GPO Film Unit

This documentary short examines the special train on which mail is sorted, dropped and collected on the run, and delivered in Scotland on the overnight run from Euston, London to Glasgow.

Trade Tattoo went even further than Rainbow Dance in its manipulation of the Gasparcolor process. The original black and white footage consisted of outtakes from GPO Film Unit documentaries such as Night Mail. Lye transformed this footage in what has been described as the most intricate job of film printing and color grading ever attempted. Animated words and patterns combine with the live-action footage to create images as complex and multi-layered as a Cubist painting. Music was provided by the Cuban Lecuona Band. With its dynamic rhythms, the film seeks (in Lye’s words) to convey “a romanticism about the work of the everyday in all walks of life."

Rainbow Dance is a 1936 British animated film released by the GPO Film Unit. This is Lye's second film. It uses the Gasparcolor process.

Shows the production of the London telephone directory.

1935 documentary about the hard working life of Welsh coal miners.

“Catching up with gossip, inspecting new ducklings, clambering over gates, walking across meadows - the life of a postman appears idyllic, but this Devon postie has some startling ideas about improving efficiency... The inimitable Richard Massingham, a doctor turned actor and filmmaker, co-directed this film, and appears in it as the testy Mr Proctor. This film was produced by John Grierson, often hailed as the father of British documentary. It was made for the General Post Office (GPO) Film Unit, one of the most remarkable creative institutions that Britain has produced. It provided a springboard for many of the best-known and critically acclaimed figures in the British Documentary Movement.” - BFI

Shows the workings of Britain's Air Post service.

The film, made to advertise domestic telephone sets, is based around two very different families. The Petts are conventional, happy and have children; the Potts are unconventional and unhappy, without children.

Animated shapes dance to Cuban music. This was one of the first animations to be painted directly onto the film.

Ambitious documentary chronicling the cultural life and religious customs of the Sinhalese and the effects of advanced industrialism on such customs.

Correspondence between young lovers nearly ends in disaster through a mistake in postal district. Fortunately the GPO spots the error and all ends well, but with the moral that correspondents should get the address right.

How news of a general reduction in GPO charges was finally brought to parliament and the people, despite attempts by the country's enemies to prevent the announcement...

Humphrey Jennings' first film as a director, a brief overview of the British postal service.

A Cockney lad trains to be a messenger boy.

As the subtitle of the film suggests - The Story of a Post Card from Manchester to Graffham - this journey is very much focused on the process of sorting, transporting and delivering the postcard in question.

A short GPO documentary showing how undersea telephone cables are repaired.

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

A film made by the British General Post Office (GPO) in 1933, promoting the automation of telephone exchanges.

An impressionistic portrait of the BBC.

Combining a whimsical romantic tale, practical information about the Post Office Savings Bank, and a gently experimental film-making technique, this film entertainingly depicts some of the prospects opened up by having a savings account.