Conclusion

Tell England (Anthony Asquith and Geoffrey Barkas, 1931) was initially conceived as a continuation of BIF’s cycle of battle reconstructions discussed in Chapter 2. It was to be directed by Walter Summers, entitled simply The Battle of Gallipoli, and would take its place in the production schedules for 1929 as a suitable sequel to the previous year’s The Battles of Coronel and Falkland Islands.1 However, three things appear to have happened (Figure C.1). Firstly, quite early in the production process (certainly by September 1927), the decision appears to have been made to combine a reconstruction of the fighting at Gallipoli with an adaptation of Ernest Raymond’s spectacular bestseller of 1922, Tell England. This was in accordance with the shift I’ve traced in the series away from pure reconstructions, relying on diagrams, actuality footage and re-enactments which gestured in a variety of ways towards their ‘authenticity’ (although all of these techniques nevertheless found a place in the final film), and towards more fictional modes, incorporating narrative conventions and shooting structures associated with the war films being produced by Hollywood. Secondly, when filming was already at quite an advanced stage, with much of the reconstruction material and battle scenes already shot in Malta, synchronized sound technology became standard, and the production suffered a protracted hiatus while sound equipment was installed and scenes were re-shot or dubbed.