“ WONDERFUL LONDON.”

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17575, 27 June 1925, Page 20 (Supplement)

“ WONDERFUL LONDON.”

ENGLAND’S CAPITAL IN FILM. On more than one occasion, through the medium of camera and screen, the many people of New Zealand who are unable to journey to the Old Country either for want of time or lack of funds, or both, have been provided with the opportunity of seeingi motion pictures of the most wonderful city in the world. As far as can be ascertained, the first pictures of the kind were taken in 1912, and were shown throughout the Dominion in the following year. These pictures were excellent representations of scenes from life in the great metropolis, and proved a great attraction. Since then, however, the enormous advancement in the motion picture business has enabled film companies to take pictures in a manner that was undreamt of in those days, and the latest film of “ Wonderful London,” which Will be shown at Everybody’s Theatre and Greater Crystal Palace on July 27, is not merely a collection of views of famous bulidings and street scenes. The producers, Graham Wilcox, Ltd., producers of the Squibs pictures, “ Chu Chin Chow,” “ Decameron Nights” and other well-known comedy and dramatic productions, have divided London into sections, and in connection with several of them have interwoven sketches of life as it was and j is, which relieve the subject of a purely urban setting and provides an attraction of peculiar interest. Thus, for instance, in the London of Dickens we are introduced to some of the characters made famous by the gifted author; we follow the coster in his barrow drawn by the long-eared “ moke,” to places that are associated with the life of a large section of the populace, Hampstead Heath and so on; BillingsI gate and Covent Gardens, through I which Londoners secure a large portion j of their food, are shown in full swing; I and so it goes on through eight reels, depicting high life and low life, palaces and slums, covering in the short space of a little over an hour a comprehensive view of the greatest city in the world, its people and their daily lives.