BRITAIN PREPARED

Wairarapa Times-Age, 16 September 1939, Page 9

BRITAIN PREPARED

1 —•» EFFICIENT A.R.P. PLANS. PORTRAYED IN VIVID FILM. Men, women and children; all with faces upturned to the sky; faces expressing fear, even- terror, but showing a dogged determination to meet what dread may come from the skies. Such is the ending to a striking film record of Britain’s defence against enemy air raids, “The Warning,” previewed at the Regent Theatre yesterday afternoon. The film, made with the sanction of the Home Office and including an interview with Sir John Anderson, former Home Secretary, is more than just another of the pictures made to stress the need in Britain for adequately trained anti-aircraft presonnel. It is a vivid picture of what might happen to England at any time in such days of war as these. It is terrifying in its graphic portrayal of wholesale destruction of life and property; but it is thrillingly stirring as it shows the discipline, the patience, the courage and the determination of the people whose life is ever threatened from the skies. Every phase of Britain’s A.R.P. plans are shown in “The Warning.” Navy, Army, Air Force, A.R.P. Wardens, Decontamination Squads, Ambulance Details, Fire Services—all are pictured at work, calmly and skilfully directed by an amazingly efficient headquarters hidden “somewhere in town.” The actual scenes are laid in Nottingham, but the story applies to all Britain. No more appropriate war picture could just now be filmed. In New Zealand, safe from such terror, it is only by seeing a film like this that one can imagine anything so terrifying as the dread of an air raid or anything so humanely efficient as Britain A.R.P. system.