How To Be Eccentric: The Selected Films of Richard Massingham (DVD)

Release date: 24 August 2015

This new selection from the BFI celebrates Richard Massingham as one of British cinema’s most fascinating and enduring eccentrics.

Though largely unknown now, Richard Massingham was recognisable to anyone who went to the cinema in Britain during the 1940s – starring as a well-meaning but bumbling everyman in a series of imaginative shorts. These provided instruction to the British public on everything from how to cross roads to the correct way to sneeze into a handkerchief to bathing in just five inches of water during wartime rationing.

Often serving as producer and director as well, his films marked by a wonderfully inventive combination of comedy, instruction, surrealism and whimsy. This new selection from the BFI celebrates Richard Massingham as one of British cinema’s most fascinating and enduring eccentrics.

Contents

Dr Massingham says... Tell Me If It Hurts (1934) | Coughs and Sneezes (1945) | Jet-propelled Germs (1948) | Handkerchief Drill (1949) | Another Case of Poisoning (1949) | The Cure (1950) | Surviving the War: The Five Inch Bather (1942) | Post Early for Christmas (1943) | In Which We Live: Being the Life Story of a Suit Told by Itself (1943) | Elopement in France (1944) | An Englishman's home... Down at the Local (1945) | An Englishman's Home........... (1946) | Moving House (1950) | Post-war Blues: What a Life!: What a Life (1948) | Watch Your Meters (1947) | Warning to Travellers (1949) | Help Yourself (1950) | Post-war Blues: The Daily Grind: Pool of Contentment (1946) | Pedal Cyclists (1947) | Pedestrian Crossing (1948) | 30 Miles an Hour (1949) | Introducing the New Worker (1951)