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documentary films about London

stethoscope said:
Good to see this excellent doc from 1990 again - Summer on the Estate featuring Hackney's Kingshold estate.



There's also the 1996 follow up.
Click to expand...

I used to know one of the tenant reps on that Hackney one - from about 11 years ago when i worked for a Hackney contractor - excellent stuff
 
.....I presumed someone was posting this up :

London on Film

London’s stories brought to life through a century of extraordinary filmmaking
Part one: The Changing Face of London

July 2015

The start of the BFI’s first retrospective of London on the big screen – one of the world’s great cinematic cities.

https://whatson.bfi.org.uk/Online/d...&BOparam::WScontent::loadArticle::context_id=


Going back to The London Nobody Knows

Broadcaster Douglas Anderson tells us about his new homage to a cult 1967 documentary in which James Mason takes a tour of some of London’s strange, now forgotten corners.

http://www.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/news-bfi/interviews/going-back-london-nobody-knows
 
ska invita

Looks great.

I got an excellent book from the charity shop - I had seen it but ignored it as it is a bit coffee table - but it is aerial views of London from the late 1970s - so no flood barrier, no canary wharf, surrey quays, etc...
 
8115 said:
Really want to see "What have you done today Mervyn Day". Still haven't. I think it's more an art-documentary really. It shows the Lea Valley in 2005, before the Olympic park was built, and it's scored by St Etienne.

Click to expand...

Is it about the former West Ham goalie?
 
Betsy said:
This video is a cycle tour of the locations of The Lavender Hill Mob and shows bits from the film to compare to today.

The Lavender Hill Mob cycle tour - video
Click to expand...
enjoyed that BUT they did not visit Lavender Hill, so in due homage, Ive just been for a walk around Lavender's Hill, Sweep, Walk and Gardens!
The BFI have had a lot of London related stuff recently Request Rejected

I love the old London and Ealing films; views of the City before it became swamped with cars and showing bombs sites and the like. An old one we have is London Belongs to Me. A fave of mine is Wrong Arm of the Law f only because bits of it are set in Battersea Fun Fair! :thumbs:
 
BUMP!
Just gave this a watch, well worth 40 minutes
BBC iPlayer - One Pair of Eyes - Georgia Brown: Who Are the Cockneys Now?
First transmitted in 1968, singer and actress Georgia Brown revisits her old childhood home in Whitechapel, East London and notes the fading presence of the Jewish immigrant community. Brown discusses the recent change in the area's increasingly diverse population and ponders the question, "Who are the cockneys now?"
Click to expand...
This is just after the rivers of blood speech, and seemingly on the cusp where the east end was transitioning from being predominantly jewish to increasingly pakistani
As well as some great period footage the majority of the show deals with the jewish experience and social/racial tensions

Georgia Brown does a good job of hosting, and it also features Jewish eastenders Oliver musical writer Lionel Bart, hairdresser Vidal Sasoon and the Tubby Isaacs stallholder (though I think Tubby was long gone by 1968)!
 
blossie33 said:
I've watched that a few times :) I think it might be on YouTube as well, it's great!

I remember Georgia Brown, I loved her reminiscing about Lionel Bart, didn't know they were at school together.

Tubby Isaacs stall was still going until fairly recently I think.

Edit, yes 2013
So Long, Tubby Isaac’s Jellied Eel Stall | Spitalfields Life
Click to expand...
and in fact it is still going today, albeit in Clacton by the beach

I was in a production of Oliver in infants and ive got the vaguest of memories of my mum telling me that Lionel Bart lived on our estate in Stamford Hill at the time....seems unlikely as he'd probably have been a millionaire by that point (1982), but maybe he was still living in Stamford Hill nearby at least. Im going to see her over Easter and will ask and clear up that 7-year-olds memory!

Wikid Georgia Brown and she died very young, 54.
 
stethoscope said:
Good to see this excellent doc from 1990 again - Summer on the Estate featuring Hackney's Kingshold estate. There's also the 1996 follow up.

Click to expand...


Can anyone find the 96 follow up alluded to? Even the name of it would help

eta: found it, it was 95 not 96, was messing up my searches
 
Last edited:
ska invita said:
and in fact it is still going today, albeit in Clacton by the beach

I was in a production of Oliver in infants and ive got the vaguest of memories of my mum telling me that Lionel Bart lived on our estate in Stamford Hill at the time....seems unlikely as he'd probably have been a millionaire by that point (1982), but maybe he was still living in Stamford Hill nearby at least. Im going to see her over Easter and will ask and clear up that 7-year-olds memory!

Wikid Georgia Brown and she died very young, 54.
Click to expand...

Yes, shame she died at a fairly young age.

Do let us know about the Stamford Hill connection with Lionel Bart - I live in SH :D
 
A couple of colurised films from the 1930's, one about taking a ferry from Flushing to Harwich and then onto London, the second just about London life. The latter was made by Marion Grierson, the sister of John Grierson.





The colouristion is a little odd at times but I love the high definition and the odd continuity with the past: seeing places where I was loitering and bus routes I was travelling on just a few hours ago on an 87-year old film. If I'm in the centre, I currently come home on the 15 and the 115, in 1937 I could have taken the 15 all the way.
 
post-war bombed out footage and poetry
www.bbc.co.uk

Monitor - A Poet in London

First transmitted in 1959, John Betjeman is filmed at different London locations introducing and reciting four of his poems.
www.bbc.co.uk www.bbc.co.uk

A Poet in London

First transmitted in 1959, John Betjeman is filmed
at different London locations introducing and reciting four of his poems.
The film was Ken Russell's first for television and was
commissioned by Huw Wheldon, the head of the BBC's Monitor arts programme. Betjeman is shown visiting locations including Vauxhall Park, Aldersgate Street station (now the Barbican), Camden Town and Hatfield. He recites his poems 'Monody on the Death of Aldersgate Street Station', 'Business Girls', 'The Olympic Girl' and 'Hertfordshire
12mins
=======================
includes a mad sexual desire poem where John wishes he was a womens tennis racket :D
 
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