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  • Real white Londoners

  • This is amazing footage. A rare glimpse at a world sadly long lost.

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  • Dead City O.O

  • with colours...

  • This is the single most amazing video on youtube. Its like a time machine!

  • Absolutely amazing footage!

  • I like the crowd view at 6:30 going down the market lane. Visually rich colour film of people at just the right distance to see their faces and how they were dressed. A rare look back in time.

  • In the 1903 film, every bus is drawn by horses. A quarter century later, nary a horse in sight. Still, taxicabs and private motorcars seem rarer than these days, or private coaches and hansom cabs back in 1903 for that matter.

  • I guess this was London before Blair, Brown and the New Labour cronies got their hands on it

  • "In this last of meeting places

    We grope together

    And avoid speech

    Gathered on this beach of the tumid river

    Sightless, unless

    The eyes reappear

    As the perpetual star

    Multifoliate rose"

    TSE 1925

  • yet now London is invaded by ehhh....... Germans.Not.

  • ahhh, when the London was White, cant wait to see it White again!

  • My grandma grew up in London in the twenties and kept a diary in which she sounded so happy. Also not a scrap of litter to be seen anywhere.

  • God, it was beautiful!...and then multiKULTural assholes let Arabs, Negros, Pakis, Muzzies, and other s*it in.....The MultiKULT killed London, Paris, Amsterdam, Berlin, Stockholm, Oslo, Brussels, etc....and pretty soon it will destroy all of Europe, America, Canada, whatever is left of South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, and Southern parts of South America. WAKE UP! STOP THIRD WORLD IMMIGRATION!

  • @RichieAuvergne africa for africans, asia for asians, europe for everybody. or what part of multiculturalism 101 did you miss?

    We must destroy the left and PC forever.

  • I think it's great to see all the WHITE People! You know - indigenous English. Sadly - England is destroyed, thanks to the Nation Wreckng Jew Jeck Straw, and his White Hating Tribe of Jew Vermin - deliberately flooding England with all sorts of refuse form every Third World dump on Earth. SHAME on the Jewed-up "English" Upper Classes, for betraying their country, for a few coins of Sheeny Gelte.

  • @ThusSpakeDenise Indigenous English? England is the remnants of centuries of invasion and decline.

  • @fooflyz Wrong/ Liar.

  • @fooflyz By 'indigienous English' he means people descended from Anglo-Saxons, celts, ancient Britons, vikings and normans. After the norman invasion of 1066 the country remained virtually unchanged for the next 900 years. Before world war 2 the only significant ethnic minorities in the country were jews and descendents of a few thousand Hugenots that arrived in the 16th century, both of whom were overwhelmingly concentrated in London. I'm glad I could clear it for you.

  • wow..its unbelievable that ancient camera can do zoom in and zoom out

  • Talking on a cell phone in a bike nice 3:28 lol

  • If you look just to the left of what you can see...you can just make out Bertie Wooster in several of these scenes...

  • Look at the roads! We've certainly gone backwards in the quality of road surface.

  • Has anyone noticed the man pull up his MOBILE PHONE and start chatting? Look at the frame at 3:28, what else could that be in those times, it was a nice small phone too??? Blackberry Bold Maybe!!! LOL TIME TRAVEL IS REAL!!! :-S

    What do you think?

  • @SoppyProduction Hahaha ... it does look like it.

  • @SoppyProduction The bloke on the motorbike...haha, thats brilliant, good spot!

  • At this point in time pre WW2 in 1927 London had the biggest population of any city in the world, around 9 Million. New York was getting very close behind. In the Petticoat lane shot you can see how busy it looks.

  • 5:48 might still be alive

  • Because this is a silent movie I played some 1920's music to go with it Jack Hylton - Happy Feet.

    Went with the video brilliant

  • amazing thanks for the post

  • Sea of hats, lol... thank goodness times have changed.

  • I saw a guy on the bus using a laptop, and a guy in the background on his mobile phone, this is fake!

  • My god, I didn't know they have colored film back than.

  • @skbiswas back THEN -.-

  • @Wilson888888888 actually the Thames as a working river was far more polluted and is now one of the cleanest city rivers in the world it was declared biologically dead in 1957 but since then the problem has been worked on and somewhat solved. Don't let the Biocolour Friese-Greene employed give you 'rose' (or more appropriately cyan) tinted spectacles :)

  • everything sure seemed a lot less fast-paced, quieter and smaller back then...

  • @Wilson888888888 WTF you couldn't swim in that, it was more polluted then than it is now, it was a working river FFS.

  • All those adults are dead.

  • Nobody is rushing anywhere

  • Amazing

  • It amazes me to think that practically EVERYONE in this film is dead! Each and every single person in this video, young or old.. is at least 84 years old now! It's like they are alive forever in some way!

  • @suntzu617 I was thinking the same thing, and how 84 years from now people could look at a similar film made now, and think the same thing.

  • @suntzu617 I thought I was the only one morbid enough to have had that sadistic thought.

  • @suntzu617 alive in youtube

  • Also, so many trees down by the river and the Tower of London. The Thames was a working river in London back then with all the dockers, cranes, tugboats, wharfs and warehouses. Really interesting to watch. Hyde Park remains as popular now as then, although the dress code has deteriorated a bit ;-)

  • Watched this on the same day as News International said it would close The News of the World newspaper after phone hacking scandals, only to see an advert for the same newspaper on a colour film from 1927. Apart from Petticoat Lane it looks so quiet compared to London today. Very little traffic in the area near Marble Arch and the buildings aren't all shops, they look like houses still.

  • No fat people. 

  • 9:07 "You can't film here, Section 44 blah blah blah"

  • Positively fascinating

  • sea of hats 

  • Wow, at 6:10, the little ginger kid in the foreground looks a lot like Joseph Mazello. AKA Timmy from Jurassic Park.

  • Back when people knew how to dress in public. "Dress as if someone is going to take your picture," I always say.

  • its still so similar!!

  • I think this is the closest I've ever been to that city

  • I have to wonder what the colors would have looked like if you were really there.

  • reminds me of today novosibirsk =)

  • What is amazing is that so much of it still remains… when a mere thirteen years later the city sustained the longest aerial attack in history… the Blitz.

    Sadly, many of the people we see may not have survived that war…

  • I've never been to England (always wanted to visit, but now it's more and more unlikely), yet these images induce a wave of nostalgia. Much that was good is now gone, and many things that should have been remembered have been forgotten.

    ...Though nothing can bring back the hour

    Of splendor in the grass, glory in the flower.

    We will grieve not, rather find strength in what remains behind. — William Wordsworth

    That is cold comfort, but it's all we have. Good luck to us all.

  • @GuinnevereB

    You should still check it out, it's still pretty good if you ask me!

  • @Rusty1989 When I was young, there was not all the paranoia and police state trappings of today (outside of the former USSR). Now it's an ordeal just to get through airport "security" to take a flight from one US city to another, let alone international travel. It's too bad; we "live in interesting times," as the ancient curse is phrased.

    So travel is a trial today, not the pleasure it once was. (Can't even go to Canada for the day without a "new" passport.)

  • Notice the lack of fat people.

  • @Manicz your point?

  • @ElginPocketwatch The point is pretty clear, god damn.

  • @Manicz well im a stupid american, so tell me.

  • @ElginPocketwatch Well back in the days of old, for one it was quite a spectacle seeing a fat person. Back then, the sign of being fat usually meant you were a man/woman of wealth. Back then they didn't have the luxuries we take for granted each day, they also didn't have the same kinds of food or lack of activity we Americans experience. Though this is London, in America it would've been the same way.

  • @Manicz That is because most of them were poor and starving. Lack of food and hard labor will keep anyone trim. It is no surprise that back in that day and age men preferred chubbier girls.

  • @hollyfigueroa1980 I know I do :3

  • @Manicz I don't get why people think that fat people is a modern phenomenon. You ought to check out some 18th century portraits.

    Bizarre comment.

  • @Manicz Notice the lack of immigrants? no offence to immigrants BTW.

  • Like they have never seen a camera before... :)

  • no chemtrails in the sky in those days eh

  • Pity theres no sound track ..the grinding and rattling of the tramcar going round the corner or the chugging of the old K type buses .Note the outside staircases and imagine what it was like to be climbing it as a young child when the bus started moving.This was the year of my birth, Its pointless to make comparisons with today. just enjoy what's left while it lasts.The futures yours and you're welcome to it.

  • It's great to see colour footage of London's old buses. In this footage, they are still run by a private company. In another six years London Transport would take over the running of all of London's transport system....Buses, trams, trolleybuses, Underground. All previously privately owned, except for the odd corporation tramway.

  • Woaaa 1927? way before the Blitz, modernisation and immigration, each wave came and reduced London to rubbles.

  • This is amazing

  • We need a BluRay with all the Kinemacolour !!!

  • Hee hee, I'm guessing this is before the Americans came and took away all of the British Beauties; and left the country with the fat ones that can't drive.

  • i know times were hard back then,no nhs no an ti biotics none of the things we take for granted phones tv cd" dvd washing machines the list goes on but i would go back and not come back to this hell we call modern england... just showed this to my mum who is 90 soon and would have been nearly six when this was made she looked sad and said "shame" life was hard but times were good or is that selective memory on her part who knows

  • When England was English.

  • i just can't believe the thames was ever that colour

  • Absolutely wonderful, thank you Mr. Greene. I'm sure it would have blown his mind to know that all these years later his wonderful bit of film would be seen by so many people all over the world, never mind how we get to see it!

  • @TheVeiledJester I know you are just kidding, but if you watch the clip entitled Springtime in an English Village (1944) there are at least two little black girls in the small village school, one of whom was crowned May Queen! She was kissed and fussed over. Pretty progressive for 1944, but really just as it should be.

  • amazing, I never seen any color footage of the 1920s with such a good definition. Fascinating for historical reasons, to see the society of more than 80 years ago as if if it were was shot just a while ago.

  • I dont see a mcdonalds anywere..

  • amazing but why dont we see black and indian people in this films?

  • @toze50 well put it this way,a film of 1920s bombay would not show many white people.same goes for african

    citys.it does not take a lot to work out why.

  • Seeing old videos in colour really doesn't make them seem that old.

  • No fat fuckers.

  • Jolly good and a bloody good colour film of London in 1927! But it was a bit expensive to use colour photography back then even for the cinema. Pity.

  • is that original color movie or painted black white?

  • Fascinating.

  • Amazing footage from an amazing age.

  • I say, is that Bertie Wooster?

  • I would to travel back in time at 6.05 sec to see the expressions on their faces wearing my 2010 clothes, with my iphone, IPAD, OLED 3dD tv, 3D Camcorder. Worth the experience!

  • @Scrabbler27 Yes it would be strange, curious and emotive, but the reality is that in 80 - 90 years on, someone in the future will say the same, in the same way like you, but in reference to us. How will be London and its people in 80 - 90 years???.

  • The Director really had it in for Astronomers, didn't he?

  • It's amazing how they are all impressed by a camera and now we have the cellphone cameras and all and we aren't really impressed by it.

  • amazing

  • Hmm, look like london in 1927 or something!

  • It's actually very remarkable how similar the landscape and buildings are today, to how they are in this footage. However, the one striking thing which I see as the biggest change is the way people dress (and therefore carry themselves). Everyone in this video is well presented... men in suits and hats, women in elegant dresses etc. Everyone, from the poor to the rich, the baker to the businessmen, old and young, have an elegance about them. We have certainly lost some of that.

  • @jul24ian Some of it?!

    All of it more like! Drowned under a tidal-wave of denim and plasic.

  • @jul24ian You've just read my thoughts!

  • @jul24ian Absolutley! Pretty much everyone was wearing a HAT.

    It's just what I thought: These people had "roles" - while today in our society it is considered admirable if someone knows how to behave anyway - but those people had wore real pride. Looking from today, they all look like actors. ^^

  • @jul24ian they were required to, for their jobs, if you didn't do that, you were a bum. . we have more freedom now, to wear whatever we want, and present ourselves the way we want, less conformers to the social norm, of course theirs still alot of that.

  • @jul24ian And they are white.

  • @jul24ian t-shirts, short-shorts, skinny jeans, and stupid hats have pretty much wiped that out.

  • @jul24ian Even in Petticoat Lane, the men were wearing ties. What strikes me is actually how filthy the buildings were, as a result of coal fires in every house, office and comercial building. Nelson's Column was jet black. Thank God for the Clean Air Act !

  • @jul24ian In other words: not much was lost.

  • Where and what's that on 4:22?

  • @Ladyjane3000

    That's the entrance to "Hyde Park Corner" . . . all those stone columns and pillars are standing today, and still look exactly the same as they did back then.

  • @TheTriumphTR2 Thanks for answering me! Wow! London is really amazing! Next time I go there I'll definitely visit that place. Hyde park is wonderful! :-)

  • Apparently, back in those days, people looked each other in the eye and spoke to strangers freely. It must have been an amazing time to live, despite the poverty and illness.

  • @BrightDigitalProduct Well it wasn't that bad really, poverty wise people might not have had as much money as they do now but I bet they'd be 100 times happier than we are now!

  • @thingthing94 You'd get a better picture of how the other half lived reading George Orwell's "Road to Wigan Pier". The first half of the books describes the appalling living conditions in the North in the 1930s. But it doesn't just apply to the north. Places like the East End were every bit as bad.

  • 6:07 is it wrong that i waved back to him? :')

  • @esc4all :')

  • bellissima.... grazie...

  • I love the caption about americans erecting the tower of london on palm beach as a bungalow!

  • this is amazing :|

  • Two color system, using probably orange and green/blue filters. But the exposure was not simultaneus, just sucessive and create some color distortion when objects moves fast

  • When you see so many films in monochrome from this period and even later, this short film has the effect of being a place you can visit. It befuddles your notions of reality for just a moment; in that instant the images you see have a tangible and current existence. Yet, your senses are quickly reset by logical awareness and a sombre realisation hits that the all the people seen in this film are figures of oblivion.

  • Maybe its because I`m a Londoner that I love London town, she is always there waiting for me

  • That's amazing.....

  • hahaha the text doesn't really care for astronomers.

  • What a treat! Thank you.

  • @trigga1uk blah blah blah Makes no difference cause its not going to change and you can not do anything about it.

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  • @trigga1uk Only using your own eyes you could mistake a group of people moving from one part of the country to another. Your minds too small to understand that.

  • ...and the rest is of some guy nuzzling a puppy...strange to think that everyone you see in this has yet to even consider the ramifications of the treaty of Versailles, and have no idea who Hitler is...Russia also JUST went red...cavalry just came out of fashion as a legitimate military option...the concept of a colony still didn't make anybody flinch...Eugenics is considered a viable philosophy by the greater scientific community...lynching is still socially accpetable...damn we came a long way

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  • Amazing - I didn't realsie that colour film looked so good in 1927.

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  • @trigga1uk "how is that hard to understand?"

    Because you the knob head stated the problem started 20 years aog (not 1950's) but that everytime you keep making a comment on it you keep extending the time.

    I asked you to provide source because its clear your not using facts cause if you had used facts you wouldn't keep making up random numbers 20, 30, 40 and now 60. Give the source and it won't be possible to confuse your miss understanding of numbers and facts.

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  • My Mum saw this and said that her father used to drive those buses for London Transport. If she caught his bus he told the conductor who she was and she got a free ride. I think I prefer these times today rather than those times although the views are nice. We tend to look at those days with rose coloured glasses as life could be very hard compared to today.

  • AMAZING!!!

    Is this really 1927? It's like traveling in a time machine. The color makes everything so real. Unbelievable. Really amazing.

  • Wow! Absolutely beautiful scenes! And the picture and colour quality is excellent; hard to believe that it's from over 80 years ago!

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  • @trigga1uk "Basically london has lost its identity as a british city"

    LOL, so what are you going to do about it?

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  • Beautiful images - and amazing how recognisable it is!

  • Very nice

  • Amazing to see and feel it in color... :)

  • I WISH I COULD TRAVEL IN TIME!!!!

  • @buscapleitosNo1, SO DO I.... LET'S BUILD A TIME MACHINE AND GO BACK..

  • 3:00 The all-powerful hand :-)

  • Great footage. We are very lucky that it has been preserved. Thanks for uploading, LondonsScreenArchive.

  • Wow.

    5 star video & instant subscription.

  • Beautiful color footage,with todays technology if the labs could get their hands on a original negative or near copy.The restoration and digital remastering would make this footage look even better.Films like this should never be lost.

  • My grandad was a london bus driver all his life at chalk farm garage from horse drawn to general to RT 1952 model his route was 68 and he died aged 68 back in 1955this footage is fantastic 2 years before my dad was born.

  • It's a good thing this came out pretty well, with no scratches and stuff associated with old films.

  • thank you very mutch

  • Brilliant footage! Thank you for sharing.

  • Great Video, shame there's no sound

  • What great quality footage...amazing really.

  • Amazing how they had color films in the 20s. I wonder why they waited until the 60s to make color films widespread. I mean, wouldn't you rather see someone as they are or something as it really is rather than seeing them being portrayed colorlessly?

  • @EinsteinxtremeRoblox I know! It's a question that I've pondered too, ha ha. It would be more easy to relate to the old silent films too if they were just in color!

  • Great.

  • Lovely travelogue of a picture postcard london, the city my grandparents knew.

    Better in some ways like the populace but then we can't see the poverty and slum areas which were all around the center.

    Would'nt you love to go back and spend a sunny afternoon walking around.

  • Are peanuts a fruit? I thought they are legumes

  • so few people on the streets!

  • Color film back in those days was a novelty! To me it is amazing! In the 60's I remember in the USA the networks were still hawking color "Brought to you in living color on nbc".