Gold Coast Film Review was a one-reel cinemagazine designed, according to the Colonial Office, ‘to record progress and news in the country both for theatrical and non-theatrical distribution’ (‘Colonial Office List’, 1951, 159). Produced by the recently formed Gold Coast Film Unit, No. 2was the second of three cinemagazines produced by the Unit during 1949. The Colonial Office’s Annual report for Togoland in 1950 reported that both Gold Coast Review No. 1 and No.2 had been shown in the area during the year by the Public Relations Department (Togoland Report, 1950, 262).

This issue opens with a report on the telecommunications system at the General Post Office in Accra. Historians Francis K. A. Allotey and Felix K. Akorli have charted the development of the telecommunications system in the Gold Coast, from the installation of the first line – a ten-mile link installed in 1881 between the castle of the Governor in Cape Coast and Elmina – to the establishment of the first manual exchange in 1892 and the construction of the ‘backbone of the main trunk telephone routes’ during the 1910s. They recognise this development as an initiative by the colonial administration ‘mainly to facilitate the economic, social and political administration of the colony’, but growth stalled ‘due to the depressed global economy’ during the 1940s (Allotey and Akorli, 1999, 179). Although there were just over 6000 telephones connected to the telephone system by 1949, the Colonial Office’s report for the year explained that ‘the full demands of the public could not be met because of the continuing shortages of most types of telephone materials’. Training programmes were initiated however and 65 linemen and cable jointers were trained on three short courses at the Telecommunications Engineering School during 1949 (Annual Report on the Gold Coast, 1949, 52, 53). Further developments would follow over the next few years, with the installation of the first automated telephone exchange in Accra in 1953, which replaced the manual one erected over 60 years earlier.

The second item follows the Colonial Secretary Robert Scott’s visit to a mass education centre at Ho. Colonial Office reports explained that a social development team visited Togoland early in 1949 ‘with the object of offering instruction to educated young people in the technique and organisation of mass literacy campaigns, the improvement of choirs and bands, physical training games, hygiene and first aid, discussion groups and the presentation of plays’ (Annual Report on Gold Coast, 1949, 7). The development programmes within the Gold Coast were often seen as ‘potentially challenging by the colonial regime’ and credited with politicising and raising the critical consciousness of the public (Mayo, 2000, 92). A further fear, expressed by Robert Scott, was that the development programmes could cause massive social upheaval and unrest as had happened in Britain during the Industrial Revolution. Historian Jeff Grischow argued that the colonial administration had thus avoided development programmes in the Northern Territories, preferring a continuation of rule by chiefs, in the hope that this would ‘preclude the development of civil society and radical nationalists on southern lines’ (Africa, Summer 2008). However, by 1949 the colonial administration recognised the failure of the chiefs to bring about social and economic change, and now sought, in the words of the Colonial Office, to interest ‘the educated elite in social service and to emphasise a sense of obligation to the community’ (Annual Report for Togoland, 1949, v). This emphasis on loyalty and on training community leaders – the demonstration team in Togoland included a schoolmaster, a policeman, a medical assistant, and welfare officers – had a political function as well, as administrators hoped that incorporating an educated elite within a British doctrine of colonial development, would restrict the development of nationalist organisations within these areas (Grischow, 2006, 190).

These development programmes were expanded during 1949. The Colonial Office report explained that ‘a joint French and British mass education team ran courses at Palime and Blitta in French Togoland and at Ve Koloenu and Ho in British Togoland’. The report further emphasised that ‘an important feature of the scheme has been the combination of French and British in a joint team’ and the film notes that ‘the government of French Togoland was represented’ at Ho (Annual Report on Gold Coast, 1949, 35).

The final item shows work at Accra Airport and at the headquarters of the British West African Meteorological services in Accra.