United Kingdom
English
format unknown
B&W
Silent
"A German airman is boarding at a house in England. The landlady tells him about her daughter's death; she was killed in an air raid on her seventeenth birthday. As he hears the story, he remembers that day and that he was dropping bombs on the area. When he sees her portrait, he runs from the house and the landlady's son Rudolph runs after him. He chases him across the clifftops and the German sees a vision of the daughter. He tries to embrace her but stumbles and falls off the cliff. Rudolph also sees his sister, they laugh, embrace and he throws stones at the German who is clinging to a tree root. Rudolph's vision disappears and he runs down to rescue the German but he is already dead" (BFI online).
"Mr Terence L. Greenridge writes to tell me that the film “Afterwards”, for which he and his wife Nora [Pfeil] Greenridge, are jointly responsible, has been taken back for the sake of certain additions, previous for general release to amateur societies. Mr Terence Greenridge is better known in the amateur film movement as the first filmmaker in Oxford University, and as author of the recently published “Degenerate Oxford!” For some time he has been a leading light of the London A.C.A. Mr Terence Greenridge did the secondary jobs of “Afterwards”, such as scenarising, choosing locations, and working out camera angles. This film, which had a particularly successful premiere at the London A.C.A.’s public show, is not merely the London A.C.A.’s most ambitious production for 1930, but is also something rather new in cinematography, whether professional or amateur. It has something of that imaginative audacity for which I have already pleaded, and it is, very largely, the work of a woman."
"Telling Situations - In too many cases a film has to attempt to justify a conventional plot. In this case the plot makes the film. Nora Greenridge, who wrote the story, possesses a natural instinct for a telling situation: even when, as in this case, the theme came to her in a dream. In “Afterwards” there is nothing of the sentimental, conventional world of nine films out of ten, where the hero is never allowed to die unless it is obvious that life has not more to offer him. The good looking hero of “Afterwards” dies at the prime of life, full of vitality, and in “Afterwards” the dramatic conflict is between man’s muddle-headed kindliness and the precise retribution of the supernatural world: so precise that, on occasion, it can become cruelty. The film is not calculated to induce placid happiness in an audience, but rather to challenge them to think about the deeper problems of life. Treatment has been subordinated to theme. There is no stunting in this film. Camera-angles and backgrounds were selected in so far as they might elucidate the episode which was being pictured, and not for intrinsic excellences that they might posses in themselves. The beauty of the English countryside finds expression in “Afterwards”, but Nora Greenridge has utilised it in a purposeful manner, understanding how grim events become twice as grim, if they happen in beautiful surroundings."
“Happy Ever After - Nora Greenridge not only wrote the story and directed its production, but played a part, to quote one of the critics, “with sylph-like grace”. Mrs Greenridge, or Nora Pfeil as she used to be, is an attractive blonde and has played several leading roles in London A.C.A. productions. She has also won many awards in scenario competitions. She became engaged to Terence Greenridge a quarter of the way through the production, and halfway through the production their marriage took place. Now they have a house called “Afterwards”—a happy and true modern version of the age-old fairy-tale ending" (M.A.L.B. 1931, 9).
"One of the films being shown [as part of the All-English Amateur Film Week] has been referred to as the most ambitious production of 1930. Produced by Terence Greenridge, better known as an author, directed by Miss Nora Pfeil, who has since become Mrs Greenridge, “Afterwards” is certainly a film none should miss. Plots should not be given away in advance, so let it be said that a German Professor came to England in 1928 on a geological holiday. He settled down with an English family, the daughter of which had been killed in an air-raid over London ten years previously, and the son rendered neurotic. The family generally “took to” the German, who was a sociable enough fellow. They forgot the war, but as the tenth anniversary drew near—It is a film well worth seeing" (Anon 1931, 9).
Anon. “All-English Amateur Film Week.” Kent and Sussex Courier. October 9, 1931.
British Film Institute. “Afterwards (1930).” Accessed July 17, 2021. https://www2.bfi.org.uk/films-tv-people/4ce2b8b74effe.
M.A.L.B. “The Amateur Cinema.” The Era. April 15, 1931.
Shown during the All-English Amateur Film Week at the Modern Homes Exhibition, Tunbridge Wells, UK, October 24-31, 1931.
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Amateur Cinema