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Verity Films was a British documentary film production company, founded by
Sydney Box Frank Sydney Box (29 April 1907 – 25 May 1983) was a British film producer and screenwriter, and brother of British film producer Betty Box. In 1940, he founded the documentary film company Verity Films with Jay Lewis. He produced and co- ...
and Jay Gardner Lewis in March or May 1940.


Background

The company's initial purpose was to make short
propaganda film A propaganda film is a film that involves some form of propaganda. Propaganda films spread and promote certain ideas that are usually religious, political, or cultural in nature. A propaganda film is made with the intent that the viewer will ad ...
s for the wartime government.Spicer, 18. Lewis directed Verity's first five films, but fell out with Box over finances and left the company.Spicer, 20–21. Box's former employer Publicity Films helped pay off the £2,000 debt and the company was refloated in 1941.Spicer, 21. With Lewis gone, Box ran the company alone and found quick success. Turnover during 1942 was £75,000, and after paying salaries of £5,000 to Box and others, Verity still made a £2,000 profit. A January 1943 report in ''
Kinematograph Weekly ''Kinematograph Weekly'', popularly known as ''Kine Weekly'', was a trade paper catering to the British film industry between 1889 and 1971. History ''Kinematograph Weekly'' was founded in 1889 as the monthly publication ''Optical Magic Lantern ...
'' called Verity "by far the largest documentary film organisation in Great Britain". By 1944, Verity had absorbed several other documentary producers and had eight to ten production units in the field. It advertised itself in a trade publication as "the largest short film production organisation in Europe, incorporating the Greenpark Unit, Technique Unit and Donald Taylor's new
Gryphon The griffin, griffon, or gryphon ( Ancient Greek: , ''gryps''; Classical Latin: ''grȳps'' or ''grȳpus''; Late and Medieval Latin: ''gryphes'', ''grypho'' etc.; Old French: ''griffon'') is a legendary creature with the body, tail, and ...
Unit". In August 1944, Verity Films became a founding member of the Film Producers' Guild, based at Guild House in Upper
St Martin's Lane St Martin's Lane is a street in the City of Westminster, which runs from the church of St Martin-in-the-Fields, after which it is named, near Trafalgar Square northwards to Long Acre. At its northern end, it becomes Monmouth Street. St Martin ...
, which brought together several film production companies. During the war, Verity produced more than 100 films, most of them at the small and badly soundproofed
Merton Park Studios Merton Park Studios, opened in 1929, was a British film production studio located at Long Lodge, 269 Kingston Road in Merton Park, South London. In the 1940s, it was owned by Piprodia Entertainment, Nikhanj Films and Film Producers Guild. Peter M ...
in South London, although for some productions, Verity rented
Riverside Studios Riverside Studios is an arts centre on the banks of the River Thames in Hammersmith, London, England. The venue plays host to contemporary performance, film, visual art exhibitions and television production. Having closed for redevelopment i ...
in
Hammersmith Hammersmith is a district of West London, England, southwest of Charing Cross. It is the administrative centre of the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, and identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London. ...
. Already, by this point, Box had begun to broaden the management of Verity Films. An item in the edition of 7 December 1944 of ''
Kinematograph Weekly ''Kinematograph Weekly'', popularly known as ''Kine Weekly'', was a trade paper catering to the British film industry between 1889 and 1971. History ''Kinematograph Weekly'' was founded in 1889 as the monthly publication ''Optical Magic Lantern ...
'' noted that A. T. Burlinson had taken over as managing director while Box worked on ''
The Seventh Veil ''The Seventh Veil'' is a 1945 British melodrama film directed by Compton Bennett and starring James Mason and Ann Todd. It was made by Ortus Films (a company established by producer Sydney Box) and released through General Film Distributors in ...
'' (1945). Director
Gerry O'Hara Gerald O'Hara (born October 1924, Boston, Lincolnshire) is an English film and television director. O'Hara was an assistant director on Laurence Olivier's film, '' Richard III''; the Carol Reed film, '' Our Man in Havana'' and the Academy Award ...
landed a job as a runner at Verity in 1941 at the age of 17, as he told
Wheeler Winston Dixon Wheeler Winston Dixon (born March 12, 1950) is an American filmmaker and scholar. He is an expert on film history, theory and criticism.Bill Goodykoontz, December 23, 2012, USA TodayDefining Tarantino Accessed Aug. 25, 2013, Quote = "...long, invo ...
:
O'Hara: I got a job there at 3 pounds 7/6 a week. I started as a trainee in the script department, because theoretically I was a journalist. But I was just running errands for the script department, carrying film cans and stuff like that. Then
Ken Annakin Kenneth Cooper Annakin, Order of the British Empire, OBE (10 August 1914 – 22 April 2009) was an England, English film director. His career spanned half a century, beginning in the early 1940s and ending in 2002, and in the 1960s he was notice ...
, who became quite famous later on, was a young assistant director there; he sort of took me under his wing, and I switched to being a runner and errand boy in the assistant director's department.
Dixon: So basically you were working on documentaries as an assistant director?

O'Hara: Yes. How to put out a firebomb, and stuff like that. It was a lot of wartime work, of course, and most of it was civil defense stuff, films for hire.

Dixon: Did you work on any films for the GPO, for the
General Post Office The General Post Office (GPO) was the state postal system and telecommunications carrier of the United Kingdom until 1969. Before the Acts of Union 1707, it was the postal system of the Kingdom of England, established by Charles II in 1660. ...
?

O'Hara: Yes, the Ministry of Information. We did a sort of copy of Carol Reed's ic''
The Next of Kin ''The Next of Kin'', also known as ''Next of Kin'', is a 1942 Second World War propaganda film produced by Ealing Studios. The film was originally commissioned by the British War Office as a training film to promote the government message tha ...
'', called ''Jigsaw'', which was a naval version of how to keep secrets and so forth.

I think at that time I seemed to waver between first and second assistant, which happened a lot. I was still very young then, only about 18 or 19. But it was a great apprenticeship; it was incredible.
Among Box's other wartime hires (in 1944) was a 16-year-old Eric Marquis, who became one of Verity's longest serving employees, and was by the 1960s the company's director. After the end of the Second World War, Sydney Box moved on to
Gainsborough Studios Gainsborough Pictures was a British film studio based on the south bank of the Regent's Canal, in Poole Street, Hoxton in the former Metropolitan Borough of Shoreditch, north London. Gainsborough Studios was active between 1924 and 1951. The com ...
, joining the board in May 1946 and becoming managing director on 1 August 1946.Spicer, 80. Betty Box also moved to Gainsborough. Despite the departure of the Boxes, Verity Films continued producing documentaries, with directors such as Ken Annakin. In later years, the documentary director
Seafield Head Seafield may refer to one of several places in Scotland: * Seafield, Aberdeen, an area of Aberdeen * Seafield, Ayr, a southern district of the Royal Burgh of Ayr in the South Ayrshire council region * Seafield, Edinburgh, an area of north east Edinb ...
worked for Verity Films.


Filmography

This filmography is a partial list of films produced or co-produced by Verity Films.


Notes


References

* {{Authority control Film production companies of the United Kingdom Propaganda film units British companies established in 1940