Have You Written to Mother?

This is a propaganda short directed by Michael Powell in 1941. Kind of timely in the wake of Remembrance Sunday. The text, read by John Gielgud, comes from a genuine letter, we are told, written by an English airman to his mother to be delivered in the event of his death.

It’s of great historic interest, but of cinematic interest too, not only for the filmmaking contained therein, but for the obvious influence this piece had on the opening of A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH. As with that feature, the dog-loving Powell stars his own spaniel in the piece (or so I assume — those are certainly Powell’s dogs playing Roger Livesey’s pets in AMOLAD). And the voice introducing the letter is Powell’s own distinctive nasal twang.