London’s Screen Archives enables Londoners see their past come alive on film. Managed by Film London, we are a unique network of historic film collections that cares for, collects and screens heritage film across the city. Together we preserve London’s rich film heritage from feature films to home movies, public information films, newsreels, and records of the capital’s many different industries.
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Old English Fete
Gracie Fields plays with a giant propeller and falls off a metal horse in faintly surreal film shot at a fete in Kew Gardens.
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Overview
Gracie Fields was among the UK’s biggest names in entertainment in 1928, so it must have been a coup to get her to attend this fete in Kew Gardens. Fields is game for anything, first spinning a giant propeller – for reasons not entirely obvious – and then clambering aboard a metal horse, with body designed to unseat riders in particularly undignified fashion. There’s also shots of extravagant can-can dancing in national costume, watched by stunned looking children.
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