News on Screen

In August 1928 British Screen Productions launched the British Screen Tatler, and its first editor was the cameraman Charles Martin. This weekly newsreel lasted until 1931, and by 1933 Martin was working as a cameraman for Pathe. His first credit is as part of the camera team that filmed ‘THE GRAND NATIONAL, 1933’ exclusively for Pathe in Super Sound Gazette No.33/25 of March 1933. Martin became one of the company’s senior cameramen, and filmed in Westminster Abbey for Pathe’s coverage of the Coronation of George VI in Super Sound Gazette No.37/39 of May 1937. He also filmed for the Pathe Pictorial, supplying ‘LION CUBS’ for No.85 in November 1937. After the outbreak of war in September 1939 Martin became a war correspondent for the Pathe Gazette, and was interviewed and shown waving goodbye to Pathe’s Freddy Watts [qv] in ‘BRITISH WAR CORRESPONDENTS LEAVE FOR THE FRONT’ in Pathe Gazette No.39/80 of October 1939. Martin filmed with the BEF in France for eight months, using a Newman and Sinclair camera. In February 1940 he provided rota film which became ‘PIONEER CORPS IN FRANCE’ in Gaumont British News No.642.

In May 1940 Martin filmed the evacuation of the British Army from Dunkirk, again using his Newman and Sinclair camera and Kodak Super XX stock. The paddle-steamer that Martin was on got dive-bombed by a German plane, and Martin recalled that ‘I was on the bridge at the time and was fortunate enough to get a shot of the German aircraft approaching with our anti-aircraft shells bursting all around it.' Martin was the only cameraman to cover the evacuation at close quarters, and recalled that ‘my stuff was used by all the newsreel companies.' He was later posted to Cairo, where by 1943 he was working with Gerrie Taylor [qv] on the Ministry of Information’s War Pictorial News. Martin did editorial work but also acted as commentator, his first credit being for ‘CANADA’ in War Pictorial News No.98 of March 1943. His last dated credit as commentator is for ‘LIBERATION OF GREECE’ in No.185 of November 1944, but in February 1945 he worked with Frank Hurley on the rota coverage of the meeting between Churchill, Roosevelt, and Middle East heads of state in Egypt. In Pathe Gazette No.45/19 of March 1945 this became ‘KINGS OF THE EAST WITH PREMIER AND PRESIDENT.'

In June 1953 Martin was in the Paramount camera team that filmed ‘THE CORONATION’ for British Paramount News No.2323, filming from the Admiralty Arch. Martin subsequently went to the United States, where he was issued with a social security number in California in 1956. He may have been the ‘Martin’ credited in the Pathe camera team that filmed ‘THE ROYAL WEDDING’ for Pathe News No.60/38 of May 1960, but he continued to live in the United States, where he died in Los Angeles in August 1984.

Sources

Bioscope, 8/8/1928, p.15, ‘Talk of the Trade’: BUFVC, British Paramount News files, NR 9352 (22/2/1940), Issue Number 1462 (dopesheet, February 1945), Number 2323 (Paramount memo, 28/5/1953): Charles Martin ‘Newsreeler at Dunkirk,' Cine-Technician, August-September 1940, pp.70-71: J. Ballantyne (ed) ‘Researcher’s Guide to British Newsreels’ (BUFVC, 1983), p.91: J. Ballantyne (ed) ‘Researcher’s Guide to British Newsreels: Vol.III’ (1993), p.27: Information from Charles Martin’s son Alan Martin, December 1999.