The Case of The Missing Scene is a children's crime thriller that has been designed in the tradition of classic British children's films. A camera team takes pictures of rare birds from a hide when a poacher happens to get into the picture. The evidence (namely shot 63) disappears under mysterious circumstances. As always in these films, the case can only be solved with the help of a few bright children.
A party of children take an eye-opening tour of John Brown's Shipyard in Clydebank.
This promotional film bills the market town of Newark as central to the farming industry, with an array of regional produce and livestock. It was sponsored by the British Council and intended for an international audience.
Explore London Zoo with one of its greediest residents, Sally the sparrow.
In Australia, five children pursue horse thieves through the mountains.
A film based on a story by Leo Tolstoy about a cabinet maker, his wife and an angel punished by God.
In this dramatized warning to young women of the risks of venereal disease, Betty, a shop girl, pays a severe price for just one 'slip'.
Claustrophobic train-set comedy-thriller (produced by H.G. Wells son) with an ace reporter coming up against crooks intent on stealing a gold shipment on the Scotland to London express. A scatterbrained scientist, a gun-toting dame with revenge on her mind and a pair of eccentric spinster crime novelists – who steal the film – round out the motley band of passengers who cross the path of our intrepid hero as he tries to get his big scoop.
Documentary about the building of ships at Barrow-in-Furness.
A dramatization to promote the Territorial Army.
King Penguins are first seen in their natural habitat, the Antarctic, after which we see them in the Edinburgh Zoo. With slow-motion pictures we see how they swim with the use of their flippers and feet. Their mating and incubating of their eggs and later, the hatching of them; the rearing of the young at various stages of their growth are also shown.
Part two of two teaching films about human anatomy which is devoted to the action of the skeletal muscles in producing movement of the bones at the joints of the human skeleton. It uses live action and animated medical illustrations as well as an actual skeleton with commentary. A man, naked to the waist, also demonstrates the relevant physical processes such as respiration.
History - and natural history - filmed on location in Selborne, East Hampshire. This unusual edition of the long-running series Secrets of Life tells the story of the village's famous son, Rev Gilbert White, whose 1789 book The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne is a classic of natural history. The film follows in his footsteps, with camera rather than quill in hand, focusing on nature but also taking in views of the village and its human inhabitants. The ingenious close coverage of bird, reptile and other wildlife was the stock-in-trade of the filmmakers at Gaumont-British Instructional, producers of the series. Under the direction of the redoubtable Mary Field, the behind-screen talent here includes legendary 'cine-biologists' Percy Smith and Oliver Pike. A tribute by one generation of pioneering naturalists to another, it's a quietly moving film in spite of its clipped English reserve - or perhaps partly because of it.
Story of how two youngsters round up crooks planning to blow up the British fleet off Gibraltar.
A Secrets of Life short.
Part of the archive's Junior Biology series, this study of maize is aided by diagrammatic, time-lapse, and microscopic footage.
Part of the Junior Biology series, this study of pin mould is aided by diagrammatic, time-lapse, and microscopic footage.
A Secrets of Life short.
Poetic tribute to Mrs Turner's vegetable growing prowess, plus the delights of "wartime steaks".
Go with the flow: to gentle but spellbinding effect this innovative natural history film glimpses marine life astride rising tides at Millport on the Isle of Cumbrae. Urchins, lugworm, weaver-fish and crabs are the shy-but-elegant stars coaxed onto the screen (with the assistance of Millport’s local research station) for this archetypal edition of Gaumont-British Instructional’s 1930s cinema series Secrets of Life.
