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Image from In Liden Lea. Movie Makers, Dec. 1939, 606.

Date produced: 1939

Filmmaker(s):

A. Scott Moorhouse

Languages:

English

Length:

200 ft

Format:

16mm

Colour:

Kodachrome

Sound Notes:

Silent

Awards/Recognition:

ACL Ten Best 1939 - General Class

Description:

"In Linden Lea is A. Scott Moorhouse's tribute to a mother land, a tribute paid with distinction and an admirable warmth of feeling. We go to the English countryside, where Mr. Moorhouse sings, in film, the ancient refrain that Chaucer, Shakespeare, Gray, Wordsworth, Jefferies, Kipling and Brooke lifted in the English tongue. It is Mr. Moorhouse's good fortune and his sound cinematic ability that have permitted him to bring what he feels so strongly in a very direct fashion to his audience. His is the last sight of a peaceful England, recorded with vibrant emotion. "Rainbows; and the blue bitter smoke of wood; "And radiant raindrops couching in cool flowers; "And flowers themselves, that sway through sunny hours, "Dreaming of moths that drink them under the moon; " These, Mr. Moorhouse has greatly loved, as did Brooke, and in English woods, he would hope we shall "see no enemy, but winter and rough weather." In this beautiful Kodachrome footage are preserved the byways, the little ways, the errant and individual ways through which wander the casual cows, the meandering motors, the clopping carts and the quiet English, themselves, while to right of them and left of them are "English unofficial roses." And there is "honey still for tea" in this English land, and people to enjoy it, unhurried and unflurried. Mr. Moorhouse has pictured a way of life by suggestion, because his scenes are almost all with few human beings, but he has pictured it sharply and triumphantly, even if tenderly. In this brief essay in film is the essence of "This royal throne of kings, this scepter'd isle, "This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars, "This other Eden, demi-paradise; "This fortress built by Nature for herself "Against infection and the hand of war; '"This happy breed of men, this little world; "This precious stone set in the silver sea . . . "This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England." Movie Makers, Dec. 1939, 609, 631-632.

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