Londoners

The London County Council sings its own praises in this well-shot documentary.

A film of stark contrasts, bookended by aerial shots of London by day and night. In between, well-shot documentary footage of modern hospitals, schools and services offers a bright view of 1930s London, compared with the grimness of the capital fifty years earlier: homelessness, prostitution, overflowing cesspools... a chaotic, unsanitary world brought to life in full costume reconstructions.

The Londoners was made by leading documentary filmmakers to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the London County Council, responsible for many of the changes celebrated in the film. LCC leader Herbert Morrison, the Ken Livingstone of his day, makes an appearance (later a cabinet minister, he was also, incidentally, Peter Mandelson's grandfather).