This excellent amateur colour film was shot by Lieutenant Sidney Sasson, US Army Signal Corps, Army Pictorial Service. It is drawn from the Imperial War Museum’s Archive.

Watch out for the unorthodox Victory symbol [...]]]>

This excellent amateur colour film was shot by Lieutenant Sidney Sasson, US Army Signal Corps, Army Pictorial Service. It is drawn from the Imperial War Museum’s Archive.

Watch out for the unorthodox Victory symbol at 2:57.

This very rare footage shows a journey along the Great North Road (A1) from London to Grantham.

War looms over the journey both metaphorically – August 1939 was the final month of peace before the [...]]]>

This very rare footage shows a journey along the Great North Road (A1) from London to Grantham.

War looms over the journey both metaphorically – August 1939 was the final month of peace before the Second World War – and literally, in the shape of the barrage balloon in the opening shots. The war was very much expected – as well as the balloons, we see kerbs and posts painted black and white to be visible in a blackout, a banner advertising ARP (Air Raid Precaution) offices, and a military truck carrying equipment.

Almost as remarkable is the way in which the film maker can leave their car at the side of the road while taking shots. Even cyclists are using the A1 without fear.

For The Retronaut, most extraordinary of all is to see the Great War memorial on the eve of another war (2:30). 6 years later it will need to be updated with 32 more names. The memorial is in Biggleswade, but it could be almost any town.
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The film is from the Huntley Film Archives.

This colour film of North London in the late 1940s is a sequence of insignificant moments – a man leading a horse, children in a playground, flats being built, old women answering the door, cars in [...]]]>

This colour film of North London in the late 1940s is a sequence of insignificant moments – a man leading a horse, children in a playground, flats being built, old women answering the door, cars in streets, empty streets. And yet, together with a soundtrack from George Delerue, it becomes something more.

What it becomes is an elegy. We see a man leading a working horse which will soon be utterly obsolete; children playing who can remember only warfare; posters advertising the Ideal Home next to embryonic high rise blocks; old women who thought themselves old at the end of the war to end all wars who have now witnessed another; a bomb shelter in the garden of a woman with prematurely grey hair; a dairy with no cows on a street with bollards still painted white from the blackout. This film shows the birth of Post War Britain – and the grief at the death of Britain before the war.
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This film was curated by Cool it, Baby!, who also curated the film posted in The 80-year-old Little Girl.

Its Saturday 29th April, 1955 and tonight the Cotton Club, Slaton, Texas brings you live onstage – Mr. Elvis Presley.

In the audience is Ben Hall, with his colour film camera. Ben went on to write [...]]]>

Its Saturday 29th April, 1955 and tonight the Cotton Club, Slaton, Texas brings you live onstage – Mr. Elvis Presley.

In the audience is Ben Hall, with his colour film camera. Ben went on to write “Blue Days, Black Nights” for Buddy Holly. But that’s a while away – tonight Ben is just focused – or unfocused – on having a good time, almost as much as the rest of the audience.

Judging by their reaction, we think Mr. Presley could go a long way…