East Budleigh, Devon (1924)

Harvest time in Devon.

This extract comes from Claude Friese-Greene's 'The Open Road' - originally filmed in 1925/6 and now re-edited and digitally restored by the BFI National Archive. Britain seen in colour for the first time was heralded as a great technical advance for the cinema audience - now we can view a much improved image, but one which still stays true to the principles of the colour process.

The rather haphazard journey from Land's End to John O'Groats creates a series of moving picture postcards. Look out for shots containing the component colours - red and blue-green - such as when a little girl in a red coat and hat walks among peacocks in the grounds of a castle, and three girls with red curly hair pose by the sea at Torquay.

The car is a Vauxhall D-type - considered a sporty model at the time. A long-distance journey by car was a relatively new concept, with none of the amenities en route now taken for granted. The visit to a petrol station shows smoking on the forecourt: no health and safety issues back then! The travelogue ends with a series of recognisable London landmarks. Much remains the same - one major exception being the volume of traffic on the roads. (Jan Faull)

For more information about 'The Open Road' see http://www.bfi.org.uk/features/openroad/

To buy the DVD click here - http://www.bfi.org.uk/filmstore

You can watch the whole of 'The Open Road' and 1000 other complete films and TV programmes from the BFI National Archive free of charge at the new BFI Mediatheque - http://www.bfi.org.uk/mediatheque

Category:

Travel & Events

Tags:

• BFI
• 1920s
• Budleigh
• travelogue
• nature
• farming
• Devon
• agriculture
• horses
• cart
• harvest

[burnleyfan11965]

Though life was harder then think people were in many ways a lot happier.Love the farm labourer swigging his cider lol.Did that now hed be sacked for drinking at work

[johnnyforeigner33]

Thats is just the coolest thing, i live there and to be honest, its hardly changed!

[Silkara78]

@airscrew1 Amen to that. I always wish I had been born in the late 1800s or in the early 1900s. I know it was a tougher lifestyle but still, life was just better back then in so many ways.

[chanctonbury63]

Chap in the car showed up at just the wrong moment!! Next 4 miles at 1.5 mph!

[airscrew1]

Makes you realise what a crap world this has become. Sooner I'm off this planet the better. Beam me up God and put me back 100 years earlier.

[brwhizz]

The man with the cider's thinking 'No Prohibition for me!'

[diverdraeger]

proper red mud!

[sunnyjoe66]

it is Brilliant, very hard Working People in those Days, times were hard. The Hooray Henry in his Car going mad with the Hay Cart blocking him,the beginnings of Car Centric Britain.

[chrisoj]

that looks sick! I want to live there lol