E. V. H. Emmett

Armand and Michaela Denis visit the Barrier Reef and explore the mysteries of life there - animals, birds, fish and plants, the underwater life. Climax shows seabirds invading young turtles as they struggle to reach the sea.

Shipwrights, plate-fitters and riveters are busy at work in shipyards around Britain, but make time to talk to well-known newsreader, E.V.H. Emmett, about the nature and importance of their work - with the occasional dig at the expense of their colleagues. From Clydeside to the North East of England there's an intensive war effort underway and this propaganda film aims to "Let everyone know that we're building ships that we're proud of", as shipwright Charlie puts it.

A beautiful Gypsy girl falls in love with a horse trainer.

Documentary highlighting how land has been reclaimed for agriculture in Scotland.

Two wealthy Victorian widows are courted tentatively by two impoverished British aristocrats. When one of the dowagers suggests that her beau go away with her for a month to see if they are compatible, the fireworks begin.

Two Britons—inventor Hengist Pod, and Horse, a brave and cunning fighter—are captured and enslaved by invading Romans and taken to Rome. One of their first encounters in Rome leaves Hengist being mistaken for a fighter, and gets drafted into the Royal Guard to protect Cleopatra.

Part of a travelogue series, this films visits to Derry, the Giant’s Causeway, Carrick-a-Rede, Mount Stewart and Belfast.

Hitchcock went the wrong way! Head south by southwest with this travelogue from Bath to Cornwall.

A retired Major's efforts to hone his golf skills are thwarted by the diminutive but defiant common daisy.

Tourist promo film extolling the delights of Birmingham and the Midlands, with a sprinkling of arch one-liners.

Naive Stanley Windrush returns from the war, his mind set on a successful career in business. Much to his own dismay, he soon finds he has to start from the bottom and work his way up, and also that the management as well as the trade union use him as a tool in their fight for power.

E.V.H. Emmett narrates this propaganda short about how sacrifices on the home front support the war effort.

"If they were as rare as orchids we would probably rave about them" opens this film in the Secrets of Nature series, directed by the prolific Mary Field. The mesmerising time-lapse photography is offset by a jokey commentary voiced by EVH Emmett, then best known as the voice of the Gaumont newsreel. The flippant tone is exemplified by his comment on the range of responses to dandelions: "Some gardeners tear up the lawn and lay crazy paving, some tear up a high cliff and jump off".

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.

The perky Cockneys are London sparrows, who star in this natural history film.

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.

A Donatello Golden Plate winning documentary on the Appenines, and on the adventures of a young racoon.

The Secrets of Life series (1934-50) may not conform to modern expectations of nature filmmaking, inclined as it is towards giving cute fluffy creatures human names and characteristics. But it couldn't be accused of shielding kiddies from the harsher realities of the food chain, as this exercise in ruthless Darwinism demonstrates to unintentionally hilarious effect. A more than usually eccentric narrator introduces us to the newborn bunny quartet of Donald, James, Charles and Clifford, but as the film's title gives away, "the boys" aren't all long for this world as they face an assault course of hungry owls, predatory badgers, shotgun-happy gardeners and aerial bombardment (no harm in a little anti-Nazi detour, this is 1942 after all). (from http://player.bfi.org.uk/film/watch-once-we-were-four-1942/)

A British officer in the Camel Corps in Egypt goes undercover to investigate a gang of drug smugglers. He enlists the aid of a female pilot to help break up the gang.

A Secrets of Life short.

Part of BFI boxset Ration Books and Rabbit Pies: Films from the Home Front.

During a charity football match between Arsenal and touring amateur side Trojans, the Trojan's new star player collapses and dies. Inspector Slade of Scotland Yard is called in and declares it was murder. It takes all his ingenuity and another death before the motive is discovered and the killer revealed.

A Secrets of Life short.

Explores the natural history of the otter, depicted through the fictitious account of a day in the life of Otto the Otter and his mother. The narrator claims that the short features "the first film ever taken of an otter swimming underwater."

Made in 1940, this stirringly patriotic film cleverly combined new scenes with genuine newsreel footage. A newsreel journalist is on hand when the Giant German battleship Graf Spee flees into Montevideo Harbour after a punishing encounter with the British warships Exeter and Ajax. As events unfold in a very unexpected way, he is there with his camera to capture the dramatic end to the encounter.

A documentary on the island off the French Riviera where 'bathing in the buff' isn't just practiced, it's highly encouraged!

Focuses upon the journey of child refugees from the Basque Country to temporary accommodation near Southampton, Hampshire [England].

A light-hearted look at the history of the Sea Scouts and the many skills its members can acquire.

Get Cracking is a 1943 British comedy war film, directed by Marcel Varnel and starring Dinah Sheridan, Ronald Shiner and George Formby. It was produced by Marcel Varnel, Ben Henry and Columbia (British) Productions. This comedy explores the wayward rivalry between mechanic and Home Guard Lance Corporal George Singleton (George Formby) and an adversary also in the Home Guard (Ronald Shiner). When the rival Home Guard units of Major Wallop and Minor Wallop are sent on battle manoeuvres, George Singleton (Formby) launches his own unique style of commando raid against neighbouring Major Wallop to steal a Vickers machine gun. The raid fails and Singleton loses his Lance Corporal's stripe, so he and a little evacuee girl named Irene (Vera Frances) decide to fall back on 'Plan B' - to build their very own tank.

The world of fungi captured by micro-cinematography and time-lapse photography.

Three sailors get drunk while on shore leave and end up on the wrong ship. When they realise their mistake they scramble off it and onto their warship, HMS Ferocious. However, they soon realise that the vessel they have boarded is not the Ferocious but a German battleship.

On the search for weird and amazing creatures living on the seashores... This short movie played before The Thief of Bagdad (1940) during its original run in the cinema.

This early, influential propaganda film blends documentary and studio footage to show the valiant efforts of the Royal Air Force to defend the British people against the Nazis.

A young Englishman dreams of escaping from his working class family and dead-end job as an undertaker's assistant. A number of indiscretions cause him to lie in order to avoid the penalties. His life turns into a mess and he has an opportunity to run away and leave it all behind.

This ultra-kitsch documentary goes behind the scenes at Murray's Cabaret Club, where Christine Keeler was later a showgirl.

Look at Life was a regular British series of short documentary films of which 507 were produced between 1959 and 1969 by the Special Features Division of the Rank Organisation for screening in their Odeon and Gaumont cinemas. The films always preceded the main feature film that was being shown in the cinema that week. It replaced the circuit's newsreel, Universal News, which had become increasingly irrelevant in the face of more immediate news media, particularly on television with the launch of ITN on the Independent Television service, which began broadcasting in parts of the United Kingdom in 1955.