Today would have been Shakespeare's 450th birthday, so to celebrate let's delve again into the Pathe archive to see how it was marked in earlier years. Essentially it's a history of the traditional tour around Stratford.
We begin in 1920. You'll notice as we continue through these that Stratford doesn't much change across the century.
Our first proper glimpse of the flag raising ceremony in 1930. Sixty-four nations at this point.
In 1936, the birthday was relegated to few shots in the News in a Nutshell montages. Same as 1935.
In 1938 at the dawn of the Second World War. Merriment in general though a key country has been removed from the flagpoles.
A reigning monarch's first visit to Stratford apparently. Includes tour of birthplace and shots inside the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre of a Julius Caesar rehearsal and greeting Anthony Quayle in costume as Henry VIII.
The annual tradition continues in 1957, now in full colour.
It's 1964, the 400th birthday and here we're in in Techniscope and Technicolor. What looks like the opening of The Shakespeare Centre up the road from the birthplace. The Duke of Edinburgh is there. Frustratingly it looks like its been transferred at the wrong speed obliterating the sound.
Oh, hold on, here's the same thing in black white with sound.
Showing posts with label british pathe. Show all posts
Showing posts with label british pathe. Show all posts
Liverpool in the British Pathe Archive:
Sefton Park.
Life Let's go hyperlocal now and search in the archive for my general area in Sefton Park, Liverpool offering a short history of the review field which is now the home of the festivals and over the Easter weekend, Billy Smart's Circus.
"Item title reads - Liverpool "Terriers" reviewed by RUSHTON, A. LORD MAYOR OF LIVERPOOL And MAJOR GENERAL H. DE PREE. Sefton Park. Merseyside."
"Liverpool: WS. Lord Derby, Lord Lieutenant of Lancashire representing the King takes the salute at the Review Field in Sefton Park WS. Pan across dignitaries and officers saluting. WS. troops marching past. LS. Detachment of the Mersey division of the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve passing the Lord Mayor with shouldered rifles. MS. The lighting of a beacon on top of Moseley hill. WS. Beacon burning brightly. WS. Beacon burning."
Opens with a policeman's parade.
"Item title reads - Liverpool "Terriers" reviewed by RUSHTON, A. LORD MAYOR OF LIVERPOOL And MAJOR GENERAL H. DE PREE. Sefton Park. Merseyside."
"Liverpool: WS. Lord Derby, Lord Lieutenant of Lancashire representing the King takes the salute at the Review Field in Sefton Park WS. Pan across dignitaries and officers saluting. WS. troops marching past. LS. Detachment of the Mersey division of the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve passing the Lord Mayor with shouldered rifles. MS. The lighting of a beacon on top of Moseley hill. WS. Beacon burning brightly. WS. Beacon burning."
Opens with a policeman's parade.
Doctor Who in the British Pathe Archive:
Jon Pertwee.
TV There's nothing I could find for Patrick, so it's straight on to Jon.
Not the last time Pertwee will wear a coat like that. Or a Doctor would have a scarf like that.
Blink and you'll miss a waistcoated Pertwee early in this clip, but he reappears later comparing styles with Michael Pertwee and Jean Marsh.
A year later, here they are again in colour attending a fashion show for women's waistcoats. "This is something new. Geraldine Smith wears an embroidered waistcoat for the beach." Bonus appearance for cinema's Dr Who, Peter Cushing.
"A films stars gala organised by the Variety Club of Great Britain in aid of children's charities." "Jean Marsh, Jon Pertwee, Jean Kent and Tony Wright are feeling energetic."
The premiere for Woman in a Dressing Gown. "Jon Pertwee chats with Liliane Sottane."
Another variety club event, this time at Battersea. "Panning shot of Jon Pertwee and Eunice Gayson riding on round-about on the same horse."
Billy Smart lights Jon's cigarette while he's dressed as a cowboy. A cornucopia of 50s talent in aid of charity (Bygraves, Baker, Butlin and Cooper).
Premiere of Hancock's The Rebel. "Freddie Mills and Jon Pertwee"
Back in the big top. "Actor Jon Pertwee encouraging baby elephant to stick its trunk into a drink."
With the Carry On gang at Christmas in Petticoat Lane.
Back to Battersea for the eleventh year. The modern equivalent of this would probably be the London Film Memorabilia Convention or some such. Charles Hawtrey feeds Jon a cream cake. Jon's unimpressed.
Years before it became Compo's signature mode of transport, Jon tries his hand at driving a tin bath.
More nauticalia. Jon attends the Boat Show at Earls Court and has his eye on 'A Speranziella', the winner of the 1963 off-shore power boat race.
Silver anniversary of the Children's Film Foundation and the premiere of Lionheart. Jon's here with his two daughters and "Mrs Pertwee". He looks like he's just on the edge of becoming the Time Lord (assuming film wasn't already under way...) As for Doctor actors, this as far as the Pathe Archive stretches.
Not the last time Pertwee will wear a coat like that. Or a Doctor would have a scarf like that.
Blink and you'll miss a waistcoated Pertwee early in this clip, but he reappears later comparing styles with Michael Pertwee and Jean Marsh.
A year later, here they are again in colour attending a fashion show for women's waistcoats. "This is something new. Geraldine Smith wears an embroidered waistcoat for the beach." Bonus appearance for cinema's Dr Who, Peter Cushing.
"A films stars gala organised by the Variety Club of Great Britain in aid of children's charities." "Jean Marsh, Jon Pertwee, Jean Kent and Tony Wright are feeling energetic."
The premiere for Woman in a Dressing Gown. "Jon Pertwee chats with Liliane Sottane."
Another variety club event, this time at Battersea. "Panning shot of Jon Pertwee and Eunice Gayson riding on round-about on the same horse."
Billy Smart lights Jon's cigarette while he's dressed as a cowboy. A cornucopia of 50s talent in aid of charity (Bygraves, Baker, Butlin and Cooper).
Premiere of Hancock's The Rebel. "Freddie Mills and Jon Pertwee"
Back in the big top. "Actor Jon Pertwee encouraging baby elephant to stick its trunk into a drink."
With the Carry On gang at Christmas in Petticoat Lane.
Back to Battersea for the eleventh year. The modern equivalent of this would probably be the London Film Memorabilia Convention or some such. Charles Hawtrey feeds Jon a cream cake. Jon's unimpressed.
Years before it became Compo's signature mode of transport, Jon tries his hand at driving a tin bath.
More nauticalia. Jon attends the Boat Show at Earls Court and has his eye on 'A Speranziella', the winner of the 1963 off-shore power boat race.
Silver anniversary of the Children's Film Foundation and the premiere of Lionheart. Jon's here with his two daughters and "Mrs Pertwee". He looks like he's just on the edge of becoming the Time Lord (assuming film wasn't already under way...) As for Doctor actors, this as far as the Pathe Archive stretches.
Doctor Who in the British Pathe Archive:
William Hartnell.
TV Some silent footage of the First Doctor actor in a script conference with Stanley Holloway, Griffiths Jones and Clifford Evans, though I can't work out which film (the IMDb suggests nothing).
Billy also turns up briefly in this earlier footage of a garden party, shot in a way which makes him look like he's on a see-saw. Or in Mean Streets.
It's the 1947 British Film Festival and here he is with Joyce Howard, his co-star in Appointment With Crime.
He's in here too having a rather intense conversation with Richard Attenborough. They co-starred in The Lost People.
Doctor Who in the British Pathe Archive:
Daleks!
TV Happy Easter! After last night's Yeti revelation, here's the handiwork of one Victor Sherlock of Horsham, West Sussex, his "remote control" Dalek.
"John Aubury, of the Lancaster College of Technology, designed a radio-controlled robot that is used to sell rag magazines. M/S of a dalek-style robot on a busy shopping street. A young man walks past and stops to buy a magazine. He takes one from a panel in the side of the robot. A money pot hangs from the end of the dalek's radar gun, the man drops some change into it."
The search results for the pepperpots also include this which becomes slightly less worrying when you realise that Pathe have mislabelled it and it's actually the building of the Bank of Manhattan building, so no Dalekanium required.
Doctor Who in the British Pathe Archive:
Monsters!
Tv Amazing! Yeti! Cyberman! Schoolboys and girls Exhibition. Olympia, London (the annual holiday time event for youngsters)! Has this footage been seen before? That seems to be a Yeti from The Abominable Snowmen, which is pretty rare. Otherwise the event looks super exciting and entirely the sort of thing which would be outlawed under health and safety rules now. Decades later, Olympia would house another Doctor Who exhibition, the one which would ultimately move to Cardiff. More soon.
Hamlet at the British Pathe Archive.
As you might have heard, British Pathe have taken the rather epic decision to upload much of their archive to Youtube, around eighty-five thousand news reels. With that sort of breadth of coverage, most subjects and topics are featured and Hamlet is no exception.
A shot from the 1913 version of Shakespeare's 'Hamlet' starring Sir Johnstone Forbes Robertson. This appears to be Act 1, Scene 1 with Horatio (S A Cookson), Marcellus (A. Roberts) and Bernado (G. Richards) greeting Hamlet Snr for the first time. Notice how the Ghost is achieved by superimposing one exposure over another on the film. The old Hamlet page at the BBC website contains the follow up scene from the same film of Forbes-Robertson meeting the Ghost for himself., though it's true that the actor could be in the above clip. It's confusing. Here's a clip of the actor offering reading of the advice to players. Screen Online has a short essay about the production. Here's a painting of the actor in the part from the V&A's theatre collection and photographs at the National Portrait Gallery and Folger Shakespeare Library.
Here's the footage again in a '63 film about its discovery and restoration. This would seem to indicate the BFI has the whole film in its archive somewhere though it doesn't appear on their collection of Silent Shakespeare.
Douglas Fairbanks Jnr (!) accepts the 1948 Best Picture and Best Actor Oscars on behalf of Sir Lawrence for his Hamlet.
"Twenty-one gun salute being fired from Hamlet's Castle at Elsinore."
Czechoslovakian craftsman produce a model of Hamlet from glass.
This travelogue offers a colour glimpse of Elsinore (3.40 onwards). Film notes that the palace was actually built in the 16th century.
A shot from the 1913 version of Shakespeare's 'Hamlet' starring Sir Johnstone Forbes Robertson. This appears to be Act 1, Scene 1 with Horatio (S A Cookson), Marcellus (A. Roberts) and Bernado (G. Richards) greeting Hamlet Snr for the first time. Notice how the Ghost is achieved by superimposing one exposure over another on the film. The old Hamlet page at the BBC website contains the follow up scene from the same film of Forbes-Robertson meeting the Ghost for himself., though it's true that the actor could be in the above clip. It's confusing. Here's a clip of the actor offering reading of the advice to players. Screen Online has a short essay about the production. Here's a painting of the actor in the part from the V&A's theatre collection and photographs at the National Portrait Gallery and Folger Shakespeare Library.
Here's the footage again in a '63 film about its discovery and restoration. This would seem to indicate the BFI has the whole film in its archive somewhere though it doesn't appear on their collection of Silent Shakespeare.
Douglas Fairbanks Jnr (!) accepts the 1948 Best Picture and Best Actor Oscars on behalf of Sir Lawrence for his Hamlet.
"Twenty-one gun salute being fired from Hamlet's Castle at Elsinore."
Czechoslovakian craftsman produce a model of Hamlet from glass.
This travelogue offers a colour glimpse of Elsinore (3.40 onwards). Film notes that the palace was actually built in the 16th century.
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