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The Baim Collection
owns and controls
all of the films and
other copyright works created by
Harold Baim
(1914 - 1996)
Harold
Baim. Director, writer and prolific producer of 35mm short features
for UK cinema release, sometimes called ‘quota-quickies’, his early films
featured variety acts. His later films were mainly colourful
widescreen travelogues filmed in Great Britain, Ireland, Europe, the Middle
East and Asia, often with commentaries by celebrated actors and broadcasters
including Telly Savalas, Nicholas Parsons and Terry Wogan.
Over one hundred
and twenty short colour films and two feature films survive. Most of the films
are in colour and around one hundred have been digitised, many scanned to HD
and some to 4k. On line screeners are available via Vimeo to researchers and
programme makers. New transfers can be made available from the 35mm
negatives which are held by The Baim Collection. The majority of images have
yet to be broadcast.
The Baim Collection offers researchers and programme makers a colourful window
on the post-war period, especially the fifties and sixties. The Collection
holds unique images of Britain and a broad selection of international locations
providing producers, historians and documentary makers with affordable
illustrative colour material.
The lists on these pages are primarily for use by producers, researchers and
programme makers wishing to licence clips or extracts for inclusion in new
films, television programmes and web pages.
For licence information and other requests for information please email
(C) 2011 BBC All Rights Reserved.
BBC Television Entertainment Department produced "Harold Baim's Britain on Film" featuring about 30 minutes of clips from twenty-three of the British films. The programme is part of the "On Film" series and it was first broadcast on BBC Four on 27 July 2011, repeated 29 May 2012. The BBC press release said the documentary:
"...recalls the strange Britain of this remarkable film-maker. Working from the Forties to the Eighties, Baim only filmed on sunny days and used the voices of baffled actors, Telly Savalas among them. Despite their weirdness, Baim's films record a Britain that's gone for ever."
(C) 2011 BBC All Rights Reserved.
BBC Television Entertainment Department produced "Harold Baim's Britain on Film" featuring about 30 minutes of clips from twenty-three of the British films. The programme is part of the "On Film" series and it was first broadcast on BBC Four on 27 July 2011, repeated 29 May 2012. The BBC press release said the documentary:
"...recalls the strange Britain of this remarkable film-maker. Working from the Forties to the Eighties, Baim only filmed on sunny days and used the voices of baffled actors, Telly Savalas among them. Despite their weirdness, Baim's films record a Britain that's gone for ever."
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In his late teens Harold Baim found work at Renown Pictures. Within a decade he had set up his own company, the Federated Film Corporation. After the war, he continued with great success and was an early adopter of widescreen and colour. Harold realised that his short films were going to be shown alongside some of the most expensive films being released, so he made his films bright and fact-filled, mainly in colour and narrated by famous actors and broadcasters. Here is part of his legacy; a collection of films from the middle of the last century earning Harold the title ‘an accidental historian’.
Richard Jeffs, the Curator of THE BAIM COLLECTION.
(C) 2024 Sky Television. All Rights Reserved.
Footage from The BAIM Collection has been included in each episode of Sky TV's brand new drama series, Funny Woman, season 2. Here, from the opening sequence of episode 1, you see establishing shots of 1960s Blackpool and London from 1960s supplied from the BAIM Collection archive.
Full Series now available to watch on SKY MAX.
tel: +44 (0) 207 486 1450
tel: +44 (0) 121 455 8840
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(0) 783 651 2719
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