This film is part of Free
What's Wrong with the Fish?
Sing up and eat up! Billingsgate market traders sing for your supper
Overview
Billingsgate market traders sing for your supper in this delightful newsreel item, which highlights a campaign to promote a 'piscatorial diet'. It might seem odd that a song should be centre stage in a silent newsreel, but the intertitles helpfully provide the words, and hopefully the cinema pianist would have had the sheet music... The 'Offishal Fish Song Fox Trot' was composed by popular British songwriters Harry Tilsley and Tolchard Evans. Evans became a silent cinema pianist in the same year.
Uncharacteristically for a Topical Budget newsreel item, the delightful song sheet illustration is used as an opener in place of the usual item title card.
Related
It Never Really Happened It Never Really Happened
Trick film 1930 4 mins Silent Location: Southwark Br
Do our eyes deceive us? Trick shots galore in this magical tour of London.
London off the Track London off the Track
1924 10 mins Location: Belgravia
Part of Wonderful London, the BFI National Archive’s programme of restored London travelogues, filmed in the capital in the 1920s.
Getting it Back: The Story of Cymande - Q&A Getting it Back: The Story of Cymande - Q&A
Inside Film 2024 22 mins
The director of a documentary about British funk pioneers Cymande joins the band at BFI Southbank to talk about the film.
The West Case The West Case
Action and Adventure 1923 28 mins Silent Location: Tilbury
Plotting world domination, Devil Doctor Fu-Manchu steals plans for a new aero-torpedo in this earliest surviving thrill-a-minute serial instalment.
Enter the Scala!!! Enter the Scala!!!
Inside Film 2024 16 mins
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.
Smith Smith
Charity appeal 1939 10 mins
Long thought lost, this Powell-directed promotional short for a veteran’s charity was only rediscovered in 2003.
An Airman's Letter to His Mother An Airman's Letter to His Mother
Documentary 1941 6 mins
A poignant, stirring letter from a recently deceased pilot to his mother is read by John Gielgud.
The NHS75 Celebration The NHS75 Celebration
Short documentary 2023 3 mins
Former Bristol Poet Laureate, Miles Chambers reads a poem specially commissioned for the 75th anniversary of the NHS.