Humphrey Jennings (August 19 1907 Walberswick, Suffolk - September 24 1950 Greece) was a British film-maker and one of the founders of the Mass Observation organisation.

After graduating with a starred First in English from Pembroke College, Cambridge, Jennings did a number of jobs before finding his niche in John Grierson's GPO Film Unit .

In 1936 Jennings helped with the organisation of the 1936 Surrealist Exhibition in London . It was at about this time that Jennings became involved in the start-up stages of Mass Observation, and was to make the film May the Twelfth as a montage of the 1937 coronation for Mass Observation.

With the outbreak of World War II, Jennings transferred to the Crown Film Unit , a movie-making propaganda arm of the Ministry of Information.

Jennings made only one feature length film, Fires Were Started (1943), also known as I Was A Fireman , a wartime propaganda movie detailing the work of the Auxiliary Fire Service , which blurred the lines between fiction and documentary. This film, which uses techniques such as montage is considered one of the classics of the genre.

tbc Sjc 10:33, 30 Jun 2004 (UTC)