British Pathe

c 1955

This is a duplicate copy of documentary also found on tape PM1863 and PM1864 - this version has been transferred from neg so is better copy. Footage is in slightly different order in this version.

Pathe retrospective. This reel shows stars who made an early appearance in the...

c 1955

This is a duplicate copy of documentary also found on tape PM1863 and PM1864 - this version has been transferred from neg so is better copy. Footage is in slightly different order in this version.

Pathe retrospective. This reel shows stars who made an early appearance in the Pathe Pictorial and artists. Library material used should be found in more complete versions elsewhere.

Reel 5.

A young Janette Scott stands in front of her dressing table mirror taking off her school blazer and unbuttoning her shirt and putting on her "very first party dress". She takes off her school socks and takes her "first nylons." out of the packet. We are then introduced to a young honeymoon couple - Susan Stephen and Lawrence Ward. Susan is brought a cup of tea in bed by her husband. He lights a fire. Susan has trouble brushing her hair so Lawrence does it for her. They look into the mirror then kiss.

Jean Simmons is seen grabbing a roll of bread off the breakfast table and running out in a hurry. We then see her at a deportment school. She walks along with a book on her head. We then see her grown up playing with her pet dog and smiling at her mother. "For many of the stars, the Pictorial is a family album". We see Rex Harrison and Lilli Palmer sitting in the garden with their child. Margaret Lockwood and her daughter Toots (also known as Julia) are seen feeding some baby ducks and chickens. A very young Juliet Mills is sitting in a chair, her father John Mills picks her up. Laurel and Hardy are seen using a clothes brush to tidy themselves up.

Felix the Cat then appears, he is proclaimed to be the first star that appeared in Pathe Pictorial. (He was actually featured in Eve's Film Review which was the sister screen magazine to Pathe Pictorial so that is slightly misleading!) Extract from the Felix story about "very old cheese." Louis Wain is shown drawing one of his cats. Other artists are shown: Augustus John, Arthur Ferrier ("connoisseur of lovely women") and Norman Pett. Norman Pett draws a beautiful woman in underwear who takes off one of her stockings very seductively - she is Christabel Leighton-Porter, the original model for Jane. Giles is seen sketching outside. We see his cartoon.

"The film is a living record of our times and our contemporaries: artists, musicians, writers like J.B. Priestley have allowed the cameras into their lives so that they as well as their books can live on..." C/U of J.B. Priestley in his library smoking a pipe and looking at a book.

Enid Blyton is seen with her two daughters in their living room. She gives them some of her writing to read and sits with a typewriter on her lap typing away. Daphne du Maurier is seen walking in her garden. She sits on a bench and reads some of her notes for a new novel. A.P. Herbert "waterman, poet and writer of lyrics" is shown at his writing desk smoking a pipe.