This film is part of Free
The Planned Home
So long to slums! Paddington Borough Council blazes a trail in the eradication of its slum housing.
Overview
So long to slums! Follow one Paddington family's transition from the squalor of a Victorian back-to-back to a brand new flat in a low-rise block on Dudley Street. The film commends Paddington Borough Council's housing initiatives - to the point that you'd think that the Council had sponsored it. In fact, it's an amateur film backed by the BFI and Scottish Film Council who, under the influence of leading figures of the British Documentary Movement, John Grierson and Alberto Cavalcanti, encouraged amateur films of a documentary and social character.
The film's singular lightness of touch and inventive photography and editing secured it a Highly Commended award in the 1939 Scottish Amateur Film Festival. The filmmakers were possibly inspired by Housing Problems (1935), a landmark of the Documentary Movement which lifts the lid on slum terraces in Stepney. Their admiration for the local authority's efforts makes a stark contrast to the more radical approach of similarly-themed activist films of the era, which ardently campaigned for better housing, such as Paradox City (1934).
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