News on Screen

Val Engholm was born in London, and joined the Royal Navy in 1896 at the age of about thirteen. He later entered the film industry and was possibly one of the original Topical Budget cameramen in 1911 - the year in which he filmed the Balkan War with accreditation from the Turkish and Serbian armies. In July 1914 Engholm was apparently working as a newsreel cameraman on the Topical Budget, and was sent to film the German invasion of Belgium. He obtained accreditation from the Belgian Army, and claimed to have filmed the German occupation of Louvain and Brussels in August 1914, the burning of Termonde in September 1914, and the fall of Antwerp, Ghent, and Ostend in October 1914. His footage appeared both in the Topical Budget and in a series of special war topicals, featuring the better material and including such titles as ‘The German Army Entering Brussels’ (No.6: Sept. 1914), ‘The Battle Around Dixmunde, Nieuport And The Yser Canal’ (No.15: Nov. 1914) and ‘With A Skirmishing Party In Flanders’ (No.20: Feb. 1915). Engholm claimed to have remained with the Belgian Army until February 1915, but he seems afterwards to have rejoined the Royal Navy, for whom he apparently shot the anti-submarine training film ‘From a Look-Out’s Point of View’ (c.1916).

When the Naval Intelligence Division decided to appoint an official newsfilm cameraman early in 1917 they were thus delighted to find that ‘the pick of the bunch’ was already under Admiralty command. Engholm was commissioned as a Sub-Lieutenant, and from February 1917 onwards he made a series of official films including ‘The Story of HMS Vindictive at Ostend’ (1917), ‘The Story of the Drifters’ (1917), ‘Our Naval Air Power’ (1918), ‘The Way of a Ship on the Sea’ (1918), ‘The Triumph of Britain’s Sea Power’ (1918), and - with Raymond [qv] - ‘Rule Britannia’ (1918). Engholm also supplied the naval footage for the War Office Official Topical Budget - his credits beginning with items of ‘Admiralty Official Film’ which ran from No.320-2 of October 1917 to No.323-2 of November 1917. He was married in September 1918, but in October 1918 was back in Belgium filming ‘OSTEND LIBERATED’ for Pictorial News (Official) No.374-2, and in November 1918 he filmed the surrender of the German High Seas Fleet. After the Armistice Engholm returned to newsfilming, and in May 1919 he filmed Hawker and Grieve’s failed attempt at a Trans-Atlantic flight, possibly for Topical Budget No.405-1. By 1924 Engholm was ‘Kinematographer to the London and North-Eastern Railway,' and in 1926 he directed a series of eight crime films entitled ‘Everyday Frauds,' for Unique Productions, with titles such as ‘Street Corner Frauds’ and ‘Dud Cheque Chicanery.'

Sources

Film Censor, 2/9/1914, p.6; 7/10/1914, p.2: Kinematograph Weekly, 5/9/1918, p.77, ‘Personalities’: D. Brownrigg ‘Indiscretions of the Naval Censor’ (1920), p.204: Kine Year Book 1925, p.252, ‘Frederick Engholm’: IWM, MoI (Film) Papers, F. W. Engholm to E. F. Cooper, 30/1/1925: PRO, ADM 116/2679, F.W. Engholm to Admiralty, 16/5/1928: Imperial War Museum, MoI (Film) Papers, ‘First World War Cameramen’ file, ‘List of Official Photographers’ (n.d.): Cine Technician, April-May 1940, p.25: F. W. Engholm ‘The Story of HMS Victory’ (1944): NFTVA, Luke McKernan’s biographical index of Topical Budget staff.