STEEL: A CENTURY OF STEELMAKING ON FILM - DVD

STEEL: A CENTURY OF STEELMAKING ON FILM

Following the acclaimed box sets covering the history of Britain's coal mining and shipbuilding industries, the BFI turns its focus on the nation's steel industry.

This comprehensive double DVD box set features 20 rare documentaries, short films and animations charting the story of steel. Among the material is footage of the intrepid construction of the New Tyne Bridge in 1928 with music by Jazzfinger and the rediscovered 1945 film Steel, shot in Technicolor by award-winning cinematographer Jack Cardiff, it chronicles the visually spectacular process of making steel, from the iron ore to the steelworks.

While steelmaking may not have acquired the popular mythology of coalmining or shipbuilding, its pivotal role at the heart of British industry is unrivalled, and provided some evocative and poetic subject matter for filmmakers throughout the twentieth century. The films on this set bring alive the stories of the communities shaped by their steelworks, and offer a richly fascinating and often surprising view of a largely vanished way of life. For millions of people this isn t just Britain's 'industrial heritage', it's their family history.

This set includes a comprehensive illustrated booklet with film notes and essays by BFI curators and a foreword by Mark Miodownik.

Disc one

• Parkgate Iron and Steel Co., Rotherham (1901)
• His Majesty's Visit to the Clyde (1917)
• The Building of the New Tyne Bridge (1928)
• Steel (Civics and Commerce series) (1933)
• Mastery of Steel (1933)
• British Steel (1939)
• Teeth of Steel (1942)
• Steel (1945)
• The Ten Year Plan (1945)
• Common Sense about Steel (1948)
• Mrs Worth Goes to Westminster (1949)

Disc two

• Steel in the South Wales (1950)
• River of Steel (1951)
• Ingot Pictorial No 27 (1956)
• Steel Town (1958)
• Men of Consett (1959)
• The Big Mill (1963)
• Steel for the Seventies (1970)
• Women of Steel (1984)
• Northern Newsreel no 7 (extract) (1987)

UK / 1901-1987 / black & white, and colour / English language, silent with music / 348 mins / 2 x DVD9 / Dolby Digital mono audio (320 kbps) TBC / Original aspect ratio 1.33:1