Unbekanntes London

I caught this (2022) on UK's wonderful, free Talking Pictures channel. It's from 1967 BTW not 1969. All reviewers here comment fully on its thoughtful, gritty, sad look at the underbelly of London.

There's an obvious and unavoidable nostalgia at viewing this sort of work, even though much of the human conditions here are dire; if only London has "improved" from those 1960s days-sadly not.

I like James Mason's neutral commentating.

Good to view as a companion piece to the ITV series "Disappearing London" from 2006/7 fronted by the Madness member Suggs.

An excellent and all too short documentary on post-war London. Made in 1967 and narrated by James Mason, it shows the side of 60's London that most commentators either conveniently forget or more likely are blissfully unaware of.

A strange documentary nonetheless. I never had James Mason pegged as one to go wondering around the back streets of Spitalfields (where, then, some were still alive who could remember the Ripper murders....), old theatres in Camden, and Salvation Army hostels interviewing the unfortunates there.

A must-see if you have any liking of London history and the 60's in particular. Watch and see the past once more, and learn how much has changed, and how certain modern preoccupations (how areas improve and sometimes gentrify) remain with us still today. Very hard to believe today that some parts of London were so different in character a mere 40 years ago.

Like most films of the sixties, we begin with the then obligatory shot of the Post Office Tower.

The title of Jeffrey Fletcher's original book was deeply ironic since, as earlier viewers have already observed, from the moment this film hit screens it became as much a piece of history as the bygone world whose passing narrator James Mason laments; recalling the era when older residents of Spitalfields still remembered Jack the Ripper and the sixties destruction of Victorian London which began with the destruction of the Euston Arch was already well advanced (and has continued to this day).

Recalling that the East End of London in the sixties "is still recognisable as the world of Sickert", Mason seems genuinely concerned with the problems of the locals. While making no secret of his disdain for modern architecture and admitting that "most Victorian architecture was pretty hideous", he still hold out the hope that the sixties development of London was finally going to rid us of the Dickensian squalor the film sometimes graphically shows (such as a couple of winos fighting over a bottle of meths). But that was before a certain Margaret Thatcher became prime minister, and her political heirs continue to be determined turn back the clock even as I write.

A brilliant and pretty obscure look at the flip side of swinging sixties London. Narrated by a rather sardonic and sometimes scathing James Mason, we are taken on a tour of the underbelly of London. The film is artfully edited and offers straight factual history with real life characters/ street performers/ vendors who seem very unaware of the camera. The documentary has extremely surreal and quite tragic scenes by turn and encapsulates a London undocumented in the media of the time. The film is too short and could easily have been extended to a series of particular areas of London. The film has occasional screenings in art-house cinemas and should be seen by anyone interested in the history of London and documentary makers.

Factual. This is really a film version of a guided walking tour around some arcane bits of London in 1967. James Mason plays his part very well, but the script and the locations the film makers dig out are what make this such a valuable document. Just about all the places this film mentions are massively changed / disappeared now. You'll do well to ever see this film 'though - it's a real rarity.