An Inspector Calls (lost television adaptation of play; 1948)

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Introduction

The article with the surviving image of the film.

An Inspector Calls is a drama play written by British playwright and dramatist J.B Preistly in 1945. The play is a compact story of the upper class Birling family in the fictional town of Brumley, 1912. The family celebrates the engagement of daughter Sheila to Gerald Croft, a family friend and son of father Arthur Birling's business rival. The evening is disrupted by the arrival of "Inspector Goole", a strange, ironically ghoulish figure who begins to interview the family individually on the grounds that they may be somehow related to the death of a young girl by the name of Eva Smith, who has multiple alter egos. The film interestingly expands on the ideas of Socialism versus Capitalism, leaning in favour of Socialism in according with Priestly's views.

Adaptations

The film has had multiple adaptations over the years (See the 1954 film adaptation or the 2015 adaptation.) yet the first one in which this article is in reference to, the BBC's 1948 televised production, is completely overlooked, remaining missing to this day. Not anything publicly available remains of this production, nothing more than a single publicity image in a news article and a television listing (Radio Times issue 1281)can be found although what information is there, is quite plentiful in information. This performance would have starred George Hayes as the titular Inspector Goole, Alastair Bannerman as George Croft, Julian Mitchell and Mary Merrall as Mr Arthur Birling and Mrs Sybil Birling respectively and Joy Shelton and Derek Blomfield as Sheila and Eric Birling (Sourced from this article of the Radio Times), and the play would have aired on May 4th at 8:30 at night, but not much else is known.

Availability

It's unlikely that this film will ever be salvaged considering BBC's reputation for handling and preservation of film, and it was most likely a live broadcast so there may not have been anything to preserve in the first place. As previously mentioned, all that is available (That I currently know of) is a single image, an article detailing the play (Not mentioning anything about the specific Televised performance but the story itself)and a cast listing with show times, but I hope that for the sake of the Lost Media Wiki, this can join one of the many pieces of film preserved.


Context

The play is quite popular in British society as it is a piece of literature which has been studied for quite a few years in schools as it is a part of the English Literature General Certificate as a prescribed text, yet it also is famous because of it's deep-resonating message which strikes with people outside of schooling. If you know anything about history, you should probably be aware of the harsh, classist and Capitalistic society that dwelled in the year 1912, yet the message of how that type of society causes suffering was still relevant in 1945 when the play was written and subsequently still relevant now today, this media deserves to be preserved as it was the very first in a long line of depth-expanding adaptations of an important story.


Gallery

Sources

Radio Times Issue 1281, Page 26, courtesy of BBC archive.

The film's IMDB page.