THE SOMME COMES TO LOUGHBOROUGH – ON FILM
Movie publicity is not known for understatement. In 1916, “The Battle of the Somme” was publicised as “the greatest moving picture in the world”, and yet, at the time, the hype was genuine.
Part documentary and part dramatized action film, this picture, as they were called at the time, was revolutionary for revealing to shocked audiences what the men at the front were really going through. Real soldiers, real weapons, real battle scenes, real casualties.
20,000 killed on 1st July 1916
The Battle of the Somme as we now know, was one of the most notorious offensives of WW1, when the British Army suffered the bloodiest day in its history on the first day alone, 1st July 1916. There were 57,470 casualties, including 20,000 dead.
The film was commissioned as a morale-raiser by the War Office and was made by GHQ cameramen Lt Geoffrey Malins and John McDowell. They were given unprecedented access to the build-up to the attack and to the front line, putting themselves at considerable risk as they lugged their cumbersome equipment through the trenches and across no-man’s-land.
Genuine agony
Only a very small percentage of the action was faked. Most of the battle footage was necessarily filmed from a distance, so some had to be recreated at a training facility and added to the final edit. This included the classic ‘going over the top’ scenes which are still used today in many TV programmes about trench warfare.
Embedded at the battlefront, the filmmakers were able to include close-ups of the men, helping to give the film its emotional heft. One unforgettable image, part of the Imperial War Museum’s collection, shows an exhausted grimy soldier carrying a wounded comrade on his shoulders, his agonised stare to the lens expressing indescribable suffering.
Other footage, filmed before battle commenced, shows cheerful-looking soldiers, smoking and grinning, marching and riding to the front, handling ammunition and weapons. In all the footage, staged or authentic, it is poignant to see their faces. Many of them would have been dead by the time the film was complete.
Release in London
The finished film, an hour long, was released in London on 21st August 1916, and King George V was given a private screening at Windsor. Prime Minister Lloyd George declared “If the exhibition of this picture all over the world does not end War, God help civilisation.” If only he had been correct.
The picture comes to Loughborough
The “greatest moving picture in the world” reached Loughborough cinemas a few weeks later. On 1st September an advertisement in the Loughborough Echo for Ashby Road Playhouse alerted picturegoers that “The Battle of the Somme” would be screened for five nights from September 28th. The picture, the advert said, had caused a sensation in London, when many people actually recognised loved ones and friends from the footage. Book early to avoid disappointment, was the advice. You could reserve a seat for ninepence, and it was a sell-out.
“The Battle of the Somme” was soon pulling in audiences at many other cinemas in Loughborough and Leicester, including Shepshed Picture House, Hinkley Theatre, Floral Hall in Leicester and the Picture House in Leicester. Hinkley had a special morning show for children, and although some of the more gruesome footage had been edited out, many scenes may not have been entirely suitable for youngsters.
Grim sights
For, unusually, the film showed casualties, both injured and dying, enemy and allies. Some authorities took exception to this, and one London cinema refused to show it, saying the cinema was for entertainment not the horrors of war.
However, a reviewer in the Leicester Chronicle said “…we see men falling and fallen in the fight, and other grim sights common in this terrible struggle, but what would you have? War is war, and those of you fortunate to be at home ought to know something of the horrors our soldiers are facing.”
And soldiers themselves went to see the film. The Leicester Chronicle of 9th September published a photo of injured servicemen from local military hospitals queuing up at the Palace Matinee. Some of them had been at the Somme.
Today the film is available on YouTube and DVD, as well as the website of the Imperial War Museum.
Advertisement for Ashby Road Playhouse, Loughborough Echo, 8th September 1916
