News on Screen

Monty Redknapp was recalled as one of the early British newsreel cameramen, who served during the First World War. By 1922 he was being employed as a freelance cameraman by the Daily Sketch Topical Budget, usually as part of the team covering major public events or sporting fixtures. His first recorded assignment was filming ‘GLOOMY WEATHER BUT BRILLIANT WELCOME,' the Prince of Wales in London for the Daily Sketch Topical Budget No.582-2 of October 1922, and his last was filming the wedding of the Duke of York for No.609-2 of April 1923. Redknapp then did work for Pathe, where he is credited in the camera team that filmed ‘THE GRAND NATIONAL’ for Pathe Gazette No.1384 of March 1927. He was the cameraman on the Forbes-Leith expedition to China in 1925, which Pathe issued as a feature-length documentary, ‘The Lure of the East’. He is credited for a number of Pathe stories over the next few years, including ‘THE CUP FINAL 1929’ in Pathe Gazette No.1602 of April 1929, and ‘THE GRAND NATIONAL, 1930’ in Pathe Super Gazette No.1698 of March 1930. Redknapp was also in the camera teams that filmed ‘THE ROYAL WEDDING’ in No.35/89 from November 1935, and ‘THE FUNERAL OF HIS MAJESTY KING GEORGE V’ for No.36/9 of January 1936.

Redknapp afterwards worked in the editorial department, and in May 1937 was the editor of Pathe’s Coronation coverage. His last newsreel cameraman’s credit is for ‘FOOTBALL SEASON OPENS’ in Pathe Super Sound Gazette No.37/69 of August 1937, but Redknapp was still recorded as working for the company in 1938, as a cameraman for the Pathetone studio. There are also editing notes for him on Pathe Pictorial issue sheets from 1939 and 1941. Redknapp is credited as filming the ‘JUAN AND MARVA’ item for Pathe Pictorial No.375 in June 1943, and he was still working for Pathe in 1946, when he filmed a demonstration of a rocket-propelled ejector seat for them, both at normal speed and in slow motion. Redknapp ended his career filming interludes for the BBC.

Sources

World Film News, July 1936, p.42, ‘Pioneer Recalls Struggles of Early Newsreel’: Kine Year Book 1939, p.373: Cine Technician, April-May 1940, p.25; NFTVA, Luke McKernan’s biographical index of Topical Budget staff.