Shipping film in the days of the newsreels

British Movietone News had always exchanged stories with other Movietone or Fox Movietone offices around the world.   They would ship film to Sydney, Cape Town, Paris, New York, Madrid and Munich.

For the most part, this had stopped during the war, but, throughout most of the war, they were able to send off material to the United States for our New York office.  The edited version of each newsreel, plus the occasional unused story would be included in the packages.  Sometimes, there would be a “special” shot for American audiences.  These stories might have shown the activities of the American forces in Britain.

Ken Hanshaw had organised a regular method of shipping news stories to and from The United States.

Twice a week, I would collect the transit case of film and go off to Old Quebec Street, which is near Marble Arch off Oxford Street.  On an upper floor of a building near to the junction of Oxford Street was the offices of American Air Command.  Here, I handed over the Transit Case of film which was then taken to the nearest U.S.A.A.F. air base for shipment to the States.

(The film would have been inflammable and, although held in a steel transit case, it was forbidden to travel on the underground with such film.  Yet, it was carried on aircraft).

Usually, I would also pick up a transit case of material sent to us by the New York Office.

Packages of newsfilm were being shipped, now by air services, to Sydney, Paris, Cape Town and Madrid. It was not long before shipments were being made to Munich to Fox Tonende Wocheshau.

I have read an academic document concerning the newsreels in which it is stated that the newsreels operated a rota system.  That is to say that they covered news stories and then gave copies to other newsreel companies, their opposition.

Ministry of Information at Senate House, London

This applied during the war when each cameraman’s war coverage, regardless which company he worked for, was submitted to the censor at the Ministry of Information.  After censorship and, later, viewing by the news editors of the newsreel companies, duping positives were issued to each company. If one could call this a rota system, then it only applied during the war and only applied to those stories which were from the warfront. Stories that were not subject to  scrutiny by the censors were not shared.

After the war, I can only recall one story that was shared and that was The Grand National.  By that time, only Movietonews and Pathe were still operating and they shared the coverage at Aintree.  They shared coverage because the required number of cameramen was too great for the individual company to provide alone.

During my early years at Movietonews, I produced what was known as A Comparative Statement.  This document showed, one alongside the other, all the stories issued by all the newsreels during on a particular release date.

Frequently, the top story of the day was used by all the five companies then operating. Sometimes there could be two stories used by all.  From then on we would show the differences between the remaining stories issued by each company, the exclusive stories. If there had been a rota system operating at that time, I would have known about it.

The purpose of  The Comparative Statement was to show whether our company had missed a story that they should have assigned.

What did operate throughout the newsreel industry at that time was a Royal Rota.  This was required because it would not have been possible for several cameraman to work, at the same time, within a few yards of the Royal Family.

The answer was for one cameraman to be selected to work close to the Royal Family.  He would work for periods of six months or a year.  I can recall that Graham Thompson, Movietone, John Turner, Gaumont British and Mark McDonald, Movietone, were among those working as Royal Rota Cameraman between the late 1940s and the mid 1960s.  The Royal Rota cameramen’s material was distributed to all the newsreel companies.

The academic document suggested that, if one sampled the newsreel libraries of the world, one would find that the certain stories were in fact the same coverage as that held by all the libraries.

This is an example of the academic paper appearing to be correct in essence, but drawing a totally incorrect conclusion from the facts.  A proper check would be to compare a single story held in libraries of different companies e.g. Pathe library in Paris with a Movietone library in Sydney.

If one compared a single story in the libraries of Movietone, Pathe, Gaumont and Paramount one would find that they were all different in coverage.

What did happen, in the case of Movietonews, is that they had an agreement with Gaumont British/Universal, that Movietone would offer them all their overseas stories.  This was because Movietone had no cinemas in the United Kingdom and had to rely on Gaumont British, who owned a very large chain of cinemas, to provide them with a  number of cinemas in which they could release their newsreel.

Image via Wikipedia

What would have added to the confusion concerning Rota, is that Movietonews, for example, exchanged material with their colleague around the world.  Movietonews London would provide edited news stories to Fox Movietone in New York, Paris, Rome, Sydney, Madrid and Cape Town.  New York would provide some of those stories to their outlets in Canada and Latin America.  Paris would distribute some stories to the various French possessions of the day,  Sydney would look after New Zealand and the Pacific Islands.  However, although we would now be considering a number of libraries holding identical stories, that is, stories shot by one camera crew, it still did not result from a Rota system.

During the post war period, Movietonews relied on two shipping agents to fetch and carry their imports and exports.  They were Mueller and Catermole, both long since departed from the scene.  The problem with them was that they would call in at Heathrow several times a week to collect and deliver packages.  With the increase in traffic, the exporting and importing of newsfilm, this was clearly not good enough.

What Movietone needed was an agent willing to meet the arrival of any aircraft carrying newsfilm and to take exported newsfilm to the next available flight out.  Mueller and Cattermole were not willing, or maybe not able, to do this.

In 1947, Movietone decided to set up its own Shipping Department.  This they did, by bringing in from the accounts department Mr. C.F.W. Davies, Dick Davies, to manage it.

Dick set the whole thing up.  He paid visits to Heathrow where he met with the airlines and with customs to find out how it all worked.  All incoming film had to pass through Customs.  Dick was able to convince them that it was not possible to delay such shipments.  Eventually, incoming shipments of newsfilm were not subject to customs duty, but still subject to customs inspection.  This speeded up the transit  through the airport.

Dick was able to guarantee a supply of all the necessary forms needed to ship film.  These forms were mostly supplied by the airlines in the form of waybills.  He was able to prepare the waybills in the Movietonews office in Soho Square to accompany film to be exported.  Each outgoing package would have required a waybill.  Every notification  of a shipment, whether inward or outward, was identified by a waybill number. This number would be quoted in the messages which notified the recipient of the arrival of the packages.

This period saw the introduction of scheduled air services all over the world.  Before the war, Movietone would have had to rely on the ponderous flying boat services to the far east and, in some cases, even sending film as ships’ cargo.

To assist with the work, Dick hired two men as shipping clerks. Roy Houghton and Eric Spong came on the staff.   Roy was an extremely fast typist having worked for a law firm where he would have to re-type legal documents in a hurry.  Eric, I believe, was ex R.A.F. but I do not recall any other of his attributes.  Norman Fisher, Movietone cameraman, sold the company his 1938 Morris 8, which became the shipping department car for some years.

In those days, it was impossible to order a new British car, there was a huge waiting list.  A new car on the road would have been a rare sight.  Most new cars would have been exported.  Movietone cameraman Ken Hanshaw was posted to Palestine in 1947 and when he returned the following year, he brought home a fairly new Wolseley, a car that had been exported from England.  I believe it was a 4/50.

The three men in the shipping department ran a virtual twenty-four hour service.  The other advantage of having their own Shipping Department was that it cost less than using the two agents for what had been a restricted service. They operated out of an office of 36 square feet so that there was only room for two of them in there, provided that one of them stood up.

By 1955, when Movietonews joined up with United Press to form United Press Movietone Television, UPMT, the Movietone Shipping Department was able to cope with its requirements.

Roy Houghton

By the end of the fifties, the Shipping Department, now under the management of Roy Houghton, were shipping dozens of packages a day to all parts of the world and bringing in dozens of packages of newsfilm from bureaus and cameramen around the world.

Eventually, it became necessary to use the services of a reliable Shipping Agent at the airport. This job was handled by Shand Air Cargo, a company that is still operating at Heathrow.  It was their job to see that the outward packages got on to the appropriate flight and that all the incoming packages were cleared quickly through customs.

They also accompanied film crews and their equipment through customs on departure and arrival.

The Shipping Department eventually had a staff of fifteen.

The Shipping Department lasted well into the eighties when the movement of news stories was becoming mainly based on exchange by satellite.

What a contrast to my single transit case taken to Old Quebec Street.

The shipping of newsfilm had been considerably more difficult in the early days of Movietonews.  In January of 1933, Australia played England in a Test Match at the Adelaide Oval. This was the famous, or infamous, match in which bodyline bowling was a feature.  Movietonews in Australia filmed the test and then had to get it to London.

I do not know by what route the film was sent, but, at that time, there were no scheduled air services from Australia to the United Kingdom and one can only guess at the ingenuity used to move the film.

In the reel which carried the story, the film opens with a title which says something like “British Movietonews are proud to present pictures of the Third Test in Adelaide, only twenty-one days after the event”.

Those were the days.

Main photo of Paul Wyand’s Wall camera courtesy of the Tyneside Cinema.

© Terence Gallacher and terencegallacher.com, 2012.  Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Terence Gallacher and terencegallacher.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

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