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Summary: British propaganda film for the Home Front, calling for volunteers for the Army, 1918 or earlier.
Description: The film contrasts young men leaving factory gates, "still at home" with older men "who have to go to war" while their wives and families wait behind. A parade of drill sergeants shows that they are all still serving despite having two, three or four wound stripes. A home defence unit, with an average age of about fifty, drills in the open. Three of its members are shown together, "the ages of these men total 207 years and they're still doing their bit". (The uniform details suggest they are part of a volunteer or temporary unit rather than the Regular Army.) Middle-aged men, serving as special constables, don shrapnel helmets, and carry warnings against air raids. Boys drill in Royal Flying Corps uniform. All this is contrasted with the men still in the factories. "If the young men will not take their turn, thrice wounded men must go back, more fathers of families will be called up, leave may have to be stopped - is that fair ?" Soldiers are seen to be happy returning to Britain on a leave boat and walking through London. The difficulties of moving shells up through the mud of the Somme in horse-panniers (from IWM 116 BATTLE OF THE ANCRE) are given as the reason for young men in particular being needed.
Production Details: Ministry of National Service (Production sponsor)
Personalities, Units and Organisations: Royal Air Force, Royal Flying Corps (regiment/service)
Police Force (regiment/service)
British Army (regiment/service)
Keywords: propaganda, British - inspirational (object name)
propaganda, British - practical: recruitment (Army) (object name)
recruitment, British military (object name)
society, British - domestic (object name)
industry, British - general (object name)
31/3(41) (event)
GB, England (geography)
Age (concept)
(concept)
Children (concept)
Physical Characteristics: Colour format: B&W
Sound format: Silent
Soundtrack language: None
Title language: English
Subtitle language: English
Technical Details: Format: 35mm
Number of items/reels/tapes: 1
Footage: 539 ft; Running time: 9 mins
Notes: Title: recorded in IWM documentation as "THE CALL ..."; title changed in accordance with Nicholas Hiley's research, see below
Date: on internal evidence of scenes from IWM 116, the shrapnel helmets and the RFC 'maternity jacket', this film cannot have been made earlier than autumn 1916. Conscription was introduced in January 1916, making the purpose of this film by no means clear. It is either an oblique call for the non-avoidance of conscription or a direct call for men in reserved occupations to volunteer. This second alternative runs contrary to government policy
Production: research by Nicholas Hiley on the career of the cameraman Teddy Tong has produced (1997) a reference to a film with the title A CALL TO THE YOUNG, "specially taken" for the Ministry of National Service, being shown at a patriotic meeting in Wolverhampton in April 1918 attended by Tong ('Kinematograph Weekly', 2 May 1918, page 50). While this throws some light on the production circumstances and possible date of the film, it does not explain the underlying riddle of why it was made at all
Remarks: a real puzzler. It would have made sense in 1915, and would have been typical of the style of propaganda, very popular in that year, which appealed to guilt feelings rather than to idealism. But as it stands it seems to serve no useful purpose
