your local keep fit class - there's a war on and Britain needs its citizens in tip-top shape.

The film shows the birth, life and reproduction of sweet peas, a familiar and well loved plant of British gardeners.

Professor Norman Wedgwood and his team are planning another rocket mission to the Moon. Once again, Geoff, Valerie and Jimmy are on hand to witness the launch of a new rocket MR1, along with journalist friend Conway Henderson. However, when the automatic supply ship MR2 fails to launch Henderson and the children make a desperate rescue attempt with Jimmy's pet Hamlet.

A man contracts a sexually transmitted disease, but is reluctant to seek medical help - until a no-nonsense lecture about the risks he is taking forces him to change his mind.

Mosses are seen on walls, old roofs and in hedgerows.

Shows how a nursery school enables children to play, eat, rest, look after themselves and indulge their curiousity at their own pace during a typical day.

'An unwary young woman led astray by a grinning gentleman on a motorcycle ends up with a sexually transmitted disease in this straight-talking female-focused silent public information film drama. Her doctor recounts - in a series of ominous flashbacks - sad tales of other women in similar situations who foolhardily let gonorrhoea and syphilis go untreated.' (BFI Player)

The film takes us to the North of England to follow the migration of the black-headed gull down to London. There, the narrator asks viewers to "listen to their gossip", before demonstrating the bird’s flight in slow motion. We see a polecat feasting on gull eggs, and then a man collecting the eggs for human consumption, with the film telling us that they are considered a “delicacy” in London. Indeed, according to the British Trust for Ornithology, around 300,000 gull’s eggs were sold every year in Leadenhall Market in London during the 1930s, when London Visitors was made.