Navigating 'Hell' in troubling times!

CHRIS DRAPER reviewing the English film 'THE ROAD TO HELL' which he claims was the 'first socialist film' writes:

'Premiered in London on Friday 28 July 1933, Lansbury himself attended the show and a couple of months later introduced the film to delegates attending the Labour Party’s annual conference in the White Rock Pavilion, Hastings. Although the film was generally well received where shown it proved impossible to secure a general release. Cinemas were dominated by Hollywood and ultimately controlled by local authority licensing committees eager to ban Socialist Film Council films as did Birmingham Council in 1935.'

This film fills a very narrow canvas much of it filmed in George Lansbury's home portraying the impact of the then National Government's Means Test on a family in a city, London. Most of the domestic scenes were filmed in George Lansbury’s 39, Bow Road home making it, as Chris Draper himself says: 'an accomplished though economical production.' It shows the struggles of an urban lower middle-class family dealing with the difficulties of the economic depression.

It is tempting now to compare this film with the European film Kameradschaft produced in 1931 shortly before 'THE ROAD TO HELL'. Kameradschaft is also based on a real life disaster, perhaps one of the worst industrial accidents in history; the Courrières mine disaster in 1906 in Courrières, France, where rescue efforts after a coal dust explosion were hampered by the lack of trained mine rescuers. Expert teams from Paris and miners from the Westphalia region of Germany came to the assistance of the French miners. There were 1,099 fatalities.

Kameradschaft (English: Comradeship, known in France asLa Tragédie de la mine) is a 1931 dramatic film directed by Austrian director G. W. Pabst. The French-German co-production drama is noted for combining expressionism and realism. It reflects the spirit of European internationalism, while the English film is much more parochial.

It would be hard to find an better example of the Little Englander phenomena of an island people contrasting so vividly with the concept of continental co-operation as in these two films.

The plot of the European film Kameradschaft is as follows:

'Two boys, one French and the other German, are playing marbles near the border. When the game is over, both boys claim to have won, and complain that the other is trying to steal their marbles. Their fathers, border guards, come and separate the boys.

'In 1919, at the end of World War I the border changes, and an underground mine is divided, with a gate dividing the two sections. An economic downturn and rising unemployment adds to tension, as German workers seek employment in France but are turned away, since there are hardly enough jobs for French workers. In the French part of the mine fires break out, which they try to contain by building brick walls, with the bricklayers wearing breathing apparatus. The Germans continue to work in their section, but start to feel the heat from the French fires.

'The fire gets out of control, igniting gas and causing roof collapses that traps many French miners. In response, the German miner, Wittkopp, appeals successfully to his bosses to send a rescue team. As the German rescue team leave in two lorries, its leader explains to his wife that the French are men with women and children and he would hope that they would come to his aid in similar circumstances. In the mine itself, a trio of German miners breaks through the grille on the border between the two countries. On the French side, an old retired miner sneaks into the shaft hoping to rescue his young grandson. The Germans rescue the French miners, not without difficulties. After all the survivors are rescued, there is a big party with speeches about friendship between the French and Germans. French and German officials then reinstall the underground border grille and things return to the way they were before.'

It is very apt that these reviews are appearing now as the EU and the UK are arguing over rights to fishing.

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