British Pathe

Begins with the speeding Pathe News cameraman logo. Title proclaims "A History of News in Pictures." Retrospective about the newsreel.

01:49:07 Dublin 1900 - L/S Queen Victoria in a royal carriage seen from high angle - she is facing away from camera. Narrator suggests that this was when the...

Begins with the speeding Pathe News cameraman logo. Title proclaims "A History of News in Pictures." Retrospective about the newsreel.

01:49:07 Dublin 1900 - L/S Queen Victoria in a royal carriage seen from high angle - she is facing away from camera. Narrator suggests that this was when the newsreel was born. Procession towards the coronation of King Edward the VII - royal carriage being pulled by horses. He nods to the crowds as he passes the camera. M/S of shooting party which includes King Edward - shot in 1902. We see King Edward take a shot in M/S. 1903 - Wright brothers launch a biplane. 1911 - unveiling of the Queen Victoria memorial in front of Buckingham Palace - shot of the guests walking towards the statue and of the cloth covering the statue being removed. 1912 - * Note: Although Pathe claimed the following shots to be of the Titanic it has come to light that these shots are probably of the Olympic - sister ship of the Titanic- The only genuine Titanic footage held by Pathe is to be found on tape PM3468 at following timecodes: 01:40:20 to 01:47:06) the "Titanic" (actually the Olympic) leaves port for its first and last journey. M/S - people wave from the jetty and from the deck. L/S of the Olympic. 1914 - C/U of poster which reads: "War Declared on Germany." Shot of a crowd surging forward,voiceover states: "an upsurge of patriotism caught for all time in a strip of film." 01:50:43 1919 - peace conference at Versaille, shots of some of those present. Blackshirts march on Rome - L/S of the men as they march towards, then past the camera. Man pushes crowd back and gives Nazi salute. L/S of the men marching past a large statue. King Victor Emmanuel stands on a balcony with his aides and salutes. Men and women march in a square and give Nazi salute. 1924 - Moscow, Lenin's Funeral - men parade carrying banners. Soldiers well wrapped up against the cold stand holding rifles and stamp their feet. Huge parade of people in Moscow. Launch of a small aircraft from the underside of an airship. Various shots. 01:52:00 1926 - High angle shot of cars at a standstill - General Strike. Large number of people walking in the streets - presumably walking to work. 1937 - Coronation of King George VI - shots of the King being crowned. Narrator proclaims: "And so with the Coronation of King George VI in 1937 we come to our own decade. From the broad canvas of newsreel reporting we turn to the intimate study of great figures in history."

01:52:27 Personalities William Friese Greene is seen in his office and is proclaimed as the father of the film. A still of the Lumiere brothers and a poster for the "Cinematographe Lumiere" are shown. Edison is seen in C/U. Narrator talks of how the moving picture perpetuates the memory of many great figures. Short shot of Marie Curie in her laboratory. L/S of Lord Roberts. King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra in C/U getting into an open carriage. C/U of Marshall Foch gesticulating. 1920 - Sir Austen Chamberlain installed as Rector at Glasgow University - L/S and C/U. C/U of Baden Powell in scouting outfit. "Seen in a rare picture taken on his last world tour in 1922 - Lord Northcliffe..." - we see him being shown around some ruins, he is hailed as the greatest propagandist of the 1914 war. Rudyard Kipling makes a speech to some women graduates wearing mortar boards. They laugh. Earl Haig stands with an unidentified mayor. Mr Herbert Asquith and Margot stand on the steps of a public building after a Paisley by-election - they seem to have flour on their clothes. The aviator Bleriot (with his wife) is shown waving to the crowd on a visit to Britain. 1931 - George Lansbury in C/U making a speech. "Now another topic in this fascinating business of looking back."

01:54:33 Fashions of the Gay Nineties Various shots of 1890s fashions. Women parade in front of a marquee smiling at the camera. Two women show each other their outfits. Elaborate hats and parasols. Narrator states: "Here from Britain's most comprehensive newsreel library shots from when "oomph" was called deportment." Several shots follow of women modelling outfits but looking rather embarrased. Some "large" women are shown and the narrator observes how ideas about the ideal figure have changed somewhat. Excellent footage of swimsuit parades in the 1920s. M/S of a man starting a car and his lady wife sitting looking demure whilst the car shakes and bumps around. End title in style of silent era: "One minute please while we change reels."

01:56:02 Ye Olde Time Sports Page A couple in Edwardian style dress play tennis. An umpire sits on a step ladder. Narrator speaks in an affected "posh" voice. C/Us of the man and woman playing the game and of the umpire. 1898 - a group of women dressed in white ride their bicycles on a sports field - a kind of formation dancing on bikes - very quaint. They have flowers attached to their handlebars. L/S of a turn of the century car approaching the camera. Narrator describes it as a "prehistoric car race." Montage of spectacular racing car crashes and a glider crashing. "The nearer we get to today, the more spectacular the images become" states the narrator.

01:57:18 War and Peace 1899 - City Imperial Volunteers of the Boer War. Various shots of men in uniform - on horseback, riding past the camera. 1914 - British soldiers march past the camera in France. London buses are put into service carrying the expeditionary force - buses pass camera, men wave. M/S of tank passing camera. Aircraft sequence - various shots of planes being prepared for flight - bombs are fixed to the underside of a biplane. Narrator names various planes of the time including Sopwith Fighters and Handley Pages. The Royal Flying Corps and Royal Air Force are mentioned and seen. M/S of biplane taking off and of an explosion. M/S of soldiers in a trench. Man closest to the camera chews gum. Men "go over the top". Shot from the other side of the trench - explosions. Soldiers in gas masks walk through gas with bayonets. Panning shot of the wrecked landscape. High angle shot of the Victory March in London. Various shots of different battalions on the march. "Other reels of newsfilm will soon be recording a second victory parade through London." Good shots of the parade. High angle shot of the parade crossing Westminster Bridge. 1939 M/S of Hitler making a speech. High angle shot of buildings on fire during the blitz. Panning shots of London blazing. Shots of firemen putting out the blaze. Soldier in silhouette holds cross as buildings burn behind him. D-Day - Mulberry Harbour - aerial shots.

02:00:30 Narrator states: "Censorship and the inevitable limitations of shorter newsreels kept unpublished many notable events. Un-shown at the time these films will be preserved for the function Professor Trevelyan (sp?) assigned to them when he said, "newsreels are the history books of the future."

02:00:45 Shots of sky full of parachutists. Two men operating radar. M/S many women in the map plotting room wearing headphones and moving markers with long sticks. Jet propulsion - planes fly past the camera. High angle shots and C/Us showing the defence of our coasts by a screen of fire. "The weirdly futuristic frogmen " two divers are seen swimming underwater (in a pool?) L/S of a flying bomb and a V2 rocket taking off and soaring into the air. Nuremberg trials. Various shots of the people present (including Herman Goering and Rudolf Hess), the judge and of a German defendant, Georing, making a speech. Atom bomb explosion - mushroom cloud. United Nations emblem. Camera pulls back as people walk up the stairs and through the doorway of a building - possibly the United Nations building.

Pathe end title - cameraman on top of car moving away from camera.