Everybody has been sharing this video today – and once you watch it, you’ll know why. It shows London circa 1927 through the eyes of one Claude Friese-Greene. As the description that came with the video explains, this is “incredible colour footage of 1920s London shot by an early British pioneer of film named Claude Frisse-Greene, who made a series of travelogues using the colour process his father William – a noted cinematographer – was experimenting with. It’s like a beautifully dusty old postcard you’d find in a junk store, but moving.” Indeed.
I’m pretty sure this is part of a 2006 BBC documentary – co-produced with the British Film Institute – called The Lost World of Friese-Greene. Originally this clip was pat of his project called The Open Road whose aim was to film the people of Britain in colour for the first time.
London 1927 from Tim Sparke on Vimeo.