Britain

Educational and Television Films has a unique collection of films form the British labour movement in the Thirties, an material from the post war peace movement and Trade Unions and the Cooperative movement.

Action Against the Means Test

1935 16mm 10 mins bw silent Film and Photo League

March and rally in London. Speakers include James Maxton (Independent Labour Party) and Tom Mann (Communist Party).

Free Thaelmann

16mm 20 mins bw ec Dir: Ivor Montagu

Compilation film made for the Free Ernst Thaelmann Campaign to release him from imprisonment at the Buchenwald concentration camp. Shows footage of various demonstrations in the Twenties. May Day 1929, riots and police arrests, Sports Day 1930. May Day 1931, 1932. The Red Front Fighters. 1933 Hitler inaugurated, Reichstag Fire Trial. Dimitrov in Moscow 1935.

Britain in the Twenties and Thirties

USSR 16mm/35mm 20 mins bw silent

"1926 General Strike scenes, deserted railway station, food van. Rhondda Valleys, miners on strike on the street. Slums by a river. Henri Barbusse with unemployed.

National Hunger March, 1932 'Scottish contingent': marchers along country road and marching into a town. Women's groups marching also. London, early tanks in streets. Trafalgar Square meeting, Tom Mann and dockers, banners from South Wales. Stimpson (US) and Ramsay McDonald together. Hyde Park meeting, Communist Party stand. Speakers.Excerpt: India showing colonial exploitation, demo. m/s Indians beaten by soldiers on ground. Arrest, rough manhandling taking place. Nehru with Indians at 'Free India' meeting. Docker's demo, meeting with Harry Pollitt. Dockers' demo outside Unemployed queuing for jobs and on benches. Intervention wars.,warships at sea, troops at Russian ports.

Abyssinia 1934: Haille Selassie, Nazi gas attacks snipers, anti aircraft guns fired, first aid van. Wounded on stretchers to camp. GB Shaw in USSR getting off train.

H Levy, T Watlins (TU leader), AJ Cook (NUM), M Thorez. Churchill, London Bridge scenes, bikes, vans, cars, bus depot. Early tank in streets."

Fifty Fighting Years

1972 16mm 45 mins sound bw

In this tribute to the journal Labour Monthly the struggles of the British Labour Movement between 1921 and 1971 are highlighted. Featuring Rajani Palme Dutt and Robin Page Arnot.

Britain Jubilee Year

1935 16mm 10 mins bw silent

Jubilee celebrations used to contrast and highlight the conditions of the poor. Street party in the East End, royalist banners, group of police, household cavalry, Scots Guard parade. George V in carriage procession, George V and Queen Mary walk. Scenes of urban poverty, unemployed at dole queue and on streets. WW1 injured veterans on streets. Army recruits and military build up.

British Soviet Friendships Visits

1956 16mm 20 mins ec

"Delegation from London County Council visits Bolshoi Theatre. Folk dancers. Norman Wisdom. Lord Mayor of London in Moscow. British Navy in Leningrad.

Russian church leaders in Scotland. Dean of Canterbury in Moscow. British agricultural delegates visit the USSR Agricultural Exhibition. Black Sea sanatoriums. Dynamo Football club and match. British athletes at Moscow Stadium. British Art Exhibition and films in Moscow."

Rhondda Depression Years

1935 16mm 10 mins bw silent

Difficult days in the Welsh mining valleys. High unemployment, queues at Labour Exchange. Demonstration with MP's Sidney Silverman and Aneurin Bevan amongst the marchers. Meeting of the National Unemployed Workers movement.

Deadly the Harvest

1960 16mm 20 mins bw ec

Quakers on Aldermaston march to London in protest against nuclear weapons. Anti Nazi marchers. Arrival of marchers in London, Trafalgar Square meeting. Some Hiroshima archive.