THE THREATENING SKY [Main Title]

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  • Title: THE THREATENING SKY [Main Title]
  • Film Number: PMO 20
  • Other titles:
  • Summary: Film about Vietnam, showing the determined struggle against American aggression, by the Dutch film maker Joris Ivens, introduced by Bertrand Russell.
  • Description: The film includes footage from both North and South Vietnam, of meetings by Ivens with President Ho Chi Minh and Nguyen Huu Thu chairman of the National Liberation Front, and a little American material. Bertrand Russell introduces the film and says the American aggression contravenes the Genevan agreement of 1954 when the French departed. He tells of the appalling bombing campaign of the Americans. The film puts the resistance to America in the context of resistances to occupation, like that of occupied Europe against the Nazis, and the heroic endurance of enemy bombing in the tradition of Londoners' endurance of the Blitz. There are sequences of the industrial and agricultural life of Vietnam, when air-raid warnings are sounded and men and women either carry on working regardless or leap into defence with rifles and machine guns. There are shots of the citizens of Hanoi preparing defences against air attack. There are shots of the NLF jungle command HQ, of the primitive traps they were setting over the country and of their captured American arms. There are shots of anti-American riots in Saigon and tales of the computerised planning of the escalation of the war and of blanket bombing by the Pentagon.
  • Alternative Title:
  • Colour: B&W
  • Digitised:
  • Object_Number: PMO 20
  • Sound: Sound
  • Access Conditions: NON-IWM
  • Featured Period: 1946-1975
  • Production Date: 1966
  • Production Country: France
  • Production Details: Dovidis (Production company) Ivens, Joris (Production individual) Cao-Thuy (Production individual) Loridan, Marceline (Production individual) Ulrich, J-C (Production individual) Beloux, Francoise (Production individual) Dourgnan, Catherine (Production individual) Korolitski, Jacqueline (Production individual) Ash, Bill (Production individual) Destanque, Robert (Production individual) Hoa, Duc (Production individual) Van, Thu (Production individual) Burchett, Wilfred Graham (Production individual) Riffaud, Madeline (Production individual) Russell, Bertrand Arthur William1872-05-181970-02-02 (Production cast) Anderson, Lindsay (Production cast) Vietnamese students (France) (Production cast)
  • Personalities, Units and Organisations: Russell, Bertrand Arthur William (person) Ho Chi Minh (person) Ivens, Joris (person) Nguyen, Huu Thu (person) Viet Cong (regiment/service)
  • Keywords: politics, Vietnamese - alternative: anti-American riots (object name) propaganda, French - inflammatory: anti-US (object name) society, Vietnamese - ethnic (object name) society, Vietnamese - history (object name) society, Vietnamese - precautionary (object name) strategy, United States: Vietnam (object name) vietnam war (event) Vietnam & Hanoi (geography) Vietnam & Saigon (geography)
  • Physical Characteristics: Colour format: B&W Sound format: Sound Soundtrack language: English Title language: English Subtitle language: None
  • Technical Details: Format: 16mm Number of items/reels/tapes: 1 Footage: 1150 ft; Running time: 30 mins
  • HD Media:
  • Link to IWM Collections page:

    PMO 20

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