September 1939. Britain was now at war, and the film-makers at the GPO Film Unit, lacking any firm assignment, took to the streets to capture the bustle of a capital city adjusting to the new conditions. Some sequences are recreations. all are vivid and effective. Jennings headed one of three camera units, and R.Q. McNaughton’s editing proved crucial in knitting the material together; but Jennings’ stamp remains on many images, especially when a cat looks up into the sky at a barrage balloon – an object of war made to measure for a Surrealist painting.

Geoff Brown