''Seawards the Great Ships'' is a 1961 British short

documentary film A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a historical record". Bill Nichols has characterized the documentary in te ...

directed by Hilary Harris. It won an

Oscar Oscar, OSCAR, or The Oscar may refer to: People * Oscar (given name), an Irish- and English-language name also used in other languages; the article includes the names Oskar, Oskari, Oszkár, Óscar, and other forms. * Oscar (Irish mythology) ...

1962 Events January * January 1 – Western Samoa becomes independent from New Zealand. * January 3 – Pope John XXIII excommunicates Fidel Castro for preaching communism. * January 8 – Harmelen train disaster: 93 die in the wor ...

for Best Short Live Action Subject, the first Scottish film to win an Academy Award. The film chronicles the

Shipbuilding Shipbuilding is the construction of ships and other floating vessels. It normally takes place in a specialized facility known as a shipyard. Shipbuilders, also called shipwrights, follow a specialized occupation that traces its roots to bef ...

industry of the

River Clyde The River Clyde ( gd, Abhainn Chluaidh, , sco, Clyde Watter, or ) is a river that flows into the Firth of Clyde in Scotland. It is the ninth-longest river in the United Kingdom, and the third-longest in Scotland. It runs through the major cit ...

during the early 1960s, featuring footage from the

Fairfield Shipbuilding and Engineering Company The Fairfield Shipbuilding and Engineering Company, Limited was a Scottish shipbuilding company in the Govan area on the Clyde in Glasgow. Fairfields, as it is often known, was a major warship builder, turning out many vessels for the Royal Navy ...

John Brown & Company John Brown and Company of Clydebank was a Scottish marine engineering and shipbuilding firm. It built many notable and world-famous ships including , , , , , and the ''Queen Elizabeth 2''. At its height, from 1900 to the 1950s, it was one of ...

and

Scotts Shipbuilding and Engineering Company Scotts Shipbuilding and Engineering Company Limited, often referred to simply as Scotts, was a Scottish shipbuilding company based in Greenock on the River Clyde. In its time in Greenock, Scotts built over 1,250 ships. History John Scott fo ...

. It was produced by Glasgow-based Templar Films for the Clyde Shipbuilders' Association and the Central Office of Information (COI). It was released onto Blu-ray by Panamint in 2010 as part of their 'Faces of Scotland' compilation. It includes dialogue between shipyard workers, but this is all scripted. They had hoped to use genuine dialogue between shipyard workers, but this included too many swearwords to be usable.

Cast

* Kenneth Kendall as Narrator (Worldwide version) * Bryden Murdoch as Narrator (Original Scottish version)

References

External links

*
National Library of Scotland: Scottish Screen Archive
(Film details and clips from Seawards the Great Ships) * 1961 films 1961 documentary films 1960s short documentary films British short documentary films Live Action Short Film Academy Award winners Scottish films Documentary films about water transport Films set in Glasgow 1960s English-language films 1960s British films {{short-documentary-film-stub