Remarkable colour footage of London in the 1920s....

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

London in the late 1920s in colour

[Serial_Apologist]

London in the late 1920s in colour

Surprising to see so many of those little open-top buses from pre WWI still on the streets in 1927; I guess the big double-deckers didn't arrive until the 1030s. On the other hand, the trams we see there were still around when I were a lad.

High time I made a visit to the London Transport Museum.

[Nick Armstrong]

Remarkable colour footage of London in the 1920s....

The Claude Friese-Greene film from which the above stills were taken.

http://vimeo.com/7638752

Tinted, rather than true colour, but nonetheless haunting stuff...

[mercia]

there seems to be a slightly longer version of this on youtube, but with no added music
I suppose that is Mr Friese-Greene himself at the end

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwahIQz0o-M

[Mr Pee]

I watched that video clip via Facebook a few days ago, and it's fascinating. What struck me was actually how much of London still looks familiar, the surprising amount of traffic on the roads, and that cricket was just as terminally dull in 1927 as it is in 2013......

[Nick Armstrong]

there seems to be a slightly longer version of this on youtube, but with no added music
I suppose that is Mr Friese-Greene himself at the end
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwahIQz0o-M

thanks for that, youtube is better to use too, plus there are the interesting suggestions for similar links....

The colorised film makes the sense of immediacy all the greater - the shot of the southern end of London Bridge is especially so, as that very modern-looking office building on the right is still there, I think, as are the shots of Hyde Park - spooky to see the cabs entering the park through the very narrow gate (now closed to traffic) from through which I shall cycle in the other direction shortly... The close-ups of people at Marble Arch and the Lancaster Gate fountains (very much my 'manor') are also haunting...

[David-G]

Tinted, rather than true colour, but nonetheless haunting stuff...

It does seem in fact to have been a true colour process, showing alternate black-and-white frames through red and green filters. The same alternating filters would presumably have been used during filming.

[Nick Armstrong]

It does seem in fact to have been a true colour process, showing alternate black-and-white frames through red and green filters. The same alternating filters would presumably have been used during filming.

Seems to be sort of half-and-half - wiki tells us

"Claude, born Claude Harrison Greene was the son of William Friese-Greene, a pioneer in early cinematography. William began the development of an additive colour film process called Biocolour. This process produced the illusion of true colour by exposing each alternate frame of ordinary black-and-white film stock through a two different coloured filters. Each alternate frame of the monochrome print was then stained red or green. Although the projection of Biocolour prints did provide a tolerable illusion of true colour, it suffered from noticeable flickering and red-and-green fringing when the subject was in rapid motion. In an attempt to overcome the colour fringing problem, a faster-than-usual frame rate was used."

[mercia]

I wonder how quickly motor vehicles took over from horsedrawn vehicles, and did the men who drove the horsedrawn buses and cabs become the motorbus and motorcab drivers [if they were still of working age at the time of the changeover].

[Flay]

I wonder how quickly motor vehicles took over from horsedrawn vehicles, and did the men who drove the horsedrawn buses and cabs become the motorbus and motorcab drivers [if they were still of working age at the time of the changeover].

I wonder how quickly we could reverse the process when the oil starts to run out....

[Serial_Apologist]

there seems to be a slightly longer version of this on youtube, but with no added music
I suppose that is Mr Friese-Greene himself at the end
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwahIQz0o-M

Thanks ever so much for posting this link, mercia.

The two most immediate changes occurring to me in the footage are, firstly, how much more "in-scale" life in the metropolis (as doubtless everywhere) appears: no skyscrapers to feel dwarfed by, the size of motor vehicles; secondly, how British crowds could be expected to react today to a cine camera passing through their midst - probably waving, a lot of leering, two-fingered gestures, in contrast with the circumspection universally depicted here, of which our elders' expression, "We don't speak of such things, dear", used just about to sum it up.

I always get a lump in the throat watching footage of this kind - dunno quite why.

[Simon]

I wonder how quickly we could reverse the process when the oil starts to run out....

Ah, imagine it! The peace! If we could somehow get rid of TV as well, the world might be able to start becoming a better place at last...

[Pegleg]

Thanks ever so much for posting this link, mercia.

The two most immediate changes occurring to me in the footage are, firstly, how much more "in-scale" life in the metropolis (as doubtless everywhere) appears: no skyscrapers to feel dwarfed by, the size of motor vehicles; secondly, how British crowds could be expected to react today to a cine camera passing through their midst - probably waving, a lot of leering, two-fingered gestures, in contrast with the circumspection universally depicted here, of which our elders' expression, "We don't speak of such things, dear", used just about to sum it up.

I always get a lump in the throat watching footage of this kind - dunno quite why.

I'm playing catch-up here, and couldn't agree more. Nostalgia can hurt. It's fascinating to see the London my parents would have known as young children, but I wasn't my mother standing next to Peter Pan. Unless I'm mistaken, there used to be a facsimile of the statue in Cannizaro Park Wimbledon. My Dad took us there every Sunday morning as kids.

Love the captions - "Mutton for dinner ... Another day gone west ... monument to our glorious dead ... very corner of the Empire".

Plenty of other distractions alongside that vid. I liked this one, London 10 quirky places:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPNJV-SK--k

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

trolley buses

[Pegleg]

trolley buses

Don't get me started. Trolley bus from Tooting to West Croydon, ah I remember it well.