c. 1951

Reel 1. Film which records 50 years of great British enterprise, providing a background to recent events in Persia. Transport. Cars and buses from low angle. Traffic light, shots of feet crossing road, metallic "Look Left/Right" signs in road. Office underneath a city street. C/U of ledgers and documents. Pages are turned and documents looked at. Photograph of Mr D'Arcy (?). Film from early 1900s of fairgrounds, horse drawn vehicles etc. Queen Victoria's funeral. Ship and liner. Early 1900s car. Documents being turned. Landscapes of Persia. Paddle Steamers. Street scenes. Smoking hookahs, shoe mender in the street, market etc. Men with packhorses in the hills. Photograph of G. B. Reynolds. Voice over reads from Reynold's letters as shots of oil workers and local people. Men digging for oil. Derricks being constructed. Surveyors. Extracts from Reynold's letters tell of hardships in the desert.

Reel 2. Oil is struck in Tehran. Camel trail. Large stone carvings. Oil fire - burning off the waste. Early 1900s footage of Piccadilly Circus, cars etc. British Navy - ships. Winston Churchill. On deck. Oil gauge. Blasting and constructing roads. Horses pull carts through rivers. Horses carrying pipes for pipelines. Lorry pulling lots of carts carrying pipes. Pipelines. Cannons. World War One. Military manoeuvres. Wounded being carried by horse and cart. Red Cross cars. Tanks. Aeroplanes. Refinery. Tankers. Construction. Non-contemporary footage of people getting into cars, mending motorbikes, racing cars, launching airships etc. Petrol station.

Note: both nitrate and safety prints exist for this film - nitrate is good, safety - fair. See reels 3 & 4.