Ministry of Information

A young, Scottish RAF gunner is debriefed by French officials about his escape from Nazi-occupied territory. They are particularly interested in one person who may or may not have been a German agent.

On the 29th September 1945, the incomplete rough cut of a brilliant documentary about concentration camps was viewed at the MOI in London. For five months, Sidney Bernstein had led a small team – which included Stewart McAllister, Richard Crossman and Alfred Hitchcock – to complete the film from hours of shocking footage. Unfortunately, this ambitious Allied project to create a feature-length visual report that would damn the Nazi regime and shame the German people into acceptance of Allied occupation had missed its moment. Even in its incomplete form (available since 1984) the film was immensely powerful, generating an awed hush among audiences. But now, complete to six reels, this faithfully restored and definitive version produced by IWM, is being compared with Alain Resnais’ Night and Fog (1955).

A former leader of the French Resistance finds that one of his fellow actors looks like a detestable official he knew in Madagascar during the war. He tells about his time, operating an illegal radio station while evading the Nazis.

Government information film on how to get maximum wear from a man's suit, narrated by one such suit in the form of an autobiography.

Members of three Commonwealth armies, an Aussie, a Canadian, and a New Zealander meet actor Leslie Howard who buys them a beer and makes them understand why they're fighting.

This film explains how sneezing in public can spread disease, and shows how using a handkerchief can stop it.

The true story of the massacre of a small Czech village by the Nazis is retold as if it happened in Wales.

A 1941 Ministry of Information propaganda film set to the tune of The Lambeth Walk, a popular song from the musical Me and My Girl.

A documentary account of the allied invasion of Europe during World War II compiled from the footage shot by nearly 1400 cameramen. It opens as the assembled allied forces plan and train for the D-Day invasion at bases in Great Britain and covers all the major events of the war in Europe from the Normandy landings to the fall of Berlin.

Trawlers at work; the crew on board and landing a catch. The fishing crew are seen with their families on shore shopping and enjoying themselves in the pub. Life aboard a West Coast trawler under arduous and dangerous wartime conditions.

A parallel is drawn between a housewife's dealings with her butcher, and a burglar and his fence (receiver).

World War II propaganda film.

A doctor talks about the number of injuries and deaths resulting from automobile accidents.

An uncredited Anthony Asquith is one of the directors of this WWII film (a joint UK/US production) which aims to explain British culture and character to the newly arrived American soldier. Starting with the ubiquitous pub visit, the film breezes through geography lessons, food and entertainment on the Home Front.

Sheffield stands in as 'Smokedale', an industrial Everytown, in this stirring call for "new schools, new hospitals, new roads, new life", after WWII.

Commissioned by the Ministry of Information and specifically target working class audiences; ‘Now you’re talking’ follows a plant worker, who lets slip vital information about some overnight research on a captured enemy aircraft. This inevitably leads to this most important of secrets falling into the lap of the enemy.

Ever seen a snake with a moustache? The Middle East was as much an ideological as a physical battleground in the Second World War. In the midst of the conflict Halas & Batchelor were commissioned by the British Government to make four cartoons featuring a young boy Abu and his mule. They were intended to demonstrate in simple visual terms that Britain was a stout friend and the Axis powers a pernicious evil.

Ministry of Information-sponsored comedy short showing wartime audiences how to deal with the threat of incendiary bombs.

A tribute to the courage and resiliency of Britons during the darkest days of the London Blitz.

Two evacuee children living in the United States receive a letter from their mother, Mrs Taylor, telling them of her life in Blitz-era London. Glimpses of the events of Mrs Taylor's typical day, including ration shopping and fire warden training, belie the letter's innocuous statements.