The Eighty Days

This 14-minute short film by Humphrey Jennings has a commentary by the famous American war reporter and broadcaster Ed Murrow.

The film is a retrospective account of the V-1 blitz (the 'doodlebug') on London and the south-east of England during 1944 and 1945. These pilot-less bombs were fired from France and the film follows anti-aircraft gun crews on the south coast, onlookers and fighter planes, as Britain tries to deal with the incoming menace.

Some are shot down (hurray!) and we follow one that makes it to London. The engine stops and the bomb falls to ground; we then see the aftermath and the work of those involved trying to recover survivors and the dead.

An interesting short film about one of the most frightening weapons of the war. The film makes uses of music and natural sound as well as commentary. It was shown as part of a Humphrey Jennings' season at the Imperial War Museum in London in May/June 2006.

As a collection of historic clips about the bombing of London, this is very good. As a documentary, it is very ordinary, and that's how I am judging it. My copy came from the 3-Volume Blu-ray set of Humphrey Jennings.

It begins with 50 seconds of commentary explaining the "Doodlebug", the V1 bomb and what the German's intentions were; then there is 1 minute of what sounds like static; then 9 minutes of occasional location sound to accompany the images, but more often just added sounds effects; then music begins at 3 minutes before the end, and finally another minute of narration, narration that has missing words (due to the poor source material).

This doco is not even or newsreel standard. It's no more than an archive of hundreds of clips, quickly strung together, with virtually no storyline to tie it together other than London being bombed. We see close-ups of people talking, but often no words can be heard, just the added sound of bombs and the drone of V1s.

"The Eighty Days" would make an excellent source of images for use in other docos or films, but as it stands, it is simply a raw document of historic interest only, little better than flipping through an album of Box Brownie photos. Or to use more modern terms, it's as if someone had an iPhone during the bombing, took a lot of video, strung them together randomly, and uploaded to YouTube.