A Call for Arms!
A pair of 'nude' dancers find a new way of doing their bit for the boys in this fun propaganda short
"What a life for a couple of nudes!" Two dancers find a new way of doing their bit for the boys in this frothy wartime propaganda short. Lord Kitchener's famous finger persuades Joan and Ireen, dancers in a 'Non Stop Nudes' revue (not that we see anything that warrants that title), to make a radical career change. Swapping their skimpy costumes for dowdy munitions factory overalls, they join a growing domestic army of women keeping the machines rolling.
Belfast-born Brian Desmond Hurst was essentially a feature film director, whose best-remembered work is the Dickens adaptation Scrooge, but whose credits also included the war films Dangerous Moonlight (1941) and The Malta Story (1953). The Call for Arms was one of three propaganda shorts he made between 1940 and 1941, the most memorable being Miss Grant Goes to the Door, in which a pair of village spinsters outwit a Nazi paratrooper.
Tags
Keep the Wheels Turning
The State seized control of much of British industry at the start of the war. Mills and factories now produced munitions, planes, tanks and uniforms, while mines yielded the coal to power it all.
Production went into overdrive. Workforces in key industries like coalmining and shipbuilding were classed as 'reserved occupations' and spared the draft, while an army of women took to the machines to meet the constant demand for munitions and uniforms. In hindsight, we can see that the foundations of the postwar settlement were being laid. The wartime economy was formidable: workers pulled together to meet ever-increasing demand for resources and government oversight kept the motors running.
13 videos in this collection
1
2
Shipbuilders
3
Out Working
4
Her Father's Daughter
5
Good Value
6
Furnaces of Industry
7
A Job to Be Done
8
The New Crop
9
A Call for Arms!
10
Wartime Factory
11
British Made 'ameri-cans' Something to Focus On
12
Dai Jones
13