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The Development of British Colonial Film Policy, 1927–1939, with special reference to East and Central Africa

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2009

Rosaleen Smyth
Rosaleen Smyth
Affiliation:
University of Warwick
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Extract

From the 1920s the British government sought to manipulate the powerful new propaganda weapon of the cinema to the advantage of the Empire. Unsuccessful attempts were made to break the American stranglehold on the colonial cinema circuit which was thought to pose a threat to British commercial and political interests. Attempts to control what were seen as the harmful effects of the commercial cinema were made through strict censorship. The Colonial Office provided guidelines for policy and organization. South Africa set precedents for racial discrimination in censorship and segregation in viewing which were adopted in much of East and Central Africa. The Colonial Office and the British Film Institute were both anxious to see an experiment using the film in adult education. Progress was held back through lack of money until 1935 when the Carnegie Corporation decided to finance the Bantu Educational Kinema Experiment, a project of the International Missionary Council. The B.E.K.E., an experiment in the production of films for the educational and cultural adjustment of Africans to western society, was conducted in East and Central Africa between 1935 and 1937, with the Colonial Office playing an advisory role. No permanent organization developed out of the B.E.K.E. due to lack of finance and lack of interest among the East African governments. When the British government created the Colonial Film Unit in 1939, its purpose was to make war propaganda films for the colonies. Later in the war, the work of the C.F.U. was extended to the making of instructional films, which became its main function once the war had ended.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of African History , Volume 20 , Issue 3 , July 1979 , pp. 437 - 450
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1979

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References

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7 C.O. 323/963/14927, J. E. J. Gent, minute, 28 Oct. 1926.

8 See ‘Minority Report by Sir Hesketh Bell’, Report of the Colonial Films Committee, 22–7, which is quoted in The Film in National Life (Report of an Enquiry by the Commission on Educational and Cultural Films; chairman, Benjamin Gott) (London, 1932), 133, and in Notcutt, L. A. and Latham, G. C. (eds), The African and the Cinema (London, 1937)Google Scholar, Appendix G. See also Bell, , letter to The Times, 4 Oct. 1926Google Scholar, quoted in Appendix XVIII, ‘Cinematograph Films (A) Memorandum prepared in the Colonial Office’, Colonial Office Conference, May 1927. Summary of Proceedings and Appendices, Cmd. 2883–4 (London, 1927), 243.

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23 ZNA, B/1/3 284 A, J. C. Maxwell to L. S. Amery, 30 July 1928.

24 C.O. 323/1045/60583, E. Grigg (Governor of Kenya) to Lord Passfield, 7 Oct. 1929.

25 C.O. 323/1252/30125/1, Huxley, J. S., ‘Report on the use of Films for Educational Purposes in East Africa’ (1930), 4.Google Scholar

26 See Sellers, W., ‘Making Films in and for the Colonies’, J. Royal Soc. Arts, no. 101 (1953), 829–37Google Scholar; and below, p. 450.

27 C.O. 859/7/1431, enclosure in circular despatch, 30 Jan. 1940. An example of Sellers' Nigerian films is Anti-Plague Operations, Lagos, 1937, held at the National Film Archive, London.

28 C.O. 323/1122/80178, Minutes of meeting held 30 Jan. 1931 to discuss ‘Proposed Enquiry into the effect of Films on Backward Races in a Selected British Dependency’; also Draft Letter of Application to the Rockefeller Trustees, 1931.

29 Other representatives came from the Dominions Office, Department of Overseas Trade, Imperial Institute, High Commissioners' Offices, Colonial Empire Marketing Board, 1937–9. There were also some co-opted members.

30 C.O. 323/1252/30125/5, A. R. Paterson, ‘Suggestions with regard to the Production of Educational Films for East African Natives’, 1934.

31 Huxley used it in putting his case for the E.M.B. to supervise the development of the instructional film in Africa (see p. 440); Latham used it in support of his case for a permanent organization to replace the B.E.K.E. (see pp. 444–5).

32 C.O. 323/1252/30125/1, Minutes of Dominions, India and Colonies Panel, 19 Oct. 1934, 2.

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35 Other members of the sub-committee were T. Baxter, of the Missionary Film Committee, and H. Bruce Woolfe, formerly of British Instructional Films which was merged into Gaumont-British.

36 C.O. 323/1252/30125, Vernon, minute, 18 June 1934.

37 C.O. 323/1253/30141, Vernon, minute, 20 Nov. 1934.

38 C.O. 323/1253/30141, W. Bigg, minute, 2 Nov. 1934.

39 C.O. 323/1252/30125, Vernon to Bruce Woolfe, 7 July 1934.

40 C.O. 323/1253/30141, Bigg, 2 Nov. 1934.

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44 Feldman, S., ‘Viewer, Viewing, Viewed: a Critique of Subject-Generated Documentary’, Journal of the University Film Association, xxix, 1 (Fall 1977), 25.Google Scholar

45 Davis, , ‘The Cinema’, 381.Google Scholar

46 These may be among the ‘unpublished primary materials’ of the B.E.K.E. which are currently missing, having been mislaid when the B.F.I. Library moved from Dean St to Charing Cross Rd. They were consulted and cited by Feldman, ‘Viewer’, 24. In N. Rhodesia the Kasama Native Welfare Association found that ‘the natives generally were interested’ and forwarded a report to Latham: ZNA, SEC/NAT/326, Kasama Native Welfare Association, Annual Report and Balance Sheet (31 Dec. 1935), 6.

47 Details of the films are in Notcutt and Latham, The African and the Cinema, 31–9.

48 E.g. Daybreak in Udi (1947), made in Nigeria for the Colonial Office by the Central Office of Information's Crown Film Unit. (This shows how a community development scheme amongst the Abaja Ibos, directed by the District Officer, succeeds despite the machinations of the witch doctor. Prestige film; Academy Award, 1948.) Men of Two Worlds (1944) directed by Thorold Dickinson, a Two Cities film made for the Colonial Office in Tanganyika. (A village must be evacuated because of tsetse fly; conflict between witch doctor and the European educated school-teacher; school-teacher wins through under the paternal eye of the D.O.)

49 Feldman, , ‘Viewer’, 25.Google Scholar

50 C.O. 323/1421/1413, Freeston, Office of the Conference of East African Governors, Nairobi, to J. E. W. Flood, C.O., 24 Aug. 1937.

51 C.O. 323/1421/1413, Lugard and W. Paton, Sec. of Int. Miss. Council to Perm. Undersecretary of State, conveying views of the final B.E.K.E. Council meeting, 27 May 1937.

52 C.O. 323/1421/1413, minutes: S. Campbell, 7 July 1937; E. Bowyer, 6 July 1937; C.O. 323/1535/1413, J. Calder, 10 Nov. 1938.

53 C.O. 323/1421/1413, Extract from Report of East African Governors' Conference, Nairobi, 15–17 June 1937.

54 C.O. 323/1421/1413, suggested in Freeston to Flood, 24 Aug. 1937, and applied in Ormsby-Gore to governments of Uganda, Kenya, and Tanganyika Territory, 19 Oct. 1937.

55 C.O. 323/1535/1413, Calder, 10 Nov. 1938.

56 ZNA, SEC/MISC/42, memorandum by Govt. of Kenya, 21 May 1938.

57 C.O. 323/1421/1413, memorandum by Govt. of Uganda for Conference of British East African Territories, April 1937.

58 C.O. 323/1421/1413, Memorandum by Govt. of Tanganyika, May 1937.

59 C.O. 323/1421/1413, Telegram (no. 17) from Governor of Nyasaland to S/S, 15 Feb. 1937. (Nyasaland was not able to participate because of the scarcity of film.)

60 ZNA, SEC/MISC/42, A. Travers Lacy, Director of Education, Nyasaland, 23 Feb. 1938; enclosure in Governor H. Kittermaster to Ormsby Gore, S/S, 1 March 1937.

61 In 1931 the open-air native compound cinema at Luanshya had an average weekly attendance of 2,000; the open-air native cinema at Nchanga, 1,200. C.O. 323/1122/80160/2, enclosure in Maxwell to Cunliffe-Lister, 20 Nov. 1931.

62 ZNA, SEC/E/7 vol. III, ‘Report of Central Advisory Board on Native Education, N. Rhodesia, 1937’, 8.

63 Vickers-Haviland, L. A. W., ‘The Making of an African Historical Film’, Tanganyika Notes and Records, vi (1938), 82–6.Google Scholar

64 The National Film Archive has three: African Peasant Farms: the Kingolwira Experiment; Tropical Hookworm and Veterinary Training, donated by Notcutt in 1950. Dr David Giltrow and Peggy Medina Giltrow, who are preparing a book on British colonial films, classify them as ‘serious amateur’ of that period.

65 C.O. 323/1356/1413, Extract from the Draft Minutes of the 70th meeting of the Advisory Committee on Education in the Colonies, 23 July 1936, 3.

66 C.O. 859/7/1431, Eastwood, minute, 31 Aug. 1939.

67 Notcutt, and Latham, , The African and the Cinema, 103–4.Google Scholar

68 C.O. 323/1421/1413, Freeston to Flood, 24 Aug. 1937.

69 C.O. 323/1535/1413, Bowyer, 5 Aug. 1938. Moreover, many of the Directors considered that sufficiently effective films could be made by local departments without the need for any expensive superstructure.

70 C.O. 859/6/1271, Approved Minutes of the 96th meeting of the Advisory Committee on Education in the Colonies, 20 July 1939, 17–20.

71 C.O. 323/1535/1413, Bowyer, 5 Aug. 1938.

72 Ibid., Calder, 11 Aug. 1938.

73 C.O. 323/1421/1413, Bowyer, 28 June 1937.

74 C.O. 323/1535/1413, Bowyer 5 Aug. 1938.

75 C.O. 323/1356/1405/6, Hammond, ‘Proposal for a Colonial Film Unit’, Dominions, India and Colonies Panel of the B.F.I., 6 March 1936. Agenda: Item 4.

76 An early example of such a film is Nionga (Stoll Pictures, released 1926). The film is set between Lake Tanganyika and the source of the Congo, , ‘a little explored district inhabited by tribes of primitive savages’. Bioscope lxiii (1972)Google Scholar (28 May 1925), 35–6, gives the plot: ‘Nionga, a chieftain's daughter, is induced by a vindictive witch-doctor to persuade her betrothed lover, Kasari, to plot the destruction of a neighbouring tribe. Kasari reluctantly acts upon the witch-doctor's advice, but is killed after setting fire to the fated village. In accordance with the custom of her tribe, Nionga is burned alive’. The Bioscope review praises the acting of ‘the half-civilized jungle players’ who were directed by Jesuit missionaries.

77 C.O. 323/1356/1405/6, E. Bowyer, 11 Dec. 1936.

78 C.O. 323/1534/1405/6, Bowyer, 5 Aug. 1938.

79 C.O. 323/1534/1405/6, M. MacDonald, draft circular despatch, 2 Sept. 1938.

80 C.O. 859/22/12181, memo., Social Services Department, 17 June 1940.

81 C.O. 859/6/1406/24, T. F. Sandford, Provincial Commissioner, N. Rhodesia, ‘Cinema for Africans’, 15 Aug. 1939.

82 C.O. 859/6/1406/23, minute, G. Clauson, 17 July 1939.

83 C.O. 859/6/1406/24, C. Eastwood to T. F. Sandford, 14 Feb. 1940. Delay in replying was due to the outbreak of war and papers being mislaid in the movement of offices.

84 C.O. 859/6/1406/23, C. G. Costley-White to G. C. Latham, 25 July 1939.

85 C.O. 859/6/1406/23, G. Clauson, minute, 17 July 1939.

86 C.O. 859/7/1413, Eastwood to Clauson, 2 June 1939.

87 C.O. 859/22/12181, Social Services Dept. memo., 17 June 1940.

88 Public Records Office, Kew: INF. 1/200 F/237, C. Eastwood to A. G. Highet, 4 Dec. 1939. The Colonial Marketing Board, founded in 1937, ceased to function in 1939, and responsibility for Men of Africa was taken over by the Ministry of Information in consultation with the Colonial Office.

89 From the sound track of Men of Africa (copy at Imperial War Museum, London); and from the script in INF. 1/200 F/237.

90 Palaver, made in Northern Nigeria by British Instructional Films, was about the vicissitudes of the life of a District Officer. See Barkas, N., Behind the Camera (London, 1934)Google Scholar. Sanders of the River, a London Films production, was a hymn of praise to the wise rule of the British official, Sanders: Paul Robeson, playing a collaborating chief, sings of ‘Sandy the Strong, Sandy the Wise, Righter of wrongs, Hater of lies’. See Vaughan, J. Koyinde, ‘Africa and the Cinema’ in Hughes, Langston (ed.), An African Treasury (New York, 1960), 87Google Scholar. Rhodes of Africa, a Gaumont-British film, glorified the empire-builder. See Barkas, N., Thirty Thousand Miles for the Films (London, 1937)Google Scholar and Perham, M. (ed.), Ten Africans (London, 1936), 63–4Google Scholar, 76–9 and pictures.

91 Sellers, as cited in n. 26.