How To be Eccentric: the films of Richard Massingham

At long last re-discovered, Richard Massingham, was a director of very inventive and witty short films and in those same films a marvellous comic performer with a strong sense of the absurd and surreal. He created a persona that anticipated the bumbling, creative eccentricity of a Mr. Bean and worked within the rich vein of surreal humour that passes on to the Goons and Monthy Python. He was an inventive and adventurous director working experimentally in the marginal genres of the instructional film, trailers and adverts.

Richard Massingham

how to be Eccentric: the films of Richard Massingham

Tell me if it hurts

Uk 1933-4 - 20min.

director/ Producer/Script/Editor: Richard Massingham

Pedestrian Crossing

UK 1948 - 2 min

Director/Producer:Michael Law

Coughs And Sneezes

UK 1945 - 1 min

Director/ Producer: Richard Massingham 

30 Miles an hour

UK 1948 - 1 min

Director: Michael Law

Warning to travellers

UK1949 - 1 min

Director: John Waterhouse

They travel by air/flight of fancy

Uk 1947 - 19 min

Director/Producer: Richard Massingham

Post haste/ Post early for christmas 

UK 1943 - 1 min

Director/Producer: Richard Massingham

Elopment in France

UK 1944 - 2 min 

Director/Producer: Richard Massingham

The five inch bather

UK 1942 - 1 min

Director/Producer: Richard Massingham

Watch your meters / read any good meters lately?

UK 1947 - 1 min

Director/Editor: John Waterhouse

What a life!

Director: Micheal Law

Jet propelled germs

UK 1948 - 1 min

Director: John Krish

An Englishman's home

UK 1946 - 2 min

Director: Micheal Law

Handkerchief Drill

UK 1949 - 1 min

Director: Michael Orrom

The cure

UK 1950 - 18 min

Director: Richard Massingham, Michael Law 

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BFI National film and television archive