Colour on the Thames

A rare glimpse of 1930s London in colour: the Thames has never looked lovelier.

This film is tricky to describe: is it a boat study, a film-poem, an experiment, a picture postcard? One thing is certain: it's a rare colour snapshot of the Thames and London in the 1930s - and it looks quite magical. The slow pace, orchestral music and moody colours definitely belong to a bygone era, strikingly peaceful and undemanding. Yet colour film was still a novelty for audiences in 1935, and the photography (using the new Gasparcolor system) succeeds in accentuating the sharp contrast between the vivid green banks of the countryside and the drab tones of the industrial landscape.