|
FIGHTS, CAMERA,
ACTION
THE RUMBUSTIOUS HISTORY OF BRITISH
NEWSREEL COMPANIES
By Cy Young, Writer, Researcher,
Film and Television Archive Consultant
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
On 5th October 1930, sensational
news reached England from Beauvais
in France: the airship R101 had crashed
en route to India, killing 48 of its
passengers. Over that weekend the
cinema newsreels in London raced to
get the first pictures on screen.
At Heston aerodrome, north of the
capital, Gaumont News laid out flare
paths to guide in the plane arriving
from France with pictures of the wreckage;
from there, a motor cycle despatch
rider set out with the can of negative
for Gaumont's laboratories at Shepherd's
Bush. In the cutting rooms, a young
film editor named David Lean was one
of the staff called in to assemble
an emergency issue of Gaumont's SuperSound
Newsreel. With nobody else available,
Lean wrote and voiced the commentary
that would accompany the film into
those West End theatres equipped with
sound projectors; a silent version
of the Gaumont Graphic News would
go to other exhibitors.
The missing piece in the jigsaw was
footage of the R101 taking off from
its Cardington base; this had been
an unpublicised event, launched ahead
of schedule to meet the demands of
Air Minister Lord Thompson. Fortunately,
every newsreel library had stock footage
of the airship leaving on earlier
test flights, so these were spliced
in with title cards announcing "unique"
pictures of the R101 leaving on its
fatal last journey. Compounding the
deception, all the major newsreel
outfits claimed in the trade papers
to have been first in screening the
disaster for London audiences.
Fakery & sabotage
War had been declared and throughout
the next decade British Movietone
News and British Pathe News would
be the main antagonists, competing
for "exclusives", resorting
to fakery and even sabotage in order
to outflank the enemy.
From the earliest days, the obvious
targets for British cinema newsreels
were tha major national sporting events,
and soccer's FA Cup Final was a top
attraction.
 However,
the management of Wembley Statium
extracted a tribute from newsreel
companies that in the late 1930's
was negotiable anywhere between £500
and £1000.
When the avarice of the Wembley authorities
was baulked by the miserliness of
the Newsreel Association's members,
and no agreement could be reached,
a bare-knuckle fight ensued. In 1936
A.J. Elvin, the managing director
of Wembley Statium, arranged to make
his own film of that year's Cup Final
and to ban other coverage. The cinema
newsreels joined forces against the
common foe, and in the early afternoon
of Saturday 25th April, a formation
of a dozen light planes and helicopters
appeared in the sky over the Wembley
pitch. The aerial version of the game
was released to exhibitors, a technical
breach of copyright, and Elvin took
immediate legal action.
More usually, the British newsreels
fought amongst themselves. When, for
instance, Pathe secured the rights
to exclusive coverage of a Test Match
at the Oval, ousted rivals Movietone
set up large mirrors to reflect the
sun into the lenses of the Pathe cameras,
and floated a hot-air balloon over
the ground to distract players and
crowd.
The Grand National was another of
the regular battlegrounds for the
cinema newsreels. In 1934 the Pathe
Super Sound Gazette was proud to present
"the only authentic and official
pictures of the world's greatest race",
with a commentary by Express newspapers'
expert on horse flesh, Captain Gilbey.
But Pathe's exclusive was challenged
in that week's edition from Movietone,
who contrived to run a story "Golden
Miller Wins A Record Grand National"
that mingled general shots of the
crowds arriving, with footage of the
actual race, taken from unorthodox
camera positions.
A favourite venue for such piracy
was -- aptly enough -- a rented boat
moored in sight of the Canal Turn
at Aintree; and even if the Movietone
boys had their shot ruined by a couple
of men unfurling a banner reading
"See It All On Pathe Gazette"
just as the horses galloped into view,
it was always possible to cobble something
together.
Failed to notice
An unrepentant Movietone covered
the 1935 Grand National, under the
title "How Golden Miller Failed",
by including laboratory dupes of the
same horse but at a different event
-- namely the Cheltenham Gold Cup
in March. It was taken for granted
by the newsreel's editor that audiences
would fail to notice the key shot
of Golden Miller -- being paraded
around the Cheltenham paddock by its
owner Dorothy Paget -- making a second
appearance at Liverpool in April.
Perhaps it was not surprising that
in February 1938 the council members
of the recently established Newsreel
Association of Great Britain and Northern
Ireland, meeting in Wardour Street,
London, approved a resolution that
disavowed "anything in the nature
of a fake or hoax" in order to
maintain (sic) the British newsreels'
reputation for "the presentation
of genuine pictures only".
Towards the end of the 1930's, with
the Spanish Civil War a rehearsal
for the impending conflict with Germany,
censorship was to largely inhibit
the newsreels' freedom.
The other threat -- from the new
medium of television, which was already
transmitting the cinema editions of
Gaumont British and Movietone News
in 10 minute afternoon and evening
slots -- would remain dormant until
the end of hostilities.
From the outbreak of World War Two,
the government introduced a rota system
whereby newsreels had to share coverage
of most important public events, traditional
rivalries subordinated to the wartime
ethic of co-operation. A boisterous
era was ended.
By Cy Young, Writer, Researcher,
Film and Television Archive Consultant
First published, Summer, 2000
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Email: cyyoung@hotmail.com
|
