FILM HISTORY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 1 September 1938, Page 5

FILM HISTORY

HOUSE OF COMMONS CEREMONY PHOTOGRAPHED FOR FIRST TIME. STRICT RULE RELAXED. Film history was made last month when for the first time the strict yule prohibiting photography in the British Parliament was relaxed and cameras recorded the Speaker’s procession, illuminated by d blaze of arc lamps. The scene was being shot for the first series of “shorts” which Gaumont-British Instructional Films are hoping to make so that the world may see forms and ceremonies, men and manners at the Mother of all Parliaments. “There is a great deal of totalitarian propaganda being put out these days,’ the producer, Mr H. Bruce Woolf said. “We think the world would like to see how things are done at the fount of democracy, Westminster.” Certainly the scene was democratic enough. Scores of M.’sP., curious visitors of both sexes and all ages, including Americans, a Japanese, policemen and film technicians in their shirt sleeves were gathered in the lobby to see the Speaker pass. In accordance with custom, the Speaker, Captain the Hon E. A. Fitzroy left his quarters at 10.58. A cry of “Hats off, strangers” gave warning that the procession was approaching the lobby, the cameras began to turn, the battery of lamps blazed and-, preceded by the Mace, the Speaker turned right again into the Chamber and reached the chair just as Big Ben began to strike the hour. The members present gave a chorus of good-humoured “Hears hears,” as he passed, and even the policemen' were so captivated by the novelty of the proceeding that their faces relaxed into smiles. Permission to film Parliament is understood to have been granted largely through the good offices of Earl Stanhope, president of the Board of Education who thinks the pictures will have educational value.