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They Act Like Magic

From the collection of

East Anglian Film Archive at the University of East Anglia
The East Anglian Film Archive, the UK's first regional film archive, offers a unique record of the East of England's social and cultural history. As part of the University of East Anglia, we continue to lead moving image heritage research and inspire audience participation through community projects and events. Our collections represent a broad range of amateur and professional creativity, from 1896 to the present day.

They Act Like Magic

Charming fantasy adventure filmed by a prep schoolmaster and starring the pupils at the school. Schoolboys search for a fairytale princess.

Children's fantasy adventure filmed in 1938. Schoolboys search their village for a princess, giving each animal on their journey a ‘magic pill', hoping to restore a princess to human form.

As well as recording local events, Anthony C. Wilson, a schoolmaster at a boys preparatory school, scripted and produced a number of short films starring his pupils. These thrilling stories would inspire his later work, scripting radio plays for the BBC's ‘Children's Hour', and writing his own books featuring the popular characters, boy detectives Norman and Henry Bones.

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From the collection

Amateur Auteurs

Ever dreamed of shooting your own movie? These pre-digital cine-enthusiasts did - with all the passion and devotion of the true auteur.


These low- (or no-) budget creations reach beyond simple point-and-shoot, back-garden efforts towards something more ambitious and skilful, revealing their authors' passion for film and their often astonishing ingenuity with limited resources. No desktop editing software or digital special effects for these amateur auteurs. The films include fiction and documentary, competition prizewinners and private labours of love. They may be the work of cine-clubbers or individual enthusiasts. But they all show a devotion to filmmaking that far transcends hobbyism. So look out for the delightful handmade intertitles, table-top special effects and library soundtracks which decorate many of the quirky stories, ultra-local documentaries and painstakingly composed home movies featured here.

65 videos in this collection

Prize-winning amateur film about the fleeting affair between a housewife and a young man on a summer day.
1

Paper Boat

  • 1949
Silly silent film fun and thrills abound in this award-winning 1954 amateur short spoofing the world of Hollywood trailers.
2

Coming Shortly

  • High Wycombe
  • 1954
A young angel scours London for her wings in this tender short by the young Ken Russell.
3

Amelia and the Angel

  • South Kensington
  • 1958
Knitting comes in handy when making a film – a comical take on amateur filmmaking by the ladies of a local Pinner film club
4

Ladies Hoo Doo

  • Harrow
  • 1965-01-01
The puzzle that kick-started the 1980s comes to life in this amateur animation.
5

Cubism

  • 1981
Nail-biting amateur thriller in Pinner tells the story of a suspicious husband who may not have got the right man.
6

Falsely Murdered

  • Harrow
  • 1960
What happens when you combine high food prices with female resourcefulness? Fishing!
7

Canal Cameo

  • Harrow
  • 1976-01-01
Gotta dance! A bewitched violin gets everyone's feet tapping.
8

The Witch's Fiddle

  • 1924
The 20s elite let their guard down... Amateur antics from media baron Lord Beaverbrook and friends, including HG Wells and Rebecca West.
9

They Forgot to Read the Directions

  • Cherkley Court
  • 1924
A gem-smuggling conspiracy drives an entertaining and unusually accomplished amateur fiction.
10

The Diamond

  • 1938
Shocking scenes of Kensington slums and 1930s housing developments offer a sharp contrast with today's reinvented area.
11

Contrasts in Kensington

  • Kensington
  • 1937
Catholic fantasy starring Elsa Lanchester and Evelyn Waugh in an Andy Warhol fright wig.
12

The Scarlet Woman

  • Hampstead Heath
  • 1924
If you can't go abroad, go a-Broads with country parson and keen amateur cineaste 'Captain' Charles Lyne and his wife Muriel
13

The Annual Problem

  • Wroxham
  • 1935
The Pinner Cine Society looks at disability and the work of Northwood's welfare services.
14

Plans for Living

  • 1966
An epic tale of one girl's life from the ages of one to 22, lovingly filmed by her dad.
15

Saga of Valerie Jean Douglas

  • 1949
Class conflict comes to the boil in an entertaining amateur film about fandom and rival ambitions for movie stardom.
16

Richard House Home Movies Steps to the Stars

  • 1935
This prize-winning short amateur comedy about a distracted father highlights the best and worst of its times.
17

Saturday Lunch

  • 1957
An unusual, poignant piece of wartime correspondence showing how movies can be used to comfort those who are far away.
18

A Movie Letter from Home

  • Wealdstone
  • 1943
Pincurls, pools and a paralytic priest – a housewife's win on the pools leads to a mix-up with the gin and amusing results
19

Sponge Mix

  • Harrow
  • 1956-01-01
A starkly beautiful portrait of crofting life in Flodabay on the Isle of Harris in the Outer Hebrides.
20

They Are Forsaken A Tale of an Island of the Hebrides

  • Harris/Na Hearadh
  • 1938
A map that leads to treasure and trouble: John, Mary and Anne go in search of Jack Mundy's loot only to find that his map wasn't quite complete.
21

The Smugglers' Cave

  • Cornwall
  • 1937-01-01
A Geoff Charles film showing how “the men of Llanwddyn broke their way out for bread” after a great blizzard hit Britain in January 1947.
22

Janet, John & Susan present "1943-1947"

  • Newtown
  • 1947-01-01
A lively collection of largely comic amateur films, followed by a glimpse at the sets of On the Beach and Ben-Hur.
23

Star Cabaret 1956

  • 1956
Surrounded by jealously, plots and intrigue are calmer times ahead too much to hope for?
24

In My End is My Beginning

  • West Lothian
All the boy has to do is to fetch a pail of water…What could possibly go wrong?
25

Helpu Dad

  • Rhoslan
  • 1970-01-01
Catapult-wielding democrats take on wader-wearing fascists in this ‘Plas Newydd' drama filmed by the Marquis of Anglesey.
26

Pink Shirts

  • Plas Newydd
  • 1936-01-01
What dreams may come when a treasured possession is aggressively broken? Unfinished drama starring Anglesey's Earl of Uxbridge as a poor boy.
27

Little Boy's Dream

  • Plas Newydd
  • 1937-01-01
28

Mr H Ramsbotham on the Use of Films in Schools

  • 1935
29

Generation Gap

  • 1973
30

A Few Days

  • London
  • 1963
Nightmarish visions become a reality in this imaginative production that mixes live action, animation, and special effects.
31

The Fifth Minute

  • 1976-01-01
Thrilling pirate adventure made by a preparatory schoolmaster and starring some of his schoolchildren, who apprehend dangerous smugglers.
32

Smugglers Beware

  • Ingoldisthorpe
  • 1938-01-01
A bumbling vicar steals the scene in this short chase film; a silent comedy set in a Norfolk village, featuring many of the villagers.
33

Teacher's Lesson

  • Ingoldisthorpe
  • 1937-01-01
Charming fantasy adventure filmed by a prep schoolmaster and starring the pupils at the school. Schoolboys search for a fairytale princess.
34

They Act Like Magic

  • Ingoldisthorpe
  • 1938-01-01
A female protagonist falls prey to the ‘Shadowman', who stalks his victim before attack. Uses stop-motion animation as well as live action.
35

Shadowman

  • Harlesden
  • 1994-01-01
36

The Tomb of Frankenstein

  • Comber
  • 1964-01-01
37

The Drumlin

  • Strangford Lough
  • 1980-01-01
38

The Testament of Caleb Meeke

  • Bangor
  • 1969-01-01
39

The Tryzzian Exiles

  • Newtownards
  • 1972-01-01
40

Keep Watching Skies

  • Comber
  • 1975-01-01
A man loses everything he has day-dreaming his way through life
41

Stigmata

  • 1970
42

Specimens

  • Ballymagowan
  • 1982-01-01
43

Ring of Cultra

  • Cultra
  • 1984-01-01
Extra-terrestrial plantlife is discovered in the Welsh countryside causing mischief for scientist Dr Felix Ackerman, filmed in 1977.
44

The Cure

  • 1977-01-01
To carry on his important work the ego-maniacal scientist Dr Kelly must obtain another hand … a hand which begins to take on a life of its own.
45

Hand in Glove

  • 1976-01-01
Driven to distraction a young man murders another, however the dead victim's feline reincarnation wants revenge!
46

Feline Reincarnate

  • 1976-01-01
A decade before the BBC's version of M R James supernatural classic came this chilling version from the North Downs Cinematograph Society
47

Whistle and I’ll Come to You

  • 1956-01-01
Amateur award-winning dramatic thriller influenced by 1940s Universal Horror movies and made by husband and wife team John and Dede Wright.
48

Two-faced Killer: A Modern Thriller

  • 1951-01-01
A haunted mirror is the gateway to Halloween horror in this eerie tale from the Eastbourne Cine Group
49

Mirror Mirror

  • Eastbourne
  • 1969-01-01
50

Revenge!

  • 1904-01-01
51

The Haunted School

  • Stormont
  • 1955-01-01
Amusing fantasy of the adventures of a priest who finds his new parish in the grip of the most blatant depravity
52

Sodom and Begorrah

  • Holywood
  • 1967-01-01
53

The Fugitive

  • Derry / Londonderry
  • 1966-01-01
54

The Man From A.U.N.T.

  • Derry / Londonderry
  • 1965-01-01
55

Nebelung

  • Derry / Londonderry
  • 1978-01-01
56

Zwischen

  • Derry / Londonderry
  • 1970
57

The Coming of the Black Dawn

  • Newtownards
  • 1965-01-01
A sophisticated bookish blonde proves to be a murderer's nemesis in this atmospheric thriller-with-a-twist from the Eastbourne Cine Group
58

.. And Other Stories

  • Eastbourne
  • 1979-01-01
Peter's birthday is one his suffering parents would rather forget in this harrowing film from the Sevenoaks Cine Society
59

Birthday For Peter

  • Sevenoaks
  • 1958-01-01
This gruesome tale from the Barnes Brothers is a warning to parents as a young child falls prey to a band of cliff dwelling murderous outlaws
60

Fatal Shot

  • Kingsgate Bay
  • 1931-01-01
A pair of kidnappers are no match for the derring-do Boy Scouts of Eltham - in this amateur action thriller from the Eltham Cine Society
61

Good Turners

  • Eltham
  • 1937-01-01
This inventive comedy double-bill is more than your average home movie - with its tale of two young pranksters getting their just deserts
62

All in the Day's Work

  • Hampshire
  • 1930-04-01
63

Bird's-eye View

  • 1949
There are echoes of Fritz Lang in this short film about a shadowy figure following a child through woodland - but what is his true purpose?
64

Hunted

  • Surrey
  • 1959-01-01
Four bright young things enact a midsummer's love tryst among the daisies in this short, well-crafted amateur fiction film.
65

Midsummer Madness - An Idiotic Idyll

  • 1933
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