Britain at Bay

Britain at Bay is a morale boosting propaganda films which compiles instantly resounding landscape images: green and pleasant countryside with the dark and smoky city; big Ben, defiant even when filmed behind barbed wire; Dover's white cliffs and shots of sea and sky. These are complemented by narrator J.B. Priestley's invocation of a national history. Juxtaposed are the unnatural intrusions of war: the bombs, the refugees with Britain's forces and voluntary services. Churchill's legendary "fight on the beaches" is quoted, and a shot found to illustrate every sub-clause.

Keywords: war, Winston Churchill, Battle of Britain, soldiers, home front

Key frames

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To find out more, see the analysis of Britain at Bay on BFI Screenonline.

This film is included in the BFI DVD compilation Land of Promise: The British Documentary Movement 1930-1950.

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