Dorothea Movie Clip · AditNow Community

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hammond
50.2% (Neutral)
Newbie Topic Starter

13 years ago

Hello All,

I stumbled across this short old cinema peice of footage of Dorothea, named 'Men Against Death a story of peril in our time'. It shows some amazing footage of how the blondin towers at Dorothea worked, very interesting.

Pete

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davel
50.2% (Neutral)
Newbie

13 years ago

This is an interesting film, albeit with a somewhat melodramatic presentation by modern-day standards.

I understand it's part of a two-reel short feature - but unfortunately the second reel has been lost.

It certainly helps one to put the 'flesh on the bones', especially if one if familiar with the modern-day remains at Dorothea.

Dave

carabeener
50.2% (Neutral)
Newbie

13 years ago

Great clip, was trying to get my bearings to see where I have dived! Couldn't really work out much in the quarry itself. I seem to remember a roadway going down, and a crane at about the 40-45M. Guess they were later additions.

hammond
50.2% (Neutral)
Newbie Topic Starter

13 years ago

Yeh that's typical, like that part of Y Chwarelwr that went missing. When do we think it was filmed, pre-war?

davel
50.2% (Neutral)
Newbie

13 years ago

http://www.screenonline.org.uk/film/id/954223/index.html

According to the above source "Contemporary reviewers ... were less than impressed by the film's rockfall finale (in the part of the film now missing). ... [the director] would have done better to concentrate on filming actual daily tasks at the quarry, rather than injecting drama which effectively failed to convince." A further review cites the "serious anticlimax when the crag whose threatened collapse was the crux of the story did not, in fact, fall."

Although the above source names the producer, director, assistant director etc. it does not mention the narrator. It sounds as if it might have been Wynford Vaughn-Thomas - though if it was it would have been very early in his career. Any other suggestions as to who it might have been?

Dave

JohnnearCfon
50.2% (Neutral)
Newbie

13 years ago

It doesn't sound like Wynford Vaughan Thomas to me, it sounds far too "upper class English". WVT was born in 1908 so he would have been 25 in 1933 the voice sounds a lot older.