Prison Bird Sanctuary (1967)

Portland, Dorset. Various shots show a young girl walking along a cliff side path to the Verne Prison; she hands a box containing a sea bird covered with oil to the warder at the door; he hands it to a prisoner through another door. The prisoners seen in this story wear black eye masks as “For our film, the prisoners must be anonymous“. The man takes the box to a building across the courtyard; C/U of a sign on the door reads ’The Verne Bird Sanctuary / Sponsored by the RSPCA’. At a table inside, another man takes the bird from the box and cleans it’s feathers, then dries the bird. We see several pictures of birds on the wall and several bird skulls are displayed on a table. In a large bird enclosure another man checks a seagull’s injured wing and places it in a pond; he then feeds some guillemots. A rook (or crow?) is seen hopping about. Another prisoner flings a guillemot into the air so it flies away over the prison wall. The black eye masks worn by the prisoners give this film a somewhat b