How to be Eccentric: The Essential Richard Massingham on DVD [read more]
The grandaddy of public information films
Richard Massingham’s face was instantly recognisable to cinema-goers in Britain during the 1940s. His performances as the well-meaning but bumbling everyman in a series of imaginative shorts, provided instructions to the public on everything from how to cross roads to the correct way to sneeze into a handkerchief and the need to bathe in just five inches of water during wartime rationing. On 24 August 2015 the BFI brings these enjoyable films to DVD for the first time in How to be Eccentric, The Essential Richard Massingham.
Marked by a wonderfully inventive combination of comedy, instruction, surrealism and whimsy, these films not only starred Massingham, but were also often produced and directed by him. This essential collection, selected from films preserved in the BFI National Archive, celebrates this extraordinary figure and reveals him to be one of British cinema’s most fascinating and enduring eccentrics. One of his short films, Coughs and Sneezes, is at the link above.
