Seven Streets, Two Markets And A Wedding: Glimpses Of Lost London 1930-1980, film review

(U) Various directors, 65 mins

Geoffrey Macnab
Thursday 22 May 2014 23:12 BST
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A shot from 'Seven Streets, Two Markets And A Wedding: Glimpses of Lost London', which is a compilation of archive films shot in the city between 1930 and 1980
A shot from 'Seven Streets, Two Markets And A Wedding: Glimpses of Lost London', which is a compilation of archive films shot in the city between 1930 and 1980

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This compilation of archive films shot in London between 1930 and 1980, and put together through Film London's "Made in London" programme, is evocative and strangely moving.

Each film starts with a brief shot set in the present time and then plunges us back into the past. The material is very mixed.

A road-safety film from 1949 that warns against stepping in front of buses plays like a Harry Enfield sketch.

There is very intimate footage from a wartime wedding, some beautifully shot colour film of Marylebone on a winter's day in the early 1950s and a promotional short about "green islands", places of rest and recreation in the heart of the city.

Even if we can't quite work out why such disparate films have been gathered together or what audience they are aimed at, this compilation really does enable us to peer back into a lost world.

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