British Sporting Personalities

Dates

1959 - 1962

Category

Cinemagazine - Government

History

This series of ten films, made between 1959 and 1962, was the first produced by the Central Office of Information to focus on contemporary personalities. Each one of the nine minute film centres on the life of a particularly successful British sportsman or woman. These included the swimmer, Judy Grinham, John Surtees, Pat Smythe, Mary Bignal Rand, Stanley Matthews, Courtney Jones and Doreen Denny, Peter May and Derek Ibbotson. The production company for the first three films was Anvil Films Ltd before the contract passed to Associated British Pathe Ltd. There is no evidence that it was dubbed into any other language, so the distribution, given the sponsors, would have been to the United States and English speaking countries of the Commonwealth and colonies.

Provenance

The data has been compiled from production documents held at The National Archives, the COI index cards held at the BFI National Archive and the COI catalogue, Films From Britain 1964-1965.

Other Information

Copies of this series are held at the BFI National Archive.

Films in this series can be obtained from:

Film Archive

Name

British Film Institute (BFI)

Email

For BFI National Archive enquiries: nonfictioncurators@bfi.org.uk For commercial/footage reuse enquiries: footage.films@bfi.org.uk

Web

http://collections-search.bfi.org.uk/web

Phone

020 7255 1444

Fax

020 7580 7503

Address

21 Stephen Street
London W1T 1LN

Notes

The BFI National Archive also preserves the original nitrate film copies of British Movietone News, British Paramount News, Empire News Bulletin, Gaumont British News, Gaumont Graphic, Gaumont Sound News and Universal News (the World War II years are covered by the Imperial War Museum).

Series held

View all series held by British Film Institute (BFI)