United Kingdom
English
9.5mm
B&W
Silent
"Apex Motion Pictures are busy on a story which entirely ignores the ordinary narrative channels: this production, they tell me, is right off the beaten track. In fact, I am told that this is a sincere attempt to produce the first real amateur story film, i.e. one in which the whole of the work is carried out cooperatively. This effort is to be issued as “Poor Jenny is Aweeping”, and Leslie Wood passes me the information that this film deals with a side of life which, though it affects everyone, has never, so far as he is aware, been handled in a book, play, or film. What is more, although A.M.P. claim to be the first with amateur talkies, they have now gone silent. Apex Publicity also states that Kurt Camerona, their cameraman, is playing the Rev. Cecil Teed, and is giving us something new in characterisation" (Head 1932: 21).
"noteworthy for having introduced yet another technical advance invented by Apex cameramen – “the dolly twist”, as it has been christened. The camera is turned over and over, gradually slowing down and remaining stationary, at the same time the dolly goes towards or away from the subject being photographed. Like all worth-while innovations, however, the shot was created to fit the peculiar demands of certain sequences of the film; it has not been dragged willy-nilly into the film simply for the novelty of the stunt. It is particularly valuable in films of the macabre genre" (HMHT 1933: 297).
Anon. Home Movies and Home Talkies. Jan (1933).
H.H. Head. ‘B.A.A.C. Notes: Enthusiastic Send-Off for New League.’ The Era. July 13 (1932).
Whitehall Cine Society screening, UK, September 5, 1933.
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Amateur Cinema