Release
The completed film spanned five reels and lasted 62 minutes and 50 seconds. Its first screening took place to an invited audience at the Scala Theatre on 10 August 1916, while the battle still raged. On 21 August the film began showing simultaneously in 34 London cinemas, opening in provincial cities the following week. The Royal Family received a private screening at Windsor Castle in September. The film was eventually shown in 18 countries.
Read more about this topic: The Battle Of The Somme (film)
Famous quotes containing the word release:
“As nature requires whirlwinds and cyclones to release its excessive force in a violent revolt against its own existence, so the spirit requires a demonic human being from time to time whose excessive strength rebels against the community of thought and the monotony of morality ... only by looking at those beyond its limits does humanity come to know its own utmost limits.”
—Stefan Zweig (18811942)
“We read poetry because the poets, like ourselves, have been haunted by the inescapable tyranny of time and death; have suffered the pain of loss, and the more wearing, continuous pain of frustration and failure; and have had moods of unlooked-for release and peace. They have known and watched in themselves and others.”
—Elizabeth Drew (1887–1965)
“The steel decks rock with the lightning shock, and shake with the
great recoil,
And the sea grows red with the blood of the dead and reaches for his spoil—
But not till the foe has gone below or turns his prow and runs,
Shall the voice of peace bring sweet release to the men behind the
guns!”
—John Jerome Rooney (1866–1934)