Men, War and Film: The Calling Blighty Films of World War II

by Steve Hawley

Overview

A reclamation of a largely unknown genre of British wartime filmmaking.

The Calling Blighty series of films produced by the Combined Kinematograph Service around the end of World War II were one-reel films in which soldiers of the “Forgotten Army” gave short spoken messages to the camera as a means of connecting the front line and the home front. Shown in local cinemas, these were the first films in which men spoke openly in their regional accents, and they hold profound meaning for remembrance, documentary representation, and the ecology of film in wartime. Of the four hundred films made on the Far Eastern Front, only sixty-four survive. Until now, however, these films have barely been researched, despite being a valuable source of social history. This book expands the history of Calling Blighty, placing it in a broader context for contemporary audiences. 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781789385113
Publisher:	Intellect, Limited
Publication date:	07/13/2022
Pages:	150
Product dimensions:	6.75(w) x 9.50(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Steve Hawley is an artist and professor emeritus at Manchester Metropolitan University, UK. He is a coeditor of Imaging the City: Art, Creative Practices and Media Speculations, also published by Intellect.

Table of Contents

List of Figures
Introduction: Talking with the Dead

1. Death and Disease in the Jungle: The War in Burma
2. The Ecology of Wartime Film
3. Living Letters: How the Films Came About
4. I’m in the Pink: An Overview of the Messages
5. Masculinity and the Soldier’s Tale
6. The Invisible Men: Empire Soldiers and Calling Blighty
7. ‘Dimmed by Happy Tears’: Remembrance, Ritual and Forgetting

Conclusion
Bibliography
Index