Camera tricks are largely forgotten in this wartime peep at the home life of a family in Hayes, in the suburban outskirts of London. Three of them work in a munitions factory, manufacturing guns and shells; the day Lye’s film documents is May Herrick’s 21st birthday, and her first day working at the factory. At the end comes a slogan (“The munitions industry needs more women now”), but the film’s value is as a slice of home-front life, not as a recruiting poster.

Geoff Brown