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.

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.

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.

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

World War II propaganda film.

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

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.

From a series of propaganda films made to raise awareness of the risks of idle gossip providing vital information to enemy spies and collaborators. This Ealing Studios production features well-known 1940s actor John Mills, playing a sailor whose girlfriend thoughtlessly blunders away vital wartime secrets. The consequences prove disastrous when his boat next leaves to cross the English Channel.

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

About the war effort in the West Indies.

The story of how newspapers were distributed during the Blitz, stressing the importance of an accurate and objective press on the home front.

During the evacuation of British troops from Dunkirk in 1940, a young woman takes her motorboat to join the flotilla to rescue soldiers and also to search for her husband, a British soldier who was fighting in France and who may be among the troops waiting to be rescued.

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.

Two sisters encounter a German spy. A public service film showing how to thwart the enemy.

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.

Is your hedge thin and straggly? Don't worry, help is at hand.

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.

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

Animated short from Halas and Batchelor encouraging the British public to post early for Christmas.