The London Nobody Knows

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.

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.

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.

In stark contrast to the colourful, "swinging" imagery of 1960's London we are all too familiar with, The London Nobody Knows, displays the dying, decaying underbelly of old Victorian values, practices and architecture. We are shown proto-delboy's hawking goods in now-dead street markets. Bizarre buskers and street performers act out their defunct acts to grey, bewildered onlookers. Old forgotten men pay 6 shillings a week for bed and breakfast in Salvation Army hostels, the memories of the war lingering in their haggard faces.

Written by Bolton-born artist and art critic, Geoffrey Fletcher, based on his own book of the same name, he illustrates a world that is fundamentally changing. A mournful tome to the decrepit, and disappearing 19th century city. James Mason narrates; he informs of historical anecdotes, and guides us through the multitude of eccentrics, losers, and hopeless characters cluttering the streets, and displays their almost archaic interests and habits.

The London Nobody Knows is a perfect artifact of a Britain before the almost complete Americanisation of its streets, industries and culture, that as to come in the late 1980's and throughout the 1990's. Like the Free Cinema movement of the '50's (headed by the likes of Lindsay Anderson), and the British transport film, and GPO documentaries, this represents a view of a very different, almost alien Britain to the one we live in now. Beautiful, horrifying, insightful, strange, and even emotional. A film that should be seen by anyone interested in the Britain of the past.

www.the-wrath-of-blog.blogspot.com

If you enjoy the "off the beaten track" walks and can see beyond the banality of an everyday street, "The London Nobody Knows" is for you. Based on Geoffrey Fletcher's book of the same name, it follows a path round London's more seedy and incongruous locations. Despite being made in 1967 many of the locations visited still remain today, while some are sadly gone forever. This film makes a viewer want to go out and explore their own "town/city nobody knows" and realise that there is always a lot more around them than first meets the eye. Narrated and presented by James Mason, this film really should be seen by fans of Psychogeography.