High Treason

This early British sci-fi explores the possibilities of futuristic television technology.

  • Director

    Maurice Elvey

  • With

    Jameson Thomas, Benita Hume

  • UK 1929. 95min

  • 35mm

  • With live piano accompaniment by John Sweeney

A British sci-fi thriller set in 1950s London, involving a plot by evil arms dealers to blow up the Channel Tunnel and fly planes into buildings. Based on a stage-play by Noel Pemberton-Billing MP, the film features imagined variants of television used for broadcasting and televisual telephony. A very British vision of the future, it was unquestionably influenced by Fritz Lang’s Metropolis.

See Silent Cinema: Celebrating 100 Years of Laurel and Hardy with Neil Brand on Sunday 11 January.

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