British Empire: A Time to Remember 1920 - 1980

Newsreels were a regular feature of British cinema programmes between 1910 and 1979. For the first twenty years of their existence they were silent, with titles to introduce and describe each item, and accompanied by live music. They were usually issued twice-weekly. The first British sound newsreel, British Movietone News, appeared in June 1929. By the mid-1930s the familiar newsreel style became established, with authoritative commentator and upbeat musical accompaniment. The prominent reels were Movietone, Pathe Gazette (later Pathe News), Gaumont-British News, British Paramount News and Universal News. These were a familiar part of the cinema programme until the mid-1950s, when the emergence of daily television news began to render them obsolete. Most had folded by the end of the decade, but Pathe continued to 1970, and Movietone only closed in 1979. This exceptional DVD series features pristine archival newsreels as they were seen in their day.