The Child Killers: Film Analysis

The film showing in Epworth and Owston Ferry in July was ‘The Child Killers’ depicting a true episode of the invasion of France. The support film was a Keystone Cops comic! As noted earlier the obsession with fifth columnists in England meant that spy pictures were very popular. One such was ‘The Spy,' a two-reel drama furthering the belief that German spies were everywhere. Another was ‘The Deadly Model,’ a drama about the German Spy System in London, but by far the most chilling drama shown during these summer months was ‘The Mad Dog of War.’
In another appeal to the masses, Dean Fry of Lincoln Cathedral preached on the need for local prudence. He begged for ‘strict economy’ as one of ‘the most effective ways of helping our men at the front.' He advised everyone to ‘set their faces against waste of any kind.' A man of wide interests, Fry was a radical in politics and a liberal high-churchman. In sermons, in addresses at meetings and church congresses, he spoke on such questions as the drink problem, purity, the sanctity of marriage, the housing question, and economic and industrial problems, with impassioned conviction, wholehearted fearlessness, and at times with bitter sarcasm. His messages to ‘give up alcohol and eat less for the time of the war, if not all time’ and, ‘to be content to go about every day in our shabbiest things’ were not
‘We are in fair-sized “dug-outs” about 5ft. deep, 8ft. wide and 20ft. long,’ the author wrote. ‘There are five of us in these “dug-outs” on the edge of a wood all connected by deep communication trenches. The “dug-outs” are roofed over with pine logs and about 18in. of earth. We have tables and chairs and straw inside, so we are fairly comfortable. We cannot go outside much as shrapnel keeps bursting over us and bullets that have gone high over the trenches in front keep on hitting the trees all around, which are all pitted and cut with bits of