Set up in 1946 as the peacetime equivalent of the Ministry of Information (MOI), the Central Office of Information (COI) was formed to ensure that the public were "adequately informed about the many ...

"Free Cinema is dead. Long live Free Cinema." So ended the programme note accompanying the final Free Cinema programme of documentary films, screened at the BFI's National Film Theatre on London's ...

London/Britain Can Take It! is the most renowned cinematic representation of the resilient heroism of ordinary Londoners during the early days of the Blitz. Structurally, the film adheres to an ...

It's hard to overstate the importance of coal mining to the British way of life. Until the late twentieth century, it was our primary energy source, both industrially and domestically. In the 1920s, 1 ...

The small but memorable body of British coal-mining feature films The number of British feature films revolving around miners is comparatively few in number compared with, say, those highlighting the ...

This Topical Budget newsreel looks at the work of a detachment of British nurses in Serbia towards the end of 1915. The opening title refers to a "heroic band of Englishwomen" and the design of their ...

Katharine Stewart-Murray, Duchess of Athol, is appointed parliamentary secretary to the Board of Education in the Conservative government. This newsreel item gives an extremely brief portrait of ...

For many, Honor Blackman will always be associated with definitive Bond girl Pussy Galore in Goldfinger (d. Guy Hamilton, 1964) and, before that, the leather-clad Cathy Gayle in ITV's The Avengers ...

Peggy Cummins once lamented that she should have called herself Margaret, because Peggy "sounds like a girl who is strictly for light entertainment". This describes much of her output, though a ...

Despite a career frequently hampered by ill health, John Slater was a widely-recognised big-screen character actor before his long, expressive face became one of the most familiar on British ...

With her composed elegance and the air of the Head Girl from the Upper 6th, Celia Imrie has crossed seamlessly from dramatic roles to the comedic world of Victoria Wood. Born in Guildford on 15 July ...