GPO Film Unit

This documentary short examines the special train on which mail is sorted, dropped and collected on the run, and delivered in Scotland on the overnight run from Euston, London to Glasgow.

Animated shapes dance to Cuban music. This was one of the first animations to be painted directly onto the film.

1935 documentary about the hard working life of Welsh coal miners.

A tribute to the courage and resiliency of Britons during the darkest days of the London Blitz.

An impressionistic portrait of the BBC.

Ambitious documentary chronicling the cultural life and religious customs of the Sinhalese and the effects of advanced industrialism on such customs.

Rainbow Dance is a 1936 British animated film released by the GPO Film Unit. This is Lye's second film. It uses the Gasparcolor process.

This portait of life on the tea plantations is decidedly rosy – clearly, there are no exploited workers here. However, the film provides an intriguing overview of tea production – from the planting of tea seeds to the final shipping of the precious leaves across the globe.

Documentary following an Edinburgh fishing trawler, the "Isabella Grieg".

As the subtitle of the film suggests - The Story of a Post Card from Manchester to Graffham - this journey is very much focused on the process of sorting, transporting and delivering the postcard in question.

Animation featuring dancing black and white shadows.

Humphrey Jennings' first film as a director, a brief overview of the British postal service.

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.

Short documentary showing the workings of a large London sorting office.

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...

The production of King George V's Silver Jubilee (1910-1935) special postage stamp, and a brief dramatised history of the development of the penny post.

Correspondence between young lovers nearly ends in disaster through a mistake in postal district. Fortunately the GPO spots the error and all ends well, but with the moral that correspondents should get the address right.

Shows the production of the London telephone directory.

A film made by the British General Post Office (GPO) in 1933, promoting the automation of telephone exchanges.

This expository film shows the mood of European society on the eve of the Second World War while promoting the values of international cooperation. Using the Swiss office of the BBC as an example, the film describes the functioning of radio and presents the possibilities opened by mass communications. After the advent of sound film, Cavalcanti promoted experimentation with sound, and in this connection he was interested in the communicational, organizational, and social aspects of radio.