The Hundredth Year

Hat's off to Luton for pulling out all the stops as residents celebrate its 50th anniversary of becoming a municipal borough.

Meanderers on sunny days! Capturing scenery 'round and about' Herts and Beds during the summer of 1959; the first of two amateur films with pleasing hand-created title cards.

Not a single finger-to-lips ‘shush’ is uttered throughout this local government-sponsored film aimed to promote Luton’s innovative library service.

Beds County Planners look to the future with the solution of a modern pedestrianised shopping precinct for the problem of overbearing town centre traffic on Dunstable shoppers.

Featuring the people and places, industry and activities from all corners of Beds County as Local Goverment Planners mull over the issue of population growth.

An amateur film about Luton’s changing landscape with narration informing on significant events that have occurred in the town over the years.

The director of a documentary about British funk pioneers Cymande joins the band at BFI Southbank to talk about the film.

Plotting world domination, Devil Doctor Fu-Manchu steals plans for a new aero-torpedo in this earliest surviving thrill-a-minute serial instalment.

Filmmakers Jane Giles and Ali Catterall discuss their documentary Scala!!!, revisiting the legendary and inspirational cinema venue and some of the most notorious films that screened there.

Long thought lost, this Powell-directed promotional short for a veteran’s charity was only rediscovered in 2003.

A poignant, stirring letter from a recently deceased pilot to his mother is read by John Gielgud.

Former Bristol Poet Laureate, Miles Chambers reads a poem specially commissioned for the 75th anniversary of the NHS.