NZFA SCREENING. VOICES FROM THE PAST: POLITICAL FILM MAKING IN THE TIME OF THE FIRST LABOUR GOVERNMENT

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Year
2007
Reference
F97623
Media type
Moving image
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Rights Information
Year
2007
Reference
F97623
Media type
Moving image
Item unavailable online
Categories
NZFA Screening
Duration
0:49:51
Production company
NZFA

This screening examines the parallel emergence of polemic and official film making during the term of the first Labour government, 1935 - 1949. In terms of political language the present forums of political speech may seem relatively innocuous compared to these 30s and 40s pieces with the signifiers tory and socialist in abundance. The effects of the depression and the cold war on political utterance come across strongly in much of the content, and the visual material produces a more immediate memory of the period than text sources could realistically provide.

Features of the screening include recently preserved material from Australian newsreels, previously unscreened material from the Archive’s amateur collection, a particular insight into the importance of the Michael Joseph Savage factor in the Labour government’s early programme, and an extraordinary punch and counter-punch from Labour and National in the build up to elections in 1949.

DOMINION STATUS British Ministry of Information, 1945 (excerpt)
Released before the end of hostilities, Mother England’s official reflections on its dutiful colonies includes this perception of New Zealand: a strong sense of independence, a highly developed welfare system and this little pearl... 'New Zealand is well ahead, indeed alone in having solved her racial problems completely. Mäori stock or European, her citizens take for granted their absolute equality...' Where they got the camp-fire music track is anyone’s guess.

MOVIETONE NEWS A0146 Fox Movietone (Australia), 1936 (excerpt)
Made in New Zealand by the Australia arm of Fox Movietone. The newly elected Labour Prime Minister with his cabinet behind him gives outlines his government’s agenda... “Our object is to turn the Dominion of New Zealand into a nation of buyers as well as producers and to make science, machinery and money the servants, rather than the masters of the people... We are the first Labour Government to receive from the people of New Zealand an overwhelming mandate to give effect to an advance policy of social and economic reform. This country was once looked upon as the social laboratory of the world and we are looking forward to again taking our place in the vanguard of human progress.”

MOVIETONE NEWS A0287 Fox Movietone (Australia), 1940 (excerpt)
Just weeks before Savage’s death in March 1940, this newsreel item reiterates Labour’s economic position and a reminder that its interventionism had had ramifications within international economic circles: “...New Zealand has been held up as the bad boy of the family because we have set out to promote manufacturing industries in order to provide avenues of employment for our own people... we cannot leave our economic and social standards to the fluctuations of overseas trade conditions.”

HEALTH CAMPS FOR HAPPINESS Government Film Studios, 1937 (excerpt)
An appeal by Michael Joseph Savage for health camp funding. Over shots of children at a health camp, the Labour leader makes the most bland factual statements seem poetic.

PR. VIVIAN, GIFF. PANAMA 1937 (excerpts)
Footage shot by the New Zealand cricketer Giff Vivian on the 1937 tour of England. Prime Minister Savage travelled with the team on his way to England to attend the coronation ceremonies.

PRIMETIME 15/11/1978 TVNZ, 1978 (excerpt)
Current affairs piece on political advertising, this excerpt looking at the pre-television period and in particular the 1938 elections.

PR. SMITH, STAN. GOVT SOCIAL SECURITY BUILDING 1939 (excerpts)
The Social Security building on fire, February 3rd 1939. It was suspected arson, as there was much opposition to Labour’s Social Security Scheme. The fire was in Aitken Street near parliament buildings, and Mr Smith lived nearby in Mulgrave Street. According to Chris Trotter, “...the reaction of the citizens of Wellington was so dramatic. Working round the clock, foregoing profit and overtime payments, contractors and workers built a new headquarters for the Social Security Department in just [seven] weeks.”

CINESOUND REVIEW 441 Cinesound Productions Ltd., 1940 (excerpt)
“Auckland. N.Z. LAST HONORS FOR PRIME MINISTER M.J. SAVAGE.” Twenty stops on the main trunk line, some of the largest crowds seen in New Zealand history...

NZ HISTORY IN THE MAKING Standard Laboratory Production / Lee Hill, 1938 (excerpt)
An extract from New Zealand’s first direct attempt at electioneering on film. This excerpt covering Peter Fraser’s portfolio, education, shows the directness of the slogans and polemic used during the period.

DR BEEBY. INTERVIEW WITH IAN FRASER 1983 (excerpts)
Clarence Beeby recalls aspects of Labour’s initiative’s and Fraser’s intent. Beeby was Assistant Director in 1939 and Director of Education 1940-1960. The two ‘were virtually of one mind’ regarding equality in education according to the DBNZ.

HEROES OF CRETE National Film Unit 1941 (excerpt from The War Years, NFU 1983)
Peter Fraser, clearly distressed, gives a typically crafted message to the New Zealand public after the debacle of Greece and Crete.

WEEKLY REVIEW 197 National Film Unit 1945 (excerpt)
Prime Minister Rt Hon. Peter Fraser in San Fransisco for the United Nations Conference on International Organisation. Echoes of Churchill, “..in the streets and in the hills and in the valleys of her country, then the cause of freedom and justice would have been overthrown and trampled underfoot... "

WEEKLY REVIEW 204 National Film Unit 1945 (excerpt)
Returning from San Fransisco, Peter Fraser at the Wellington Town Hall.

ACHIEVEMENT A Tribute to 14 Years of Labour Government, Progressive Productions 1949 (excerpts)
The narration slightly less polemic than the 1938 production but Achievement shows that National Party complaints about the National Film Unit being used as a political tool had more than a little foundation. The majority of the visual clips used in this ‘independent’ production are from previous NFU newsreels and Government Film Studio productions.

YOU MUST DECIDE Neuline Studios 1949 (excerpts)
The National Party enters the political film dimension with gusto. The symbolism and effects used to match the narration are essential viewing.

WEEKLY REVIEW 270 National Film Unit 1946 (excerpt)
Visiting American radio legend Norman Corwin goes out of his way to make us feel better, a fitting finale.