A newsreel is a form of short documentary film, containing news stories and items of topical interest, that was prevalent between the 1910s and the mid 1970s. Typically presented in a cinema, newsreels were a source of current affairs, information, and entertainment for millions of moviegoers. Newsreels were typically exhibited preceding a feature film, but there were also dedicated newsreel theaters in many major cities in the 1930s and ’40s, and some large city cinemas also included a smaller theaterette where newsreels were screened continuously throughout the day. By the end of the 1960s television news broadcasts had supplanted the format. Newsreels are considered significant historical documents, since they are often the only audiovisual record of certain cultural events.

History

Silent news films were shown in cinemas from the late 19th century. In 1909

Pathé Pathé or Pathé Frères (, styled as PATHÉ!) is the name of various French people, French businesses that were founded and originally run by the Pathé Brothers of France starting in 1896. In the early 1900s, Pathé became the world's largest ...

started producing weekly newsreels in Europe. Pathé began producing newsreels for the UK in 1910 and the US in 1911. Newsreels were a staple of the typical

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Car ...

n, British, and

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countries (especially Canada,

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, and New Zealand), and throughout European cinema programming schedule from the

silent era A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound (or more generally, no audible dialogue). Though silent films convey narrative and emotion visually, various plot elements (such as a setting or era) or key lines of dialogue may, wh ...

until the 1960s when television news broadcasting completely supplanted its role. The

National Film and Sound Archive The National Film and Sound Archive of Australia (NFSA), known as ScreenSound Australia from 1999 to 2004, is Australia's audiovisual archive, responsible for developing, preserving, maintaining, promoting and providing access to a national co ...

in Australia holds the Cinesound Movietone Australian Newsreel Collection, a comprehensive collection of 4,000 newsreel films and documentaries representing news stories covering all major events. The first official British news cinema that only showed newsreels was the ''Daily Bioscope'' that opened in London on May 23, 1909. In 1929, William Fox purchased a former cinema called the Embassy. He changed the format from a $2 show twice a day to a continuous 25-cent programme, establishing the first newsreel theater in the United States; the idea was such a success that Fox and his backers announced they would start a chain of newsreel theaters across the country. The newsreels were often accompanied by cartoons or

short subjects A short film is any motion picture that is short enough in running time not to be considered a feature film. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences defines a short film as "an original motion picture that has a running time of 40 minutes ...

. The First World War saw the major countries using the newest technologies to develop propaganda for home audiences. Each used carefully edited newsreels to combine straight news reports and propaganda. During the Second World War, the Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda, a state organization in Nazi Germany for disseminating stories favorable to the administration's goals, created '' Die Deutsche Wochenschau'' (1940–1945). There were no other newsreels disseminated within the country during the war. In some countries, newsreels generally used music as a background for usually silent on-site film footage. In some countries, the narrator used humorous remarks for light-hearted or non-tragic stories. In the U.S., newsreel series included '' The March of Time'' (1935–1951), '' Pathé News'' (1910–1956), '' Paramount News'' (1927–1957), '' Fox Movietone News'' (1928–1963), '' Hearst Metrotone News'' (1914–1967), and '' Universal Newsreel'' (1929–1967). Pathé News was distributed by RKO Radio Pictures from 1931 to 1947, and then by Warner Brothers from 1947 to 1956. An example of a newsreel story can be found in the film ''

Citizen Kane ''Citizen Kane'' is a 1941 American drama film produced by, directed by, and starring Orson Welles. He also co-wrote the screenplay with Herman J. Mankiewicz. The picture was Welles' first feature film. ''Citizen Kane'' is frequently cited ...

'' (1941), which was prepared by RKO's actual newsreel staff. ''Citizen Kane'' includes a fictional newsreel called "News on the March" that summarizes the life of title character Charles Foster Kane while parodying '' The March of Time''. On August 12, 1949, one hundred twenty cinema technicians employed by Associated British Pathé in London went on strike to protest the dismissal of fifteen men on the grounds of redundancy while conciliation under trade union agreements was pending. Their strike lasted through to at least Tuesday August 16, the Tuesday being the last day for production on new newsreels shown on the Thursday. Events of the strike resulted in over three hundred cinemas across Britain having to go without newsreels that week.

Television news

In 1936, when the

BBC Television Service BBC Television is a service of the BBC. The corporation has operated a public broadcast television service in the United Kingdom, under the terms of a royal charter, since 1927. It produced television programmes from its own studios from 19 ...

was launched in the United Kingdom, it was airing the British Movietone and Gaumont British newsreels for several years (except for a hiatus during World War II), until 1948, when the service launched their own newsreel programme, titled ''

Television Newsreel ''Television Newsreel'' is a British television programme, the first regular news programme to be made in the UK. Produced by the BBC and screened on the BBC Television Service from 1948 to 1954 at 7.30pm, it adapted the traditional cinema news ...

'', that would last until July 1954, when it was replaced by ''News and Newsreel''. On February 16, 1948, NBC launched a ten-minute television program called '' Camel Newsreel Theatre'' with

John Cameron Swayze John Cameron Swayze (April 4, 1906 – August 15, 1995) was an American news commentator and game show panelist during the 1940s and 1950s who later became best known as a product spokesman. Early life Born in Wichita, Kansas, Swayze was the ...

that featured newsreels with Swayze doing voiceovers. Also in 1948, the

DuMont Television Network The DuMont Television Network (also known as the DuMont Network, DuMont Television, simply DuMont/Du Mont, or (incorrectly) Dumont ) was one of America's pioneer commercial television networks, rivaling NBC and CBS for the distinction of being ...

launched two short-lived newsreel series, '' Camera Headlines'' and '' I.N.S. Telenews'', the latter in cooperation with Hearst's International News Service. On August 15, 1948, CBS started their evening television news program ''

Douglas Edwards and the News The ''CBS Evening News'' is the flagship evening television news program of CBS News, the news division of the CBS television network in the United States. The ''CBS Evening News'' is a daily evening broadcast featuring news reports, feature s ...

''. Later the NBC, CBS, and

ABC ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script known as the alphabet. ABC or abc may also refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Broadcasting * American Broadcasting Company, a commercial U.S. TV broadcaster ** Disney–ABC Television ...

(USA) news shows all produced their own news film. In New Zealand, the ''Weekly Review'' was "the principal film series produced in the 1940s". The first television news broadcasts in the country, incorporating newsreel footage, began in 1960.

Demise

Newsreel-producing companies excluded television companies from their distribution, but the television companies countered by sending their own camera crews to film news events. Newsreels died out because of the nightly television news broadcast, and technological advances such as electronic news-gathering for television news, introduced in the 1970s, rendered them obsolete. Newsreel cinemas either closed or went to showing continuous programmes of cartoons and short subjects, such as the London Victoria Station News Cinema, later Cartoon Cinema that opened in 1933 and closed in 1981. The last American newsreel was released on December 26, 1967, the day after Christmas. Nonetheless, some countries such as Cuba, Japan, Spain, and Italy continued producing newsreels into the 1980s and 1990s.

Retrospectives

A 1978 Australian film titled '' Newsfront'' is a drama about the newsreel business. A 2016 Irish documentary, ''

Éire na Nuachtscannán () is Irish language, Irish for "Ireland", the name of both Ireland, an island in the North Atlantic and the sovereign state of the Republic of Ireland which governs 84% of the island's landmass. The latter is distinct from Northern Ireland, w ...

'' ("Ireland in the Newsreels") looked at the newsreel age in Ireland, mostly focusing on Pathé News and how the (British) company altered its newsreels for an Irish audience.

Notes

References

Bibliography

* * * * *

External links

News on Screen
at British Universities Film and Video Council
American History in Video
at

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Research Guides
Newsreels
at Princeton University
Newsreels
at Dartmouth College Libraries
Newsreels
Academic Video Online at

Pasadena City College Pasadena City College (PCC) is a Public college, public community college in Pasadena, California. History Pasadena, California, Pasadena City College was founded in 1924 as Pasadena Junior College. From 1928 to 1953, it operated as a four- ...

Primary Sources: Newsreels
Film & Media Studies, at University of California, Santa Barbara
News Sources: TV News & Newsreels (Streaming Video)
at Bryn Mawr College
Broadcasting/Newsreels
at Criss Library, University of Nebraska Omaha
Newsreels & Videos
at Clemson University Libraries * Media
The Newsreel Archive at youtube
fro
The Newsreel Archive
{{Authority control, qid=Q735478 Newsreels