Night Mail
Scott Anthony
Jul 2019 · Bloomsbury Publishing
Ebook
96
Pages
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About this ebook
Night Mail (1936) is one of the best-loved and best-known films in the canon of British documentary cinema. Bringing together the creative talents of Harry Watt, Basil Wright, W. H. Auden and Benjamin Britten, the film gave John Grierson's documentary school its first popular success. Its collectivist politics and its peculiarly modest brand of modernism is as redolent of the inter-war age as Agatha Christie, Penguin Books or The Shell Guides. But it was also a corporate promo, part of a publicity campaign initiated by Clement Attlee to stave off Post Office part-privatisation and to improve the morale of postal workers.
Scott Anthony's study provides a lively appreciation of this vivid, witty and often just plain eccentric masterpiece. In doing so he uncovers the remarkable stories of civic-minded idealism, creative intrigue and political trickery that underpin this classic documentary.
Scott Anthony's study provides a lively appreciation of this vivid, witty and often just plain eccentric masterpiece. In doing so he uncovers the remarkable stories of civic-minded idealism, creative intrigue and political trickery that underpin this classic documentary.
About the author
Scott Anthony is Deputy Head of Research at the UK Science Museum Group. His books include Night Mail (BFI Film Classics, 2007), Public Relations and the Making of Modern Britain (Manchester University Press, 2012) and the co-edited volume The Projection of Britain: A History of the GPO Film Unit (BFI, 2012). His book in the BFI Screen Stories series, The Story of British Propaganda Film, was published in 2024. His novel Changi was published by Penguin in 2022 and he has written for the BBC, The Guardian, The Times, The Critic, Tribune, and the LRB Blog among many others.
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