A new man joins the civilian firefighters at a London unit during the Second World War. He meets his fellow firemen and firewomen, manages to enjoy some leisure time with them, and then goes on his first mission with the crew as it attempts to save an explosives warehouse on Trinidad Street near the London docks.

So this is a drama showing civilians helping the British war effort by being fire fighters. That is cool. I guess I would have preferred it was a documentary, or at least had stock footage, but I cannot ask for what was not done.

Overall, it is a decent little story. Not particularly memorable, but maybe worth a peek if you are interested in the career and work of Humphrey Jennings.

I was confused a little as to whether to call the film Fires Were Started or I Was a Fireman, I just knew the title better listed in the book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, and either way I had an idea what it may entail, and finding out it was a British made film I was interested to see how it would turn out. Basically the film consists of real firefighters playing fictional London based firefighter characters, and the story within the documentary is about a new man joining the civilian team, during the time of World War II. He gets to know the men and women of the fire brigade well, and he gets to enjoy leisure time with them, but the real test comes when he goes out on his first assignment with them. The mission sees the team tackling a burning building near the London docks, an explosives warehouse on Trinidad Street packed, so there is the danger of the out of control flames, the risk of dynamite blowing up, and raids from above. Starring Philip Dickson as Walters, George Gravett as Dykes, Fred Griffiths as Johnny Daniels, Johnny Houghton as S.H. Jackson and Loris Rey as J. Rumbold. Director Humphrey Jennings, acclaimed for his real-life films, retained his imagination whilst still trying to portray the reality of the firefighting world, that is why he has real firefighters playing parts, and the burning buildings seen on screen are ones that were already bombed in the London raids, it works more almost as a propaganda for British force, all in all it is an interesting Second World War documentary drama. Very good!

I'd been trying to track this movie down for a while so I had high expectations of it, and on some counts it disappointed and on others it actually excelled. I was expecting a propaganda film with a plummy BBC voice-over intoning: 'Here we see the lads of Heavy Unit one, sector c 14, enjoying a pint of bitter and a sing song before their shift.' Instead, I was presented with a proper film with characters and a plot and everything! This struck me as particularly extraordinary having seen the first film on the DVD which was a motley collection of clips of Britain at work for the War Effort, inter-spliced with a lunchtime concert (blitz spirit etc.) featuring Myra Hess wearing what looked like a lab-coat playing piano rather animatedly.

To make a film with such high production values in wartime, with everything seriously rationed is quite extraordinary. Okay, it portrays the firemen as heroes, but it presents them in a light that is far from uplifting. They are men who work tirelessly and they take great risks, and then they go and do it all over again the next night – none of this wandering off into the sunset with a girl on your arm. By 1943, when the film was made, the blitz was pretty much over, but the horror and uncertainty of the V1s and V2s was yet to come and although the tide seemed to have turned, there was no end in sight at this point. Jennings' stroke of genius was to create a film that identified with its audience and was honest with them, while actually having the humour to keep morale up.

The use of actual firemen for the characters has its pros and cons – some of them are decent actors, others are very poor, but I should imagine that in 1943 people in possession of an equity card were rather few and far between. There is obviously some stock footage used in the long shots of the burning warehouses, giving a broader picture of what the crew of one pump were up against, which is no bad thing. The stock footage is actually pretty important as it gives a reality that would otherwise be lacking (see also Malta Story).

All in all this is a triumph of realistic, humanist film-making from the darkest days of our darkest hours.