XIVth Olympiad: The Glory of Sport (1948) aka The Glory of Sport and The Olympic Games of 1948 was, as the credits revealed, a documentary “produced in cooperation with the organizing committee of the XIVth Olympiad.” The 1948 Olympics, with the Winter Games in San Moritz, Switzerland and the Summer Games held in London, England, were the first Olympics since World War II. It was important to Great Britain to produce quality as they were both in the middle of austerity measures and in the beginning of what would prove to be the Cold War. Recent foes Germany and Japan were not invited to the games and future foe Russia refused to send teams.
In order to preserve the games for posterity, the J. Arthur Rank Company hired famed newsreel producer Castleton Knight, who had also produced the films for the Victory Parade and the Royal Wedding, to direct. Creating the first filmed record of an entire Olympic Games, and the first in color, would be a heroic effort. The film was completed with a reported budget of £250,000, required 16 cameramen, was produced in 16 different languages for the foreign market, and was hampered with the lack of Technicolor cameras. Even though the film credits Technicolor, it was actually shot in three different formats, including the two-color Technichrome for the opening shots of the early Greeks, the Winter Games in San Moritz were shot in Monopak, and the London Games in actual three-strip Technicolor, which accounts for the variance in color throughout the film.
Even the Olympic Torch itself proved to be quite a problem for the filmmakers. Using the standard torch with wax produced a flame that was nearly invisible to the color camera. In order to make the torches stand out as they were passed in relay from Greece to Wembley Stadium in London necessitated some creativity and a little smoke. Viewers will note that the torch resembles a giant 4th of July sparkler rather than a regular torch. This is because in order to make it more visible to the camera, the filmmakers used magnesium powder from a Royal Air Force flare. It worked, but it also grew so hot that it melted the regular aluminum torches. When the torch arrived at Wembley Stadium, carried by John Mark in his long lap around the field, it was contained in a much heavier and sturdier steel frame. This interference with the Games would normally have resulted in some problems, but Rank was a powerful producer in Great Britain and had secured a monopoly from the Olympic Committee for the film rights to the Games.
With the more than two-hour running time, it is astounding that Knight and his team, which included narration writer Joseph Lerner, famed sportscasters Ted Husing and Bill Stern as narrators, and noted conductor Muir Mathieson leading the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra had only 26 days to complete the film after the games ended.
Their hard work paid off when the film premiered in England on September 3, 1948 and went into general release on the 20th. In the United States, under the distribution of Eagle-Lion Films, it debuted in New York on September 24th, where it was well-received. The New York Times reported that “Newspaper critics gave the J. Arthur Rank Organization's Technicolor production, The XIV Olympiad -- The Glory of Sport, an ovation after its first showing here today.”
Given the political climate during which the games were conducted, the lasting power of the film can perhaps be best summed up by four-time gold medalist Fanny Blankers-Koen, who later said, “The Olympics are the greatest uniting competition in the world. Every four years people come together from all over the world to compete against each other, meet one another and share their experiences. They don’t speak each other’s languages, but, for a few weeks, they can live together peacefully. How different, for instance, my life might have been if others had learned that lesson earlier.”
