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Finest Hour: Films by Humphrey Jennings (U)
- Consumer Advice: Contains mild violence
- Run time: 1 hour 16 mins
- Genre: Documentary
- Release date: 17th August 2007
- Starring: Not known
- Directed by: Humphrey Jennings
- Official Website: www.bfi.org.uk/whatson/releases/films/jennings
- Distributor: BFI (UK Wide)
Plot Synopsis
Sunday 19 August 2007 is the centenary of Humphrey Jennings (1907–1950), widely considered Britain’s greatest documentary film-maker. He is best known for his short films from the World War II era which beautifully evoke everyday heroism, combining poetic observation with subtle yet intense national feeling.
To mark Jennings’ centenary, the BFI is releasing a compilation of four of his finest short films, newly restored by the BFI National Archive.
The programme opens with Spare Time (1939), a fascinating survey of the leisure pursuits of working people, and continues with Words for Battle (1941) in which images of wartime Britain are accompanied by stirring passages of prose and poetry spoken by Laurence Olivier. The Silent Village (1943), by contrast, is a sombre and gripping drama documentary in which the real-life tragedy of the Czech village of Lidice – occupied and destroyed by the Nazis – is re-enacted by a Welsh mining community. The programme closes with Listen to Britain (1942): an exhilarating montage of the sights and sounds of wartime Britain, Jennings’ acknowledged masterpiece memorably features Flanagan and Allen singing ‘Underneath the Arches’ in a workers’ canteen, and Myra Hess playing Mozart with the RAF orchestra in the National Gallery.