Frank Binney

Frank Binney began as a projectionist in a cinema in Woolwich in the 1920s, but by the early 1930s he was projectionist at the British and Dominions Studio at Elstree. When the Elstree studio burned down in February 1936 Binney joined the back-projection crew at Pinewood Studios. On the outbreak of war in 1939 Binney joined the RAF as an electrician, but after two years he was invalided out. Binney became a sound recordist, first for De Lane Lea, and afterwards for Pathe, where he worked both in the studio and for Pathe News. Binney’s first surviving Pathe credit is as sound engineer for ‘EISENHOWER SEES DEFENCE CHIEFS’ in Pathe News No.51/6 of January 1951. Binney was shown on film operating his sound equipment in ‘MEMORIAL TO WILLIAM FRIESE-GREENE’ in No.51/74 of September 1951, and Pathe has film of him working with Bill Jordan [qv] in January 1952. In July 1952 Binney appeared with Bill McConville [qv] in a comic item ‘HEAT WAVE’ in Pathe News No.52/54, leaving home without his trousers. Binney was the sound engineer for the Pathe News report of ‘THE LAST JOURNEY (KING’S FUNERAL)' in No.52/15 of February 1952, and its report of the ‘FARNBOROUGH AIR TRAGEDY’ in No.52/74 of September 1952. Binney was also one of the soundmen for ‘THE CORONATION OF HM QUEEN ELIZABETH’ in Pathe News No.53/41 of June 1953. Binney afterwards left Pathe to work for CBS News.

Sources

J. Ballantyne (ed) ‘Researcher’s Guide to British Newsreels: Vol.II’ (1988), p.33: J. Ballantyne (ed) ‘Researcher’s Guide to British Newsreels: Vol.III’ (1993), p.74 - comment by Bob Allen: Jim Wilde ‘A Brief Discourse on the Life of a Departed Friend,' Projected Picture Trust Quarterly Magazine, No.82 (1998), pp.10-11.