Stunning colour film of 1920s London

[TidiousTed]

In their own words: “This wonderful film was made in 1927 by Claude Friese-Greene. Colour film from the 1920s is exceptionally rare, and this is a very powerful example.

It shows scenes of London Bridge, the Thames, the Tower of London, Greenwich Observatory, the London docks, Whitehall, the Cenotaph, Trafalgar Square, Hyde Park, Marble Arch, Petticoat Lane, the Oval, the Changing of the Guard, Rotten Row, and the Houses of Parliament.

The Cenotaph sequence from around 3:37 to 3:54 is very poignant. This was filmed only nine years after the end of the Great War. The women and looking at the wreaths would very likely be wives and mothers of the men killed, and the Second World War was, at that time, inconceivable.

Claude Friese-Greene was the son of pioneering cinematographer William Friese-Greene, and devoted himself to developing commercially his father’s colour process – Biocolour – but without great success. It was soon overtaken by Technicolor and Claude abandoned the process. His role as a pioneer of colour film has now been recognised.

[TidiousTed]

Friday 9th December 2005, the last Routemaster bus journey was made through London. It was a 159 to Streatham. This ended nearly 50 years of transportation history in London. 5 years late most Londoners and frequent visitors still miss it deeply. I’m one of them.

When I was about 8 or 9 there was a British week in Oslo and as part of that arrangement a Routhmaster had been brought to town. As my parents were both at work an aunt took me for a ride on it and I got lucky and got a seat in the front at the top. I fell in love that day, not in my aunt, but in the Routemaster -Ted

[Dan'l]

What an incredible piece of history, thanks for sharing. I like the humorous tags in-between the different scenes. To see this in color is almost unreal.

[scottyrocks]

Color photos from pre-WWII are so rare, or rather, not the norm, that seeing one, or some, is almost startling. They almost look as if they had just been taken. It's like how could that picture be almost one hundred years ago. The world was balck and white, wasn't it?