Humphrey Jennings
Director · 1907 – 1950 · Walberswick, United Kingdom
Frank Humphrey Sinkler Jennings (19 August 1907 – 24 September 1950) was an English documentary filmmaker, celebrated for his poetic and visually striking portrayals of British life during World War II. A co-founder of the Mass Observation social research organization, Jennings blended avant-garde techniques with a deep sense of national identity, creating films that captured the resilience and spirit of the British people. His most acclaimed works, including Listen to Britain (1942), Fires Were Started (1943), and A Diary for Timothy (1945), showcase his unique ability to fuse documentary realism with lyrical storytelling. Film critic and director Lindsay Anderson described him as "the only real poet that British cinema has yet produced."
Movies4
Movie10.0DocumentaryDocumentary about Humphrey Jennings, an English documentary filmmaker from the 1930s to 1950.
Humphrey Jennings: The Man Who Listened to Britain
2025 · 1 votes
MovieDocumentaryA behind-the-scenes GPO Film Unit documentary (directed by Stuart Legg) that races from studio rehearsals and newsrooms to control rooms and transmitters, weaving speeches, music, and outside broadcasts—featuring voices like H. G. Wells and Ramsay MacDonald—into a kinetic portrait of how the BBC’s national “voice” is made.
- MovieComedy
How news of a general reduction in GPO charges was finally brought to parliament and the people, despite attempts by the country's enemies to prevent the announcement...
- Movie5.8Comedy
The film, made to advertise domestic telephone sets, is based around two very different families. The Petts are conventional, happy and have children; the Potts are unconventional and unhappy, without children.
Pett and Pott: A Fairy Story of the Suburbs
1934 · 5 votes
Series1
TV7.2DocumentaryOmnibus was an arts-based BBC television documentary series, broadcast mainly on BBC1 in the United Kingdom. The programme was the successor to the long-running arts-based series 'Monitor'. It ran from 1967 until 2003, usually being transmitted on Sunday evenings. During its 35-year history, the programme won 12 Bafta awards. Among the series' best remembered documentaries are Cracked Actor, a profile of David Bowie, and Rene Magritte, a graduate film by David Wheatley, 'Madonna: Behind the American dream', a film produced by Nadia Hagger, and a profile of the British film director Ridley Scott. For a season in 1982, the series was in a magazine format presented by Barry Norman. The series was replaced by 'Imagine' hosted by Alan Yentob.
Omnibus
1967 · 9 votes