High Treason (BFI) British sci-fi

This early British sci-fi explores the possibilities of futuristic television technology.

• Director Maurice Elvey
• With Jameson Thomas, Benita Hume
• UK 1929. 95min
• 35mm
• With live piano accompaniment by John Sweeney

A British sci-fi thriller set in 1950s London, involving a plot by evil arms dealers to blow up the Channel Tunnel and fly planes into buildings. Based on a stage-play by Noel Pemberton-Billing MP, the film features imagined variants of television used for broadcasting and televisual telephony. A very British vision of the future, it was unquestionably influenced by Fritz Lang’s Metropolis.

Buy cinema tickets for High Treason | BFI Southbank