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Africa on Film to 1940

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 May 2014

Andrew D. Roberts*
Affiliation:
SOAS, University of London

Extract

In the course of bibliographical work on volume 7 of the Cambridge History of Africa, I realized that there was no guide to film as a historical source for this or any other period in African history. Lists had been made of films on Africa available for loan or hire in the U.S.A., but no one had tried to list at all comprehensively what had actually been made or what had survived. I therefore decided to compile such a guide myself, tracing the making of non–fiction film in Africa from early days up to 1940: this seemed a suitable cutoff date, since it was clear that from the Second World War the scale of filmmaking in Africa, as elsewhere, increased very considerably, and in any case was beginning to attract the attention of historians.

I was emboldened in this project by the publication in 1980 of the non–fiction catalog of the British National Film Archive. This immediately showed that a wide variety of relevant films had been not only made, but preserved, and for several there are viewing as well as archive copies. Unfortunately, there is no equivalent published catalog for any other major film archive. I have been able, however, to glean much information from a variety of guides, filmographies, and historical studies. Among lists of films in archival collections, the most useful were those in the U.S. of UNESCO for ethnographic films, McClintock for films on North Africa, and South's guide to African materials in the U.S. federal archives.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 1987

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References

Notes

1. Roberts, A.D., ed., Cambridge History of Africa, vol. 7 (1905-1940) (Cambridge, 1986).Google Scholar

2. Feld, S., Filmography of the African Humanities (Bloomington, 1972)Google Scholar; Ohrn, S. and Riley, R., Africa From Real to Reel (Waltham, Mass., 1976)Google Scholar; Lazar, P., Films on Africa (Bloomington, 1982)Google Scholar; Wiley, David S., Africa on Film and Videotape, 1960-1981: a Compendium of Reviews (East Lansing, 1982).Google Scholar

3. Cf. Smyth, Rosaleen, “Movies and Mandarins: the Official Film and British Colonial Africa” in Curran, James and Porter, Vincent, eds., British Cinema History (London, 1983), 129-43, 344–48.Google Scholar

4. National Film Archive. Catalogue I: Non-Fiction Films (London, 1980)Google Scholar; cf. also idem, Catalogue I. Silent News Films, 1895-1933 (2d ed.: London, 1965).

5. National Film Archive. Catalogue of Viewing Copies, 1985 (London, 1984).Google Scholar

6. UNESCO. Comité du film ethnographique. Premier catalogue des films ethnographiques sur l'Afrique Noire (New York, 1967).Google Scholar

7. McClintock, Marsha H., The Middle East and North Africa on Film (New York, 1982); hereafter cited as MENAF.Google Scholar

8. South, Aloha, Guide to Federal Archives Relating to Africa (Waltham, Mass., 1977).Google Scholar

9. Library of Congress: catalogue of copyright entries (cumulative series). Motion Pictures, 1912-1939 (Washington, 1951)Google Scholar; also Niver, Kemp R. (ed. Bergsten, Bebe), Motion Pictures from the Library of Congress Paper Print Collection, 1894-1912 (Berkeley, 1967).Google Scholar

10. Low, Rachael, History of the British Film, 1896-1939 (7 vols.: London, 1948-1985).Google Scholar

11. Gutsche, Thelma, The History and Social Significance of Motion Pictures in South Africa, 1895-1940 (Cape Town, 1972).Google Scholar

12. Leprohon, Pierre, L'exotisme et le cinéma: les ‘chasseurs d'images’ à la conquête du monde (Paris, [1945])Google Scholar; Bataille, M.-R. and Veillot, C., Caméras sous le soleil (Algiers, 1956)Google Scholar; Jeanne, René and Ford, Charles, Le cinéma et la presse, 1895-1960 (Paris, 1961).Google Scholar

13. Jadot, J.-M., “Le cinéma au Congo belge,” Bulletin des séances á l'I.R.C.B., 20/2 (1949), 407–37Google Scholar; Ramirez, F. and Rolot, Ch., Histoire du cinéma colonial au Zaire, au Rwanda et au Burundi (Tervuren, 1985).Google Scholar

14. Guido Convents, A la recherche des images oubliées: préhistoire du cinéma en Afrique, 1897-1918 (Paris, 1986)Google Scholar; Vints, Luc, Cinéma et propagande coloniale, 1918-1960 (Paris, forthcoming).Google Scholar Vints' thesis in Flemish on films about the Belgian Congo was published in 1981; there is a summary in Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, 4/2 (1984), 222–23.Google Scholar

15. Copies are available in the Slade Film Register, at the British Universities Film and Video Council, London.

16. Cf. Ballantyne, James, ed. Researcher's Guide to British Newsreels (London, 1988)Google Scholar

17. I am grateful for help from the staff of the National Film Archive catalog and viewing service.

18. I am grateful for help from Paul Sargent and Steve Perry.

19. In 1973-75 the I.W.F. published a series of pamphlets giving detailed descriptions of five German films on Africa, 1913-39; these are collected in its Publikationen zu wissenschaftlichen Filmen: Sektion Geschichte-Padägogik-Publizistik III, nos. 3-4 (Dec. 1975).Google Scholar

20. Ballantyne, James and Roberts, Andrew, Africa: a Handbook of Film and Video Resources (London, 1986).Google Scholar

21. Low, Rachael and Manvell, Roger, The History of the British Film, 1896-1906 (London, 1948), 71.Google Scholar

22. Barnes, John, The Rise of the Cinema in Great Britain, II: Jubilee Year 1897 (London, 1983), 217, 214, 218; information from N. Monti.Google Scholar

23. Gutsche, , History, 35.Google Scholar

24. NFA, Silent News Films, 34.Google Scholar

25. Gordon, K., “The Early History of Newsreels,” British Kine-matography, 17/2 (1950), 4748.Google Scholar

26. John Barnes, in litt., 9 December 1985. This film was entitled “Alarming Queen's Company of Grenadier Guards at Omdurman.” It was issued by the dealer Philipp Wolff. Mr. Barnes is sceptical of the claim made by the war correspondent Frederick Villiers (in his autobiography published in 1920) that he had unsuccessfully tried to film the battle.

27. Gutsche, , History, 31n, 34, f. 38Google Scholar; NFA, Silent News Films, 33.Google Scholar

28. NFA 892, 898, 903, 906. Items cited in this form refer to entries in the NFA catalog, Non-Fiction Films (1980); other items in the NFA are referred to simply as NFA.

29. Gutsche, , History, 45-47, f. 246Google Scholar; Low, and Manvell, , History, 67Google Scholar; NFA, Silent News Films, 51-55, 66-67, 71-72, 8386Google Scholar; NFA 939; Imperial War Museum (IWM), 1080, 1081.

30. Gutsche, , History, 45Google Scholar; Low, and Manvell, , History, 67.Google Scholar

31. Gutsche, , History, 42-44, 47n, f. 247Google Scholar; Dickson, W.K.L., The Biograph in Battle (London, 1901)Google Scholar; NFA.

32. This item was included in the British television “Flashback series” on 9 April 1986, on Channel 4. It belies John Mackenzie's assertion that all these films avoided British reverses: Propaganda and Empire (Manchester, 1984), 70.Google Scholar

33. Cf. comment in IWM card catalogue, 1081d.

34. Low, and Manvell, , History, 6870Google Scholar; Gutsche, History, 46n.

35. Gutsche, , History, 307–08Google Scholar

36. Ibid., 308; NFA 1118.

37. Gutsche, , History, 308–09.Google Scholar

38. Ibid., 309; Monthly Film Bulletin, 1 (1934), 7Google Scholar; NFA 1221.

39. Gutsche, , History, 309311.Google Scholar

40. South, , Guide, 439Google Scholar; US National Archives (USNA), RG 53.

41. Low, and Manvell, , History, 26.Google Scholar

42. McClintock, MENAF, nos. 757, 766, 774, 785, 787, 804-06, 808, 813, 840; all in Library of Congress (LC).

43. Information from N. Monti.

44. Mesguich, Félix, Tours de Manivelle (Paris, 1933), 39.Google Scholar

45. Ibid., 94-103; cf. McClintock, , MENAF, nos.2306 (Kairouan, Algiers), 626 (El-Kantara).Google Scholar

46. Mesguich, , Tours, 127–34Google Scholar; cf. perhaps NFA 360 (Shilluk), 371 (Upper Nile hunt).

47. Mesguich, , Tours, 144–49.Google Scholar This film was shown in South Africa in 1908; cf. Gutsche, , History, 82.Google Scholar

48. Information from N. Monti; also Manenti, C., Monti, N., and Nicodemi, G., Luca Comerio fotografo e cineasta (Milan, 1979), 4660Google Scholar; cf. IWM 1123 (invasion of Tripoli) and Festa tunisina (Comerio, 1913)Google Scholar, NFA viewing copy.

49. NFA.

50. NFA 1238.

51. Bioscope, 28 Jan. 1909, 15.

52. Low, and Manvell, , History, 26.Google Scholar This was presumably Swayne's Somali levy acting in concert with the governor of Harar, Ras Makonnen: see Lewis, I.M., The Modern History of Somaliland (London, 1965), 72.Google Scholar NFA 1090 is a fragment on Somaliland credited to Gaumont and dated ca. 1905.

53. G. Convents, in litt., 17 March 1986; this film survives in a private collection.

54. Convents, , Recherche, 136–38Google Scholar

55. Alice Werner, introduction to her translation of Weule, K., Native Life in East Africa (London, 1909), xiiGoogle Scholar; cf. 27, 34, 177, 356, 385.

56. UNESCO, Premier catalogue, no. 28; film in Peabody Museum, Harvard.

57. Bioscope, 30 Jan. 1913, 365.

58. Ibid., 21 May 1914, 869; Gehrts, Meg, A Camera Actress in the Wilds of Togoland (London, 1915)Google Scholar; Convents, , Recherche, 85Google Scholar

59. IWF, Göttingen: G162. Schünemann, Marlies, Staatsekretär Solf besucht die deutsche Kolonie Togo 1913 (Göttingen, 1975).Google Scholar

60. Ramirez and Rolot, Histoire, 19n, citing Mouvement géographique., 31 Jan. 1909; these films are lost.

61. Jadot, , “Cinéma,” 409410.Google Scholar

62. G. Convents, in litt., 17 March 1986; fragments of these films came to light in Lisbon in 1984.

63. Roosevelt in Africa (1910) in LC.

64. Low, Rachael, History of the British Cinema, 1906-14 (London, 1949), 165Google Scholar, quoting the description in Bioscope, 19 Jan. 1911.

65. Information from N. Monti.

66. Bioscope, 2 Jan. 1913, 25; film in LC paper print collection.

67. Ibid.

68. Bioscope, 18 June 1914, 1265.

69. Lyautey's arrival in Morocco in 1912 was filmed; there is an extract in a recent documentary, Routes of Exile: a Moroccan Jewish Odyssey (Israel, 1982).Google Scholar

70. NFA, Silent News Films, 611, 628Google Scholar; cf. Katz, Elaine N., A Trade Union Aristoeracy (Johannesburg, 1976), 385419.Google Scholar

71. Gutsche, , History, 310312.Google Scholar

72. NFA, Silent News Films, 1123, 1050, 1369, 1086.Google Scholar

73. Ibid., 910; Gaumont Graphic issue sheets (GG), 375.

74. GG, 529, 610, 612. These may be the sources for Operations of the British Expeditionary Forces in East Africa, IWM, 84.Google Scholar

75. GG, 882/2; NFA, Silent News Films, 1419.Google Scholar

76. Ibid., 1008, 1184, 1397; Pathé “old negatives” file, Slade Film Register, BUFVC.

77. Jeanne, and Ford, , Le cinéma et la presse, 200.Google Scholar

78. IWM 508; cf. French Colonial Troops in the War, USNA/RG 111Google Scholar (South, , Guide, 4950Google Scholar).

79. IWM 130, 128, 195, 413.

80. IWM 1-4, 14, 17, 23, 25, 27, 29-31, 36, 38, 40, 41, 45, 77.

81. IWF; Grünewald, Marion, In Deutsch-Ostafrika während des ersten Weltkrieges (Göttingen, 1976).Google Scholar

82. NFA.

83. Gutsche, , History, 311-13, 319, 195, 352.Google Scholar Wartime feature films included two historical spectaculars on the Anglo-Zulu wars, De Voortrekkers (1916) and Symbol of Sacrifice (1918) (ibid., 313-18). In the 1920s, on grounds of safety, AFP destroyed the newsreels they had made from 1913 to 1918 (information from South African Film, Video, and Sound Archives, 25 April 1986).

84. Several films referred to in this and the next paragraph are mentioned in Low, Rachael, History of the British Film, 1918-1929 (London, 1971), 288–89Google Scholar and eadem, The History of the British Film, 1929-1939: Films of Comment and Persuasion of the 1930s, (London, 1979), 64-71.

85. MFB 8 (1941), 11; NFA 1634, 1617.

86. Crossing the Great Sahara (1924), NFA (fragment); Bioscope, 31 Jan. 1924; Buchanan, Angus, Sahara (London, 1926).Google Scholar

87. NFA 1737: this is wrongly attributed to Cherry Kearton, who never filmed in the Sudan. The contents correspond exactly to the account in Dugmore, A. Radclyffe, The Vast Sudan (London, 1924).Google Scholar

88. Bioscope, 11 Dec. 1924, 60.

89. MFB 6 (1939), 229; cf. Forbes, Rosita, From Red Sea to Blue Nile (London, 1925).Google Scholar

90. NFA 1778 (fragment); cf. Treatt, Stella Court, Cape to Cairo (London, 1927).Google Scholar

91. E.g., Round Africa with Cobham (1928), NFA.

92. NFA 2372.

93. MFB 1 (1934), 98, reviewing Jungle Trails, which was evidently a short version of Cities of the Desert.

94. MFB 1 (1934), 19; 2 (1935), 112; 4 (1937), 213.

95. MFB 2 (1935), 133.

96. UNESCO, Premier catalogue, no. 127; fragments in Pitt-Rivers Museum, Oxford.

97. NFA 2035 (incomplete) 2161; cf. Treatt, Stella Court, Sudan Sand. Filming the Baggara Arabs (London, 1930).Google Scholar

98. Cf. Visual Education Ltd., A Catalogue of Educational and Cultural Films (London, [1931])Google Scholar; MFB, 1(1934), 62; 4(1937), 89-90.

99. UNESCO, Premier catalogue, no. 425.

100. NFA 2940, 2732; Low, , Films of Comment and Persuasion, 75.Google Scholar

101. The Powell-Cotton Museum at Birchington, Kent has a large, though incomplete, collection of these films; a list is available. Cf. also UNESCO, Premier catalogue, nos. 15, 16, 18, 21, 323, 369, 385.

102. Powell-Cotton, P.H.G., In Unknown Africa (London, 1904).Google Scholar

103. NFA 2325.

104. NFA 2462 (fragment).

105. NFA 2603-04, 2609, 2657, 2674, 2677-78, 2703, 2737; cf. also 2546.

106. NFA 2823, 2754, 2770, 2797-99, 2842, 2856, 2889, 2910, 2949, 3031.

107. NFA 3175.

108. See Low, Rachael, The History of the British Film, 1929-1939. Documentary and Educational Films of the 1930s (London, 1979), 14-15, 36.Google Scholar

109. NFA 2900, 2919, 2948, 2956, 2990, 3078; MFB 5(1938), 2, 26-27; 6(1939), 145-47, 183; 7(1940), 102, 118; 8(1941), 10; Gillespie, J. Stirling, Celluloid Safari (London, 1939), 146–48.Google Scholar

110. Ibid., 162.

111. MFB 4(1937), 230-32; 6(1939), 146, 148, 183, 228-29; cf. UNESCO, Premier Catalogue, nos. 202, 311, 317. The IWM has a copy of KAR Signals (1936); a set of copies is in the Kenya National Archives (R. Kingston Davies, in litt., 25 July 1986).

112. Dugmore, , Vast Sudan, 229, 237–38.Google Scholar

113. Low, , History, 1906-14, 162.Google Scholar

114. NFA Much of this is included in a longer film, mostly about Bournville, , The Nightwatchman's Story (1933)Google Scholar, NFA 2435. A later Cadbury film is The Gold Coast (1938), NFA 3094.

115. NFA 2386

116. MFB, 5(1938), 1-2.

117. Civilization of Africa (1931), NFA; MFB 3(1936), 36; 5(1938), 191-92; 10(1943), 95.

118. Obituary in The Times, 8 Dec. 1965; see also Kinemato-graph Yearbook (1933), 275.

119. Low, , History, 1918-29, 129-32, 180-81, 292.Google Scholar When B.I.F. was incorporated in 1927 one of its first directors was John Buchan, the novelist, who had worked on propaganda during the war.

120. Ibid., 286. NFA 1719 (incomplete). In 1939 the Admiralty sponsored the filming of a visit by the destroyer Ashanti to the Gold Coast; this included an official reception in Kumasi: NFA 3202, 3288; MFB 6(1939), 177.

121. NFA 1747 (sections); cf. Bioscope, 4 June 1925, 39.

122. NFA, Catalogue, III.Google ScholarSilent Fiction Films (London, 1966), 138Google Scholar; cf. Barkas, Natalie, Behind the Camera (London, 1934).Google Scholar

123. NFA 1810, 1817; cf. also 1795, 1799, 1802, 1813, 1815.

124. Bioscope 5 Jan. 1928, 80. NFA 1928.

125. NFA 1922, 2086, 2127, 2155; also Kano, Northern Provinces and Northern Territories, Gold Coast, NFA; cf. MFB 5(1938) 146. Gold Mining in the Gold Coast was mentioned in Bioscope, 6 and 13 June 1928, but it is not in the NFA.

125. NFA 1956.

126. NFA 2033, 2141, 2176.

128. NFA 1875; on a shorter version, Trails and Rails (1930), see MFB 5(1938), 146.

129. Low, , Documentary and Educational Films, 2425.Google Scholar

130. NFA 3243, 3258; Gutsche, , History, 333–34Google Scholar; MFB 9(1942), 39.

131. Smyth, Rosaleen, “The Development of British Colonial Film Policy, 1927-1939,” JAH, 20 (1979), 437–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar In 1931 Amery's son John used wildlife footage shot for him in Tanganyika to concoct a film called Jungle Skies: Gutsche, History, 337; Rotha, Paul, Documentary Diary (London, 1973), 6667.Google Scholar

132. NFA 1952

133. Low, , Documentary and Educational Films, 6467Google Scholar; Mackenzie, , Propaganda and Empire, 87, 131, 134–35.Google Scholar

134. Imperial Institute, Empire Film Library Catalogue (London, 1937).Google Scholar For other films, of Southern Rhodesia and the Gold Coast, I can make no attribution, nor for six films on east Africa which had been added by 1939: cf. Thorpe, F.et al., British Official Films in the Second World War: a descriptive Catalogue (Oxford, 1980), 197–224.Google Scholar On the South African films see below.

135. NFA 2128; Low, , Documentary and Educational Films, 52.Google Scholar

136. NFA 2391; Low, , Documentary and Educational Films, 6264Google Scholar; Rotha, , Documentary Diary, 6895.Google Scholar Two other films of the Cape-Cairo air route were made in 1933-34: see Low, , Films of Comment and Persuasion, 8687Google Scholar, and NFA 2478.

137. Rotha, , Documentary Diary, 83.Google Scholar

138. Herring, Robert, “Black Shadows,” Close-up (May 1928), 106.Google Scholar

139. Rotha, Documentary Diary

140. NFA 3093; Low, , Documentary and Educational Films, 148.Google Scholar In 1953, however, Grierson produced Man of Africa, a full-length feature on the struggle Kigezi, Uganda. This was first shown in its entirety at the London Film Festival in 1986.

141. NFA 2988; Low, , Films of Comment and Persuasion, 6364Google Scholar; Sight and Sound (Spring 1937), 2930.Google Scholar An earlier title was Africa Looks Up; a shorter version was Africa Sings.

142. Greene, Graham, The Pleasure Dome (London, 1972), 157 (from Night and Day, [29 July 1937]).Google Scholar

143. NFA 3296; Rotha, , Documentary Diary, 229.Google Scholar

144. Ibid., 144 50; Low, , Documentary and Educational Films, 9899.Google Scholar

145. Greene, , Pleasure Dome, 269Google Scholar (from Spectator, [9 Feb. 1940]).

146. Rotha, , Documentary Diary, 280–81Google Scholar; but see also Hogen-kamp, Bert, Deadly Parallels (London, 1986),Google Scholar

147. NFA 3367; MFB 13(1946), 72; Smyth, , “Development,” 449.Google Scholar

148. Richard Griffith in 1940; quoted in Rotha, , Documentary Diary, 240.Google Scholar

149. Scottish Film Archive, Glasgow, no. 1671; Walton, H., Livingstone - Fifty Years After (London, n.d.).Google Scholar

150. Gutsche, , History, 335–36Google Scholar; MFB 3(1936), 125 (reviewed by T.H. Baxter).

151. MFB 3(1936), 97 (review by Baxter); Gutsche, , History, 330–31.Google Scholar The Missionary Film Committee also issued Changing Africa, shown in March 1928 (Rachael Low, in litt., 26 March 1985); I am not clear whether this was a different film. The NFA has some film (NFA 1645) of a bishop's enthronement in 1924, perhaps in Southwest Africa.

152. Mengo Hospital (ca. 1930), NFA 2113.

153. MFB 10(1943), 96.

154. Chogoria (1931), NFA 2198. Scenes in the history of Loudon mission, Nyasaland, were also filmed: see Fraser, Agnes, The Life of Donald Fraser (London, 1934), 270.Google Scholar

155. MFB 8(1941), 52-53; 9(1942), 164-65; films held by Council for World Mission, London. Cf. Theobald, Hugh, Moore of the Copper Belt (London, 1946), 39.Google Scholar

156. Giltrow, D. and Giltrow, P.M., “Cinema with a Purpose: Films for Development in British Colonial Africa, 1925-1939,” paper for conference of the African Studies Association (U.K.), Sept. 1986, 1.Google Scholar

157. Huxley, Julian, Africa View (London, 1931), 57-60, 291–96Google Scholar; cf. NFA 1817.

158. Huxley, , Africa View, 160–61Google Scholar; NFA 4427 (misdated to 1948).

159. Huxley, , Africa View, 161Google Scholar; cf. Smyth, , “Development,” 440.Google Scholar

160. Notcutt, L.A. and Latham, G.C., eds., The African and the Cinema (London, 1937), 31–73, 211–12.Google Scholar Only three of these films have reached the National Film Archive: NFA 2887, 2890, 2901.

161. Smyth, , “Development,” 441–47Google Scholar; Giltrow, , “Cinema with a Purpose,” 6.Google Scholar

162. Smyth, , “Development,” 440–41.Google Scholar NFA 2906 and Progress in the Colonies, NFA. Several of these films are held by the Overseas Film and Television Centre, London.

163. Giltrow, “Cinema with a purpose;” Smyth, , “Development,” 449–50.Google Scholar

164. NFA 1868, 2313, 2357.

165. Jadot, , “Cinéma,” 410Google Scholar; a part was shown at the Royal Academy, London, in 1980.

166. Middle East Centre, St. Antony's College, Oxford. There is also some amateur film of Egypt in the 1930s in the Alan Pateman Film Archive, London.

167. Cotton-Growing in the Sudan (ca. 1925-30), NFA.

168. NFA.

169. Libyan Desert, NFA 2102.

170. Journey through equatorial Africa. Museum of Mankind, London.

171. NFA 1819, 1861, 2475, 2691, 3125. The NFA also has several anonymous amateur films of East Africa: 1960, 2110, 2185, 2227, 2342, 2553.

172. Sons of Sinbad, NFA. The Museum of Mankind has North of Zanzibar (anon. ca. 1930).

173. Library of the Royal Commonwealth Society, London. The Society also has films of Uganda by A.E. Weatherhead, a senior civil servant.

174. M. Mackay, in litt., 7 Oct. 1981; see her Shining Trouble (London, 1956).Google Scholar

175. Mufulira (1930, 1935, 1937); Roan sanitation (1939), NFA.

176. NFA 2124; there seems to be some connection between this film and two B.I.F. films, West Africa Calling and Northern Provinces. The NFA also has anonymous footage of Achimota College, ca. 1940.

177. Gutsche, , History, 321–22.Google Scholar Feature films of the period included Prester John (1920) and Isban Israel (1920); the latter was filmed at the ruins of Great Zimbabwe and based on a novel about them (ibid., 320n45).

178. Gutsche, , History, 328.Google Scholar See below for discussion of South Africa on newsreel.

179. NFA 8995, 9005.

180. Details in Gutsche, , History, 321-28, 351–56.Google Scholar

181. The Dust that Rills (1921), USNA/RG 70, South African Film, Video and Sound Archives, Pretoria (SAFA). In 1926 Rand Mutual Assurance commissioned A Mighty Force, a film about the proper handling of explosives (USNA/RG 70); it is not clear if this was made by AFP.

182. The Story of South African Steel (1936), NFA 9012, SAFA.

183. The Blue and Silver Way (1938), NFA 9013, SAFA.

184. Manganese (1939), NFA 9017, SAFA.

185. E.g. Star of the South (1934), NFA 9015, MFB 2(1935), 28; NFA 8998, and films such as Moods in the Forest, SAFA.

186. NFA 9007, SAFA; MFB 2(1935), 157.

187. Cattle and contentment (1933), NFA 9000.

188. The two brothers (1939), SAFA. This was adapted by the Colonial Film Unit to make Mr. Wise and Mr. Foolish Go to Town (1944).

189. The Consoling Weed (1936), Highlands of Rhodesia (1934), NFA.

190. See Gutsche, , History, 322–26.Google Scholar

191. NFA 8990.

192. Gutsche, , History, 322.Google Scholar

193. Ibid., 355n(153).

194. NFA 8996; MFB 3(1936), 184 (neither source specifies producer or sponsor).

195. Smyth, Rosaleen, “The Development of Government Propaganda in Northern Rhodesia, up to 1953” (Ph.D., University of London, 1983), 120.Google Scholar

196. NFA 9001; MFB 1(1934), 7.

197. Marks, Shula, The Ambiguities of Dependence in South Africa (Baltimore, 1986), 43.Google Scholar

198. NFA 9003, 9004, 9009; MFB 2(1935), 153.

199. Gutsche, , History, 356.Google Scholar The Johannesburg public health department made a film in the 1930s called Slums.

200. SAFA; Gutsche, , History, 344–45.Google Scholar

201. Pasha, Thomas Russell, Egyptian Service, 1902-1946 (London, 1949), chs. 18 to 22.Google Scholar

202. USNA/RG 170; McClintock, MENAF, nos. 771-73; South, , Guide, 165.Google Scholar

203. Leprohon, , L'exotisme, 182–83.Google ScholarDesert Boy (NFA 280) is evidently a fragment of Sina; it was reviewed in Sight and Sound (Spring 1939), 35.Google Scholar

204. MFB 5(1938), 84.

205. Leprohon, , L'exotisme, 232–35.Google Scholar

206. See, e.g., ibid., 203-14; Bataille and Veillot, Caméras sous le soleil and Boulanger, Pierre, Le cinéma colonial (Paris, 1975).Google Scholar

207. Bataille, and Veillot, , Caméras, 189.Google Scholar

208. For further information see Leprohon, L'exotisme, 222-28; cf. Bataille, and Veillot, , Caméras, 181–82, 185–86.Google Scholar A few of these and other French films of Africa are listed in Unifrance Film, Catalogue général des films français de court métrage (1953 to date, annual). Three films are known to have survived: L'Aurès (1924), NFA 467; Maroc, jeunesse de la France (1935), NFA 553; Tunisie, seuil de l'Islam (1939), NFA 518.

209. Bataille, and Veillot, , Caméras, 181–82Google Scholar; Leprohon, , L'exotisme, 234.Google Scholar

210. Bataille, and Veillot, , Caméras, 186.Google Scholar

211. Leprohon, , L'exotisme, 222.Google Scholar

212. See Leprohon, , L'exotisme, 64–72, 218, 224, 227Google Scholar; Bataille, and Veillot, , Caméras, 180182.Google Scholar

213. Cf. MFB 1(1934), 98.

214. UNESCO, Premier catalogue, no. 165. Museé de l'Homme, Paris.

215. Leprohon, , L'exotisme, 225.Google Scholar

216. La grande caravane: ibid., 218-20; UNESCO, Premier catalogue, no. 259.

217. Les sentinelles de l'empire: Leprohon, , L'exotisme, 220–21.Google Scholar

218. Ibid., 210-13.

219. Ibid., 235; UNESCO, Premier catalogue, no. 162.

220. Ibid., nos 244-45; Leprohon, , L'exotisme, 185–86.Google Scholar Musée de l'Homme, Paris.

221. NFA 473 is a fragment of this work.

222. Voyage au Congo (1926), NFA 479; Jean Prévost in Close-Up, (July 1927), 38-41. See Gide, André, Voyage au Congo: carnets de route (Paris, 1927)Google Scholar, and Leprohon, , L'exotisme, 216.Google Scholar

223. Ibid., 69, 223-24.

224. Ibid., 217-18; Cripps, Thomas, Slow Fade to Black (New York, 1977) 425n,6.Google Scholar

225. Leprohon, , L'exotisme, 174–79.Google Scholar Ginet made a less problematical film in Sào Tomé: cf. ibid., 179-80.

226. Ibid., 183, 216.

227. Ibid., 154-58, 216, 222, 224-27.

228. Ibid., 59-62.

229. Ibid., 184

230. Ibid., 228-30; Bataille, and Veillot, , Cameras, 186Google Scholar

231. This paragraph is largely based on Jadot, , “Cinéma,” 410–13Google Scholar, and Ramirez and Rolot, , Histoire, 2023.Google Scholar

232. Beira and its Hinterland: Construction of the Trans-Zambesia Railway (1920), NFA; and presumably also Zambesi Coalfields (1920), NFA, and Beira: Harbours. NFA.

233. The films by Lambert and Philippson are in the Musée royal Tervuren (MRAC): M. Luwel, in litt., 1 July 1982.

234. The MRAC has four Genval films from 1925-28 on railways and diamond mining, and two from 1937-38, on diamonds and cotton. It also has films of unveiling a royal statue in Leopoldville (1939) and of gold-winning in the Aruwimi river (undated).

235. Gutsche, , History, 331Google Scholar; cf. Gatti, Attilio, Hidden Africa (London, 1933), 3840.Google Scholar The scientific work of the expedition consisted largely of head measuring by Prof. Cipriani. Gatti himself favored a Phoenician origin for Great Zimbabwe (where he met the German ethnologist Leo Frobenius). He was evidently unimpressed by the work of “Prof. McIvory” [recte MacIver]” (ibid., 106-19).

236. Films in Istituto Luce, Rome; cf. Giglio, C. and Lodolini, E., Guida delle Fonti per la storia dell'Africa a sud del Sahara esistenti in Italia, 2 (Zug, 1974), 625–28Google Scholar; This list also includes several other undated films of Ethiopia and the Horn, Senegal, and the western Sudan.

237. MFB 4(1937), 264; cf. Brunetta, G.P., Storia del cinema italiana (Rome, 1979), 333, 395.Google Scholar A short which may be part of this is in LC (Italian Collection, FAA 9102).

238. Brunetta, , Storia, 395.Google Scholar

239. Gutsche, , History, 330.Google Scholar

240. Leprohon, , L'exotisme, 73.Google Scholar

241. Low, , History, 1918-29, 290Google Scholar; see Lamprecht, G., Deutsche Stummfilme 1927-31 (Berlin, [ca. 1967]), 429.Google Scholar

242. Bataille, and Veillot, , Caméras, 180.Google Scholar

243. MFB 1(1934), 13.

244. Ibid., Scottish Film Archive, no. 212 (one out of four reels).

245. IWF; UNESCO, Premier catalogue, nos. 216-22

246. IWF; ibid., nos. 17, 19, 22-23

247. IWF; Ibid., nos. 417, 422, 424, 426-27.

248. IWF; ibid., nos. 284, 291

249. IWF/G 163; Henze, Heidrun, Bei den deutschen Kolonisten in Sudwest-Afrika (Göttingen, 1975).Google Scholar

250. Deutsche Pflanzer am Kamerunberg, USNA/NA Gift Collection no. 395 (cf. South, Guide, 131); NFA 808.

251. Abessinien von Heute: Blickpunkt der Welt; Abessinien: um Schatten des goldenen Löwen, Bundesarchiv, Koblenz (cf. subject catalog in BUFVC).

252. IWF/G 148. Wolgast, T., Deutsches Land in Afrika (Göttingen, 1973).Google Scholar

253. Willan, Brian, Sol Plaatje (London, 1984), 287–89Google Scholar; see Leprohon, , L'exotisme, 58.Google Scholar

254. LC. This is ‘home movie’ footage.

255. Haudiquet, P., Paul Fejos (supplement to L'avant-scène [Paris, 1968]), 558Google Scholar: two of these films, Dance Contest in Esira and The Bilo are in the Museum of Modern Art, New York (MOMA).

256. Milne, Tom, The Cinema of Carl Dreyer (New York, 1971), 121.Google Scholar

257. Abyssinia (1935): MFB 2(1935), 79; Greene, Pleasure Dome, 6 (from Spectator [5 July, 1935]); Leprohon, , L'exotisme, 181–82.Google Scholar

258. MFB 4(1937), 264-65; World Film News (Jan. 1938), 27Google Scholar; see also below in connection with newsreel.

259. McKinley, E.H., The Lure of Africa (Indianapolis, 1974), 109-10, 127–31Google Scholar; Leprohon, , L'exotisme, 5758Google Scholar; MFB 4(1937), 89.

260. E.g. Simba (1928), AMNH, LC; Congorilla (1932), MOMA; Jungle Hell (1932), NFA 9355; Baboona, MOMA. Cf. McKinley, Lure, 145; Leprohon, , L'exotisme, 124–25Google Scholar; Cripps, , Slow Fade, 133, 155.Google Scholar

261. Hubbard, Margaret, No One to Blame (New York, 1934)Google Scholar; Leprohon, , L'exotisme, 127.Google Scholar

262. Africa Speaks (1930;, LC; ibid., 125-27. This was drawn on for Hoefler's ludicrous concoction Leopard Men of Africa (1940), NFA 9494. For an amusing account of such filming in the Congo, see Flandrau, Gracie, Then I Saw the Congo (London, 1929).Google Scholar

263. Gutsche, , History, 331–32Google Scholar; e.g. Kruger National Park, LC.

264. NFA 9445, AMNH; Greene, , Pleasure Dome, 270Google Scholar (from Spectator, [16 Feb. 1940]).

265. Wild Africa (n.d.), AMNH; UNESCO, Premier catalogue, 406.Google Scholar

266. Behlmer, Rudy, in Films in Review, 17/1(1966), 1821.Google Scholar

267. USNA: South, , Guide, 131.Google Scholar

268. Gutsche, , History, 332.Google Scholar

269. USNA/RG 33; South, , Guide, 6.Google Scholar

270. Ra Mu, King of the Sun (1934), NFA 9379.

271. Liebalala (1935), University of California Extension Media Center; reviewed in Wiley, , Africa on Film, 214.Google Scholar Cf. Hubbard, Margaret, African Gamble (New York, 1937).Google Scholar

272. Gold (1938); this is evidently in the NFA.

273. Ohrn, and Riley, , Real to Reel, 42Google Scholar; McClintock, MENAF, no. 871.

274. Ohrn, and Riley, , Real to Reel, 52Google Scholar; UNESCO, Premier Catalogue, no. 20

275. Ibid., nos. 95, 130.

276. USNA/MPC (Harmon Foundation), 200 HF 2-13. This collection also includes stock footage of mining and crop production (200 HF 275X).

277. McClintock, MENAF, nos. 158, 168, 636, 781, 1982, 1985, 2054, 2067, 2309; cf. also MFB 1(1934), 7, 13.

278. Backward Civilisation (1937), McClintock, , MENAF, 149Google Scholar; Pygmies of Africa (1938), UNESCO, Premier Catalogue, NFA; A Giant People (1939), MRAC; A People of the Congo (1939), Ohrn, and Riley, , Real to Reel, 76.Google Scholar

279. Ibid., 58; McClintock, MENAF, nos. 156, 810. Other American films of this sort were reviewed in the MFB between 1937 and 1945.

280. Jeanne, and Ford, , Cinéma, 194Google Scholar

281. Pronay, N., “British Newsreels in the 1930s: I. Audience and Producers,” History, 56 (1971), 417CrossRefGoogle Scholar; see also Low, Films of Comment and Persuasion, ch. 2, “News Films.”

282. The remainder of this section is chiefly based on a comprehensive survey of the issue sheets of Pathé Gazette (1919-39), Gaumont Graphic (1913-25), Gaumont-British News (1934-39) and British Movietone News (1929-39). These are available in the Slade Film Register, at the British Universities Film and Video Council, London; this also has issue sheets for the Empire News Bulletin (1926-32), but as these are extremely uninformative they were not examined, nor were those for its successor, Universal Talking News (1930-) or for British Paramount News (1931-) except for 1935/36. (The two latter newsreels were owned by U.S. firms; PG was partly owned by Warner Bros. and BMN by 20th Century Fox).

283. PG did not report on the Prince of Wales' African travels in 1925 (which were the subject of a special film by AFP), but it gave much coverage to Prince George's South African tour in 1934.

284. Air travel has not, however, been double-counted in the percentages for sport shown in Table 2 above.

285. Gutsche, , History, 377.Google Scholar

286. The US Universal newsreel showed locusts in the Belgian Congo (1931), Morocco (1932), and Algeria (1933) BMN showed locusts in Tanganyika in 1932.

287. Issue sheets in Slade Film Register, BUFVC. The Pathé Pictorial magazines also showed manganese mining in Morocco in 1931, and the Italians' application of machinery to gold mining in Ethiopia (1938).

288. See Bedri, Y. and Hogg, P., trans, and ed., The Memoirs of Babikr Bedri, II (London, 1980), 339.Google Scholar

289. Pathé “old negative” file (no. 495E), Slade Film Register, BUFVC; excerpt in the March of Time, 16(1951), no. 6.Google Scholar

290. This and the French president's visit to Algeria in 1930 were covered by the French correspondent of the Empire News Bulletin, who later published his memoirs: Leclerc, J., Le cinéma témoins de son temps (Paris, [1968?], 53, 102.Google Scholar

291. Relations between Ethiopia and Nazi Germany were at this time better than those between Germany and Italy; indeed, in July Haile Selassie arranged for a shipment of arms from Germany.

292. Brief articles celebrating the technical feats in Ethiopia of BPN, BMN, and the US Universal newsreel appeared in the Kinematograph Weekly (newsreel and shorts supplement), 14 November 1935.

293. Aldgate, Tony, Cinema and History (London, 1979), 98100.Google Scholar In an MGM film, Too Hot to Handle (1938), there are jokes in Shanghai in 1937 about Clark Gable's faked newsreel of the Ethiopian war.

294. Leyda, Jay, Kino (London, 1960), 324Google Scholar; Macfie, J.W.S.An Ethiopian Diary - A Record of the British Ambulance Service in Ethiopia (Liverpool, 1936), 46, 91.Google Scholar

295. See above.

296. Shown on BBC/TV2, 9 June 1986.

297. IWM; cf. review by Roberts, A.D., in JAH, 23(1982), 285–86Google Scholar, and Fleming, Anne, “Spear Against Aeroplane: the Making of Lutz Becker's Film Lion of Judah,” Imperial War Museum Review, 1(1986), 5763.Google Scholar