Saturday, September 10, 2016

The Battle of the Somme

One of the British-based bloggers I read (not a movie blogger) mentioned how this year is the 100th anniversary of the World War I battle of the Somme. Apparently, the British had a cinematogapher there, Geoffrey Malins, to document the battle. Some of the footage from the battle was combined with reenactment to make a movie, The Battle of the Somme. (I find it interesting that the IMDb page gives the American title for what was a British movie.) The movie was apparently a huge hit in the UK at the time; IMDb claims 20 million tickets were sold, at a time when Britain's population was around 45 million as best I can tell.

The movie, having been released in the summer of 1916, is in the public domain, although I don't know if every print is, since there's been a restoration and music added. At least one is available on Youtube:

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