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Humphrey Jennings (1907-1950)

Birthplace:
Walberswick, United Kingdom

Born:
August 19, 1907

Died:
September 24, 1950

Biography from TheMovieDB

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."

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Additional information:

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Film Performances

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Film Production

Additional Photography:
1935  Coal Face

Color Designer:
1935  Coal Face
1936  The Birth of the Robot

Director:
1934  Locomotives
1934  Post-Haste
1934  The Story of the Wheel
1935  Coal Face
1936  The Birth of the Robot
1937  Farewell Topsails
1938  English Harvest
1938  Making Fashion
1938  Penny Journey
1938  Speaking from America
1938  The Farm
1939  Cargoes
1939  S.S. Ionian
1939  Spare Time
1939  The First Days
1940  London Can Take It!
1940  Spring Offensive
1940  Welfare of the Workers
1941  The Heart of Britain
1941  This Is England
1941  Words for Battle
1942  Listen to Britain
1943  Fires Were Started
1943  The Silent Village
1944  The Eighty Days
1944  The True Story of Lili Marlene
1944  V. 1
1945  A Diary for Timothy
1945  Myra Hess
1946  A Defeated People
1948  The Cumberland Story
1949  The Dim Little Island
1950  Family Portrait

Editor:
1934  Locomotives
1934  Post-Haste
1934  The Story of the Wheel
1935  Coal Face
1936  The Birth of the Robot
1937  Farewell Topsails
1938  English Harvest
1938  Making Fashion
1938  Penny Journey
1938  Speaking from America
1938  The Farm
1939  Cargoes
1939  S.S. Ionian
1939  Spare Time
1939  The First Days
1940  London Can Take It!
1940  Spring Offensive
1940  Welfare of the Workers
1941  The Heart of Britain
1941  This Is England
1941  Words for Battle
1942  Listen to Britain
1943  Fires Were Started
1943  The Silent Village
1944  The Eighty Days
1944  The True Story of Lili Marlene
1944  V. 1
1945  A Diary for Timothy
1945  Myra Hess
1946  A Defeated People
1948  The Cumberland Story
1949  The Dim Little Island
1950  Family Portrait

Producer:
1934  Locomotives
1934  Post-Haste
1934  The Story of the Wheel
1935  Coal Face
1936  David Low Animation
1936  The Birth of the Robot
1937  Farewell Topsails
1938  English Harvest
1938  Making Fashion
1938  Penny Journey
1938  Speaking from America
1938  The Farm
1939  Cargoes
1939  S.S. Ionian
1939  Spare Time
1939  The First Days
1940  London Can Take It!
1940  Spring Offensive
1940  Welfare of the Workers
1941  The Heart of Britain
1941  This Is England
1941  Words for Battle
1942  Listen to Britain
1943  Fires Were Started
1943  The Silent Village
1944  The Eighty Days
1944  The True Story of Lili Marlene
1944  V. 1
1945  A Diary for Timothy
1945  Myra Hess
1946  A Defeated People
1948  The Cumberland Story
1949  The Dim Little Island
1950  Family Portrait

Writer:
1934  Locomotives
1934  Post-Haste
1934  The Story of the Wheel
1935  Coal Face
1936  David Low Animation
1936  The Birth of the Robot
1937  Farewell Topsails
1938  English Harvest
1938  Making Fashion
1938  Penny Journey
1938  Speaking from America
1938  The Farm
1939  Cargoes
1939  S.S. Ionian
1939  Spare Time
1939  The First Days
1940  London Can Take It!
1940  Spring Offensive
1940  Welfare of the Workers
1941  The Heart of Britain
1941  This Is England
1941  Words for Battle
1942  Listen to Britain
1943  Fires Were Started
1943  The Silent Village
1944  The Eighty Days
1944  The True Story of Lili Marlene
1944  V. 1
1945  A Diary for Timothy
1945  Myra Hess
1946  A Defeated People
1948  The Cumberland Story
1949  The Dim Little Island
1950  Family Portrait

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While much of the above data are retrieved directly from outside APIs and other such sources, data from American Film Institute (AFI) and British Film Institute (BFI) were manually entered the old fashioned way into a MySQL database. Re BFI I took the following liberties:

  • I added "runners up" to Top 10 lists, treating them as ties where applicable and numbering them accordingly at the bottom of each list.
  • Regarding those polls wherein "franchise" movies were submitted as one project until BFI's policy changed to regard them separately, I treated them as ties and renumbered the affected lists accordingly (e.g. the Godfather films).

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Whether or not he still clings to an award which he won in 1986 as a film critic for his college's newspaper, Jeffrey Hartmann is not responsible for the texts of overviews and biographies supplied by external data sources.