Archive film featuring chess

[John Upham]

I stumbled across an excellent archive of film which includes many films featuring chess :

http://www.britishpathe.com/

This one is interesting : http://www.britishpathe.com/record.php?id=10637

as is http://www.britishpathe.com/record.php?id=67676

and many more besides.

Hope this of interest!

[John Saunders]

I've seen one or two of these online before but it looks like they've given the site a bit of a makeover and added new stuff.

This was a lovely bit of chess footage...

http://www.britishpathe.com/record.php?id=79786

... dated 1910-19 but no location given. I'd guess not the UK, maybe Germany or Middle Europe. Someone with a better knowledge of chess set design, or knowledge of early 20th century dress, might be able to date and locate.

One game is filmed. First ever chess game filmed in its entirety? The snag is, it's not original. It's Anderssen-Schallopp, Berlin 1864...

1. e4 e5 2. f4 d5 3. Nf3 dxe4 4. Nxe5 Bd6 5. Bc4 Bxe5 6. fxe5 Qd4 7. Qe2 Qxe5 8. d4 Qxd4 9. Nc3 Nf6 10. Be3 Qd8 11. O-O h6 12. Bc5 Nbd7 13. Qxe4+ Nxe4 14.Bxf7# 1-0

It occurs to me that the location might be Ströbeck, the German village which is famous for its chess-playing tradition. The evidence provided by the footage, with the whole community, men, women, boys, girls, all playing chess, seems highly indicative.

[Alex Holowczak]

The snag is, it's not original. It's Anderssen-Schallopp, Berlin 1864...

1. e4 e5 2. f4 d5 3. Nf3 dxe4 4. Nxe5 Bd6 5. Bc4 Bxe5 6. fxe5 Qd4 7. Qe2 Qxe5 8. d4 Qxd4 9. Nc3 Nf6 10. Be3 Qd8 11. O-O h6 12. Bc5 Nbd7 13. Qxe4+ Nxe4 14.Bxf7# 1-0

The other snag, the person playing it castled by moving the rook first.

[John Saunders]

That's a very recent rule. Nobody much cared which piece you picked up first a few decades ago...

Pedantically, the king should be moved first. The movement of the Rook first might be considered a complete move... Since in Chess to "touch is to move", this is worth remembering, though few are pedantic enough to make an issue of the order in which once castles.

I agree with Gerald but we are living in a highly pedantic age...

There's also some footage of Hastings 1969/70, with Smyslov, Gligoric, John Littlewood, Martyn Corden, David Levy, etc. I hope nobody's going to say somebody should have been defaulted because they were smoking, or were not seated at the board at the start time.

http://www.britishpathe.com/record.php?id=73469

[Christopher Kreuzer]

That's a very recent rule. Nobody much cared which piece you picked up first a few decades ago...

Pedantically, the king should be moved first. The movement of the Rook first might be considered a complete move... Since in Chess to "touch is to move", this is worth remembering, though few are pedantic enough to make an issue of the order in which once castles.

I agree with Gerald but we are living in a highly pedantic age...

There's also some footage of Hastings 1969/70, with Smyslov, Gligoric, John Littlewood, Martyn Corden, David Levy, etc. I hope nobody's going to say somebody should have been defaulted because they were smoking, or were not seated at the board at the start time.

http://www.britishpathe.com/record.php?id=73469

I was aware of this site and its makeover as well (earlier in the year), but hadn't got round to searching on it yet for chess-related material. If there is stuff on there that relates to ECF or BCF history, then even in these straitened times I think the ECF (or the Chess Centre in Hastings at least) should look into whether they can obtain copies for their archives (the material is sold commercially, so I'm not sure how they would treat archival copy requests). I am about to go through all the hits on "chess" (only 80 or so), and see if anything interesting pops up. Ditto for a search I did a few weeks ago of the Hulton Archive (managed by Getty) for photographs of chess players from years gone by. Some interesting photos came up there (though it is difficult to link to them).

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Only 84 hits for chess, but the following looked to be the most interesting (I'm copying the summary and may add the ID numbers and years as well along with a link, later):

*"Alex Hammond's shop in Chelsea displays the craftsmanship of antique chess sets."

*"Boys dressed as chessmen take part in a play at Turners Court School in Benson, Oxfordshire."

*"Caught by the Camera - A giant chess match using real people and animals" (and other footage)

*"Caught by the Camera - a village in Germany where most of the occupants are children, and Austrian chess champion Herr Mueller, who is playing 100 opponents at once."

*"Men play chess during lunch hour at Gambit Chess Rooms in London."

*"World Chess Championship takes place at Haarlem, The Hague, Holland."

*"Chess World Championship won by Mikhail Botvinnick in Moscow."

*Dave and Dusty: "Little boy and his pet dog visit a chess tournament."

*"Chess championship in Germany."

*"6 year old Jutta Hempel is chess prodigy. Flensburg, Germany."

*"International chess competition in Hastings."

*"International chess tournament held at Baarn, Holland - competitors seen playing and dining."

*LINK - "Sir George Thomas and chess master Capablanca play game with human chess pieces." (as they say, this has good close-ups of Thomas and Capablanca)

*"MIKHAIL TAL WORLD CHESS CHAMPION"

*"Chess tournament and street scenes Moscow."

*(NEW CHESS CHAMPIONS OF RUSSIA) "Boris Spaasky and Mikhail Tahl play Russian Chess match. Tahl wins."

*"Russian Grandmaster and chess champion Mikhail Tahl being carried from the plane on his triumphant return to Riga, then explaining his game to friends."

*"Smyslov being crowned with laurels by Cajtar."

*"Shots of Russian chess player Smyslov at home and in competition."

*"Russian champion Botvinnik triumphs again in Moscow."

*"Sunday Chronicle Chess Tournament with Arturo Pomar" (and other footage)

*"Kim playing chess, cries after losing game."

*"People take part in giant chess game during Youth Festival in Vilnius. Lithuania. "

*"Chess players arrive in Holland." (lots of famous chess players in this clip)

So probably about 20 or so clips worth taking a look at, and some really are worth looking at!

[Alex Holowczak]

When do we get Carlsen singing and playing piano?: http://www.britishpathe.com/record.php?id=66711

[Christopher Kreuzer]

When do we get Carlsen singing and playing piano?: http://www.britishpathe.com/record.php?id=66711

I'm hoping this is a clip of Smyslov... (yes, it is, and a nice clip as well, with a bitter-sweet clip at the end of him playing chess with his adopted son [the son of his wife] Vladimir Selimanov - the reason this is bitter-sweet is that Selimanov tragically committed suicide, as covered in various news articles such as here).

[Roger de Coverly]

.

There's also some footage of Hastings 1969/70, with Smyslov, Gligoric, John Littlewood, Martyn Corden, David Levy, etc.

Presumably the Falaise Hall. I had to check who Corden's round 1 opponent was. The hair is a give away - Jan Timman. Other period details - Garde clocks in the Premier (of course) but BH Wood's recycled alarm clocks in the Christmas C. Oddly the clocks were set to midnight rather than 4 am. Perhaps the setting that the time control should be at 6 o'clock wasn't universal. I'd imagine all the pieces were wooden as well as that was marginally before the now ubiquitous plastic sets first appeared.

(edit) the Gardes are set to 3.30 - the time rate would have been 40 moves in two and a half hours. People still got into time trouble though.

[Richard Bates]

.

There's also some footage of Hastings 1969/70, with Smyslov, Gligoric, John Littlewood, Martyn Corden, David Levy, etc.

Presumably the Falaise Hall. I had to check who Corden's round 1 opponent was. The hair is a give away - Jan Timman. Other period details - Garde clocks in the Premier (of course) but BH Wood's recycled alarm clocks in the Christmas C. Oddly the clocks were set to midnight rather than 4 am. Perhaps the setting that the time control should be at 6 o'clock wasn't universal. I'd imagine all the pieces were wooden as well as that was marginally before the now ubiquitous plastic sets first appeared.

(edit) the Gardes are set to 3.30 - the time rate would have been 40 moves in two and a half hours. People still got into time trouble though.

Would the Premier have been held in the same place as the side events back then? Of course in modern times they've almost always been separate, I think.

[Alex Holowczak]

A stupid question about the Hastings Congress: Obviously it's always been in Hastings, but has it been at the same venue in Hastings?

[Christopher Kreuzer]

A stupid question about the Hastings Congress: Obviously it's always been in Hastings, but has it been at the same venue in Hastings?

The last time I went (1995/6) it was on the pier. I don't know if that is where the Falaise Hall is (probably not), but I do know it moved from the pier several years ago and is now (as it says on the entry form I received with my ECF 2011 diary) in the "Horntye Park Sports Complex". I do have a vague memory from 1995/6 (and I think I went the following year as well) of the Masters event (or whatever the top event was called back then) being in a different area to where the other events were held. Some hotel up a hill near the pier. There are plenty of people reading these forums who will be able to give far more details than this, so I'll leave them to do that.

PS. Some venue details up to the 1960s are here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hastings_I ... s_Congress

"The Congress was held in the Hastings Town Hall from 1921 to 1929. In 1930 it was held in the Waverly Hotel; from 1931 to 1953 at the White Rock Pavilion; from 1954 to 1965 at the Sun Lounge, St. Leonards-on-Sea; and in 1966 Falaise Hall, White Rock Gardens" [referenced to Sunnuck's The Encyclopaedia of Chess (1970)]

[Roger de Coverly]

A stupid question about the Hastings Congress: Obviously it's always been in Hastings, but has it been at the same venue in Hastings?

Basically no

For many years it was in the Falaise Hall which is off the Bohemia Road on the hill immediately above the White Rock Theatre and the Pier. So from the centre of Hastings going up Bohemia Road, you have the Falaise Hall on your left. On your right you have Cinque Ports Hotel (now a Travel Lodge) and the Horntye Park Sports Complex (current venue). Slightly further up the hill you have the YMCA sports hall (past venue).

In 1969/70 I believe all events were in the Falaise. Later the Premier was separated from the rest of the tournament and was variously in the "White Rock pavilion" (Theatre basement), the Queens Hotel (on the seafront by the town centre) and the Cinque Ports Hotel before rejoining the rest of the Congress in the Horntye. The Congress lost the use of the Falaise when the Hastings Council installed gym equipment and was variously in the Pier Ballroom and the YMCA before moving to the Horntye

One advantage of the Horntye and the Pier over the Falaise is that the air circulation is a lot better. It's less usual to return from Hastings with a cold.

[Kevin Thurlow]

I stopped going to Hastings when they announced it would be on the pier, as I had inspected said pier and noticed that any indoor parts of it were cold and let the rain in, and I didn't fancy playing chess wearing three sweaters and a raincoat.

The White Rock venue was underneath the theatre and one player reported that he went to watch the panto and one of the cast invited the audience to stamp their feet so that the players could hear them. And Jeremy Beadle did me the great honour of treading on my foot as he walked past in the bar.

Just after I left the Queens Hotel one year, there was a massive snowstorm and the players were trapped, which unfortunately coincided with a failure of the heating. Chessplayers are very resourceful so they requested an axe from the hotelier, and chopped up the enormous Christmas tree in the foyer and sat round the fireplace in the lounge. The manager did a fantastic job ferrying players through the snow to various airports when the weather cleared a bit. He was a really nice guy, who had other problems - he recruited a restaurant manager just before Christmas, who was absolutely hopeless, rude and incompetent. The hotel manager said, "He should have been all right - his last job was on the Queen Mary." A friend of mine responded, "As Chief Stoker?" As soon as the tournament finished the restaurant manager was looking for other employment.

The Falaise certainly suffered from poor air circulation, (one player collapsed after a long game there) but at least it was warm.

This all sounds rather negative, but I did go for about 20 years so can't have been too bothered!

[Richard Bates]

I stopped going to Hastings when they announced it would be on the pier, as I had inspected said pier and noticed that any indoor parts of it were cold and let the rain in, and I didn't fancy playing chess wearing three sweaters and a raincoat.

The White Rock venue was underneath the theatre and one player reported that he went to watch the panto and one of the cast invited the audience to stamp their feet so that the players could hear them. And Jeremy Beadle did me the great honour of treading on my foot as he walked past in the bar.

Just after I left the Queens Hotel one year, there was a massive snowstorm and the players were trapped, which unfortunately coincided with a failure of the heating. Chessplayers are very resourceful so they requested an axe from the hotelier, and chopped up the enormous Christmas tree in the foyer and sat round the fireplace in the lounge. The manager did a fantastic job ferrying players through the snow to various airports when the weather cleared a bit. He was a really nice guy, who had other problems - he recruited a restaurant manager just before Christmas, who was absolutely hopeless, rude and incompetent. The hotel manager said, "He should have been all right - his last job was on the Queen Mary." A friend of mine responded, "As Chief Stoker?" As soon as the tournament finished the restaurant manager was looking for other employment.

The Falaise certainly suffered from poor air circulation, (one player collapsed after a long game there) but at least it was warm.

This all sounds rather negative, but I did go for about 20 years so can't have been too bothered!

Resourceful chessplayers may be, but they'd have been hard pressed to find a solution had the tournament been held on the pier for an extra year - from memory it was closed over the new year after being deemed too dangerous!