CEMA [Main Title]

A documentary released in September 1942 about the precursor to the Arts Council, the wartime Council for the Encouragement of Music and the Arts (CEMA), featuring an introduction by education minister R A Butler, an art exhibition in a factory and live music and theatre performances in various English locations.

START 01:00:00 Reel 1. Opening title and credits.

01:00:33 Views of long wooden wall around a bomb site with some advertising posters on it (including one advertising Haig Whisky) as young man with untidy hair sticks up a poster advertising the range of CEMA's activities. The Conservative politician R A Butler, the President of the Board of Education and a member of the wartime coalition cabinet, addresses the camera from behind a desk, explaining what the initials CEMA stands for, its purpose behind its creation in January 1940 - "...to bring pleasure and the highest forms of inspiration to those millions who were...blacked out in the general black out all over Britain at that time...." - and the part it plays in bringing music and the arts to a country at war. His words are carried over shots inside CEMA's headquarters showing a woman employee taking a telephone call and the man in charge of organising bookings having a pile of documents placed on his desk by his secretary as he studies sheet music published by a German music publisher in Leipzig for Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto. Mix through to musicians of the Reginald Jacques Orchestra warming up for a lunchtime concert at an ordnance factory and employees wheeling their bicycles past two Military Policemen on duty at the factory entrance and a poster advertising the concert. Four boys hear the music while playing outside the ordnance plant and begin to mimic the actions of musicians playing the flute, the cello and violin.

01:02:18 Over shots showing a woman artist with an easel painting with oils, a CEMA art curator holding up a painting to the light in his office (it shows a woman lying sideways on a bed), an actress (Renee Ascherson ?) looking into the mirror in her dressing room as she applies make up on her face and the CEMA bookings manager planting pins marked 'Merry Wives of Windsor' on Burnley in Lancashire and 'Cherry Orchard' on Kingston-upon-Hull on his wall map of the United Kingdom, Butler explains how CEMA organises art exhibitions, puts on shows featuring industrial design and town planning and sends drama companies all over the country. He continues in synchronous sound, "In fact this council is a wartime inspiration which is bringing the best to as many of our people as we can to cheer them on to better times". Mix through to a pin on the CEMA bookings manager's map that reads 'Philharmonic Harp Trio. Maria Korchinska. John Francis. Max Gilbert'.

01:02:57 Panning shots of trees in blossom on a bright spring day in an English village with a picturesque old church and views of its square spire and clock over an arrangement of 'Greensleeves' by Vaughan Williams and three musicians playing the music inside the church. Two soldiers, one from the Royal Horse Artillery (?) , the other with the triangular shoulder flash for the 3rd Division, enter the church and squeeze past several members of the audience to sit down in a pew to listen to the performance. Shots showing the trio of musicians playing 'Greensleeves' -John Francis playing the flute, Maria Korchinska on the harp she is playing, and Max Gilbert playing the viola. The sequence ends with a panning shot across trees in blossom in the village where the musicians are playing.

01:04:44 Mix through to a shot showing gunners manning a 3-inch anti-aircraft gun in a semi-permanent anti-aircraft gun site. Mix through to a view of Burnley, a typical industrial town in Lancashire and a shot of a poster advertising for a play by William Shakespeare play performed by the Old Vic Company. Inside the local theatre, a female stage director supervises a line rehearsal by the actresses playing the parts of Mistress Ford and Mistress Page in 'The Merry Wives of Windsor' (likely directed by Esme Church , with actors Frank Petley, Rosalind Atkinson and Freda Jackson) whilst carpenters and stage hands prepare the set. The actor playing Sir John Falstaff rehearses a scene with Mistress Ford, fluffs one of his lines and calls for the female prompter to correct him. As the two actors continue rehearsing their lines, stagehands are seen backstage sorting out the curtains and moving stage props. A woman cleaning and polishing the seats in the stalls pauses from her work to look at a scene in which Falstaff cosies up to Mistress Page, at which point a boy actor steps forward to announce that Mistress Page has arrived. The director interrupts the boy and comes up on stage to give him some direction. The cleaning woman watches all of this going on and then continues her cleaning and polishing. An unseen stage manager's voice calls out, "OK. Right through, please!"

01:07:04 Mix through to a mass of Scout Carriers armed with Bren light machine guns on pintle mountings on manoeuvres. Mix through to a large factory canteen where people are sitting down for lunch whilst others take a look at an exhibition of paintings by CEMA featuring work by living artists in the gallery overlooking the canteen. Various people comment on the exhibition - one young woman confides to a friend that the painting of a tree in blossom reminds her of her religiously devout aunt's home in Devon, a young man with his girl friend in tow is distinctly unimpressed by an example of modern painting - "What is this? The Chamber of Horrors?". The girlfriend likes paintings of everyday life. Another young man gazing at a painting of a rustic scene owns up to preferring paintings of battles. People study paintings showing St Paul's Cathedral surrounded by blitzed buildings and boats filled with day trippers on a river. The curator in charge of the exhibition and a war worker become involved in a discussion about the value of art in wartime; the war worker is sceptical but the curator insists that art is a part of what the country is fighting for, the freedom "to work, to play, to listen, to look at what we want to". A bright-eyed young woman says she likes the painting showing a seaside scene but can't explain why. The curator tells her why he likes it. A plain-faced woman tells him, "I can't draw for toffee." He encourages her to look at art as a way of using a different language and chooses as examples a portrait of an African woman, a painting of circus performers in a street, another example of modern art, a view of a cottage in the Scottish Highlands (?) and the portrait of a mixed-race Air Raid Precautions (ARP) worker. The artist actually responsible for this work, another ARP volunteer, is seen sketching the young man as he plays cards with his workmates at their ARP post.

01:09:16 Reel 2. A pin marked 'Merry Wives of Windsor' is stuck into a map showing Burnley and the surrounding countryside on the Lancashire-Yorkshire border. Scenes inside Burnley's theatre showing a packed house during a performance by the Old Vic of the play by William Shakespeare. The scene shows Sir John Falstaff hiding behind a curtain or arras in Mistress Ford's house. Mistress Page arrives on stage to inform Mistress Ford that her husband is on his way. With the help of the boy servant, they persuade Falstaff to hide in a basket of dirty laundry. There are cutaway shots of members of the audience including soldiers and a sailor laughing during this scene which is milked for its comedy and slapstick character.

01:11:58 Scenes inside a dark shed inside an ordnance plant (Vickers-Armstrong, Elswick, Newcastle-upon-Tyne ?) showing a large calibre naval gun being turned on a large boring machine. Mix through to scenes inside the factory canteen showing a female soprano with the Reginald Jacques Orchestra coming to the end of a religious choral composition by Bach (?). The canteen audience applauds. The conductor Reginald Jacques announces that the orchestra will now play the first movement of Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto. A well-paced sequence showing the female pianist playing the first notes of the concerto and (mainly) male Vickers-Armstrong workers listening to her and the rest of the orchestra playing as they take their lunch break. The music is played over shots showing workers examining the hydraulic dampers fitted to the suspension units on tanks, using powered lathes and the conductor leading members of the orchestra's string section during the performance.

01:14:51 Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto continues over shots showing workers assembling a bogie suspension unit on a Valentine Mk I tank and planing off excess welding flash with an electrical grinder, an automatic drilling machine cutting holes in a circular band of steel, a big 15-inch (?) naval shell being picked up by an (unseen) overhead gantry crane, bright gleaming 25-pounder shell casings being transported in a trolley and stacked in big piles, workers with 500-pound bomb casings and 15-inch shells, workers welding and assembling a bogie suspension unit on the hull of a Valentine tank, a completed Valentine tank being lowered onto a US-built White (?) 18-ton tank transporter by an overhead crane, ground level tracking shots showing workmen assembling the components of Bren light machine guns and a rack of newly completed Bren guns, tracking shots from overhead gantry cranes and a ground level dolly along a line of 3.7-inch anti-aircraft guns, QF 2-pounder 40mm anti-tank guns and 4.7-inch dual purpose naval guns, A.13 Cruiser tanks being driven out of a large factory shed and railway low-loader carriages carrying Valentine Mk I tanks with HQ, A and B Squadron markings on the tank turrets rolling slowly past the camera. The film concludes with an intertitle with CEMA's mission statement, "....bring the best to as many of our people as possible to cheer them onto better times.'

END 01:16:50

35mm