MOVIETONE

British Movietone is arguably the world’s greatest newsreel archive, spanning the period 1895 – 1986. Shot on 35mm film, this global archive contains many of the world’s enduring images and is rich in coverage of news events, celebrities, sports, music, social history, science, lifestyle and quirky. It was the first newsreel to include sound, the first to use colour film, the first to break many exclusive stories and is your first and last stop for newsreel footage.

The rights to British Movietone News are managed by AP Archive, which also holds a complete run of the newsreel. There are also substantial holdings within the BFI National Archive, largely owing to an arrangement between British Movietonenews and the BFI to preserve the original nitrate copies (1929-1951).

British Movietone News was a sound newsreel launched on 9 June 1929 by an offshoot of the US company Fox Movietone. It was the first sound newsreel to be distributed in Britain, and ran until 27 May 1979. Although natural sound was a feature of the early issues, commentaries began with issue 310 on 31 May 1935. From 1929 the editor of British Movietone News was Gerald Sanger, and although it was announced in 1935 that Sir Malcolm Campbell had replaced him as editor, Campbell was simply a figurehead and editorial control remained with Sanger as the reel’s ‘producer’. Sanger retired in 1954, and was followed as editor by Jack Ramsden, Jeff Shearley, and, finally, Peter Hampton. From 20 March 1969 it changed the name of the reel to Movietone News.

The collection is fully digitized and now available from AP Archive.