The celebration included a screening of David Lean's film This Happy Breed, which was shown on the large BAFTA screen, in their own cinema. In the programme was my text about a particularly moving scene from this film, which I'd explored from an audiovisual perspective, in my second book Cinema and the Audiovisual Imagination.
Mr A.A. Reeves of the David Lean Foundation told the audience the story of how BAFTA began, and the key role of David Lean's financial support in its creation, thanks to his extraordinary films, in particular the great success of Lawrence of Arabia.
it was wonderful to experience This Happy Breed on a big screen. For David Lean it was really his first film, after his collaboration with Noel Coward on In Which We Serve. This Happy Breed was based on a play by Noel Coward. Anthony Havelock Allan produced both films, and according to the other producer and director Ronald Neame, Havelock Allan heard his mother telling someone that her son had produced a film called In This We Breed.