The Silent Village **** (1943, Villagers of Cwmgiedd) – Classic Movie Review 9153

Director Humphrey Jennings’s 1943 World War Two what if? documentary The Silent Village tells how it could have happened in Wales if there had been similar Nazi atrocities there to those perpetrated in 1942 on the Czech small mining village of Lidice in retaliation for the assassination of the high-ranking German SS and police official Reinhard Heydrich, nicknamed the Butcher of Prague, on June 4, 1942.

This imaginative, entirely improvised classic British documentary, made by master documentarist Humphrey Jennings for the Crown Film Unit, did an important wartime task of waking up the public to the appalling extent of the Nazi menace, but it is still powerful, chilling and very moving.

The Silent Village features the inhabitants of the Welsh village of Cwmgiedd, doing a convincing job as the film’s amateur actors.

The Silent Village is directed by Humphrey Jennings, runs 36 minutes, is made by the Crown Film Unit, Czechoslovak Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Information and South Wales Miners Federation, is released by Associated British Film Distributors (Ealing Distribution) (1943) (UK), is written by Humphrey Jennings, is shot in black and white by H E Fowle, is produced by Humphrey Jennings and scored by C à Becket Williams.

Jennings is the maker of Listen to Britain (1942), Fires Were Started (1943), A Diary for Timothy (1945) and Family Portrait (1950).

Available on BFI DVD are The Complete Humphrey Jennings Volume One: The First Days [1939], The Complete Humphrey Jennings Volume Two: Fires Were Started [1941] and The Complete Humphrey Jennings Volume Three: A Diary for Timothy.

Volume Two includes the following films: The Heart of Britain (1941), Words for Battle (1941), Listen to Britain (1941), Fires Were Started (1943) and The Silent Village (1943).

© Derek Winnert 2019 Classic Movie Review 9153

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