Colour on the Thames (1935) 

I find this film very good for me mentally. To know that one is never more than a background character in the film of life, really allows you to relax and enjoy the ride.

I grew up in SE London in the 70's. We used to go down to the abandoned docks, the wharfs, cranes, warehouses. So interesting to see what it was like when it was a working place. Now it's all built on with shiny blocks of flats and tree-line walkways.

85years on and it's all changed. It's lovely to see colour in old films as that's what everyones eyes saw it in back then. Lovely music too.

Nice to see such a natural, uncomplicated view of London.

A quick look on the net to identify the ship' Dartford', being assisted by tugs, reveals that she was torpedoed on 12th June 1942 with the loss of thirty, of her forty seven crew. I suspect this is the same ship as the one I found was built 1930. Makes this rare colour footage all the more poignant.

Buildings are still standing there but the great people who made them are leave us this is the fact of life I have tears in my eyes to watch this Thanks for uploading the great time memories Love from Pakistan

My Dad's maternal side of the family - Foulser family, worked on barges and at the docks at this time. Wonderful film, thank you so much!

Beautiful little film, I used to love watching the ship's go in and out of the Royal dock's, but I always had a special liking for the tugs, as a boy living in Upton Park I always loved to hear them all sounding their hooter's on new years eve, in the dark of the night it was a wonderful "eerie" sound to hear the distinctive tone echoing in the distance, great day's.

One of the most beautiful vintage colour films I've ever seen.

Having a bit of spare time, I’ve attempted to identify some of the vessels and sites shown in this wonderful old film. If anyone is able to fill in the gaps or correct my mistakes, I’d be very grateful. 00:00 north of Richmond, near Teddington?; 00:53 tug Ham and u/i sister. Ham, built 1925 by NVT at Lekkerkerk and delivered to Robert Neal Tough at Teddington. In 1981 sank off Southend, but raised and repaired. Laid up at Denton’s Wharf and broken up in 2004; 00:58Barge Roselands, just north of Richmond. Owned by A J Harmsworth?; 01:03 Tug Primrose - A J Harmsworth & Son (who owned the Basingtoke canal at this time). Built at Ash Vale, but never registered; 01:38 Richmond Bridge; 01:58 Charing Cross Bridge and Shellmex House; 02:04 Waterloo Bridge, in process of being rebuilt, but completion delayed until 1945; 02:14 Southwark bridge; 02:19 Rennie’s London Bridge, completed 1831 and transported to Lake Havasu, Arizona in the early 1970’s; 02:23 Iserlohn, built 1922, Hamburg registered, shelled by British destroyers Jervis, Nubian and Mohawk in 1941 and sank off Kerkenna Islands, Tunisia; 03:05 u/I, can’t quite make out name on stern; 03:20 Verity - barge, nfi; 03:32 Grovehurst - barge, nfi; 03:53 tug Beam, Port of London Authority, built 1910, scrapped 1966; 04:00 Deanbrook, built 1908, struck mine in November 1940 with loss of crew and subsequently scrapped; 04:10 Dartford, built 1930, sailing with convoy ONS-100 was torpedoed by U-124 south of Cape Race with loss of 30 out 47 crew; 04:36 Sun IV, built 1915, delivered to W.H.J. Alexander, London. Served at Dunkirk. 1966 Sold to Societa Rimorchiatori Napoletani, Naples, renamed San Benigno. 1978 Scrapped by Palermo Salvatore & Company, Naples; 04:58 Upwey Grange, Houlder Line, built 1925, in August 1940, en route from Buenos Aires for London, was torpedoed by U-37. 36 crew lost from a total of 86; 05:20 Mercury, barge owned by W H J Alexander; 05:55 Hobson’s Bay, built in 1922, owned by Aberdeen and Commonwealth line at time of filming, renamed Esperance Bay in 1936, served as troopship in WW II and broken up at Faslane in 1955; 06:08 u/i Blue Star liners; 06:58 u/i cargo vessel; 07:02 Two funnelled liner of the Orient Line, possibly one of the R class liners; 07:08 u/i two buff funnels; 07:14 u/i green funnel; 07:57 large cargo vessel; pilot flag; W H J Alexander tugs.

This 80 years old colour film teaches me vividly how life used to be in London.Thanks for posting.

What a fascinating film, for many reasons. One of the most striking things for me is the lack of plane trails across the sky in those days! Lovely pantomime clouds, no white artificial stripes spreading and blocking the blue and the sunlight out day after day... but what a special film this is. Thank you for sharing it with us. Hope it stays up as have added to my favourites ;) Thank you

I always like watching these old videos to see what things were like back then and recognising old landmarks.

Of particular interest here, is at 8.27., the demolition of 'old Waterloo bridge', replaced by the sweeping concrete one we see today - that was a real surprise when I saw this so thank you BFI!

The quality of the film is amazing, hard to believe its nearly 80 years old.

Fleur Black. The boats at 3.28 with red sails are Thames sailing barges. Shallow drafted vessels to get right up the shallow creeks. There are still many of them around in the south east, you can often see them at regatta's and festivals. They also have their own Thames sailing barge races on the Thames and Medway.

Amazing stuff! My late uncle, Denis Forman, was a former director of the BFI before he moved to Granada TV and would have loved this.

The ship Dartford 4:o8 in to film was At 06.12 hours on 12 June 1942 the Dartford (Master Samuel Bulmer) in convoy ONS-100 was torpedoed and sunk by U-124 south of Cape Race. The master, 25 crew members and four gunners were lost. 14 crew members and three gunners were picked up by the British rescue ship Gothland . Dartford was build october 1930

My mother was born only one year after this movie was produced. These footages describe how people at that time were look like though my mother was born in Japan which was on the opposite side of the globe. I cannot believe most of people in this film were gone a long time ago, but all of them look very animated as if they are still living somewhere in the world.

We have colour everywhere now, not just on the Thames !

Great video my dad was born in 1935 in south Wales so this is his world so amazing

Absolument magnifique. Un document d'un grand Intérêt. Merci!

Thank you for your kind comments. I enjoyed doing the research even though my eyes were very tired afterwards through much straining to work out names!

a fantastic piece of history, more of the same please if available, these must be cherished.

My dear old nan would have been in her teens when this was shot and probably just a few miles away.

What a perfectly lovely picture! One can't help enjoying the softness of the colour contrast, somewhat like the Ectachrome still available 20-odd years ago. Thank you so much for uploading, it´s been the treat of the morning.

I love that parrot animation on the title

As I looked at this film it came to me that so many of them would be gone in just 6 or seven years time.Then I see many people have researched their history and demise.I'm about to look at London 1927,these are marvelous insights and in colour which makes them so alive. Many thanks.

Wonderful! Truly a work of art. Zak George

always enjoy these vintage films...thanks so much for the uploads!

Wow, so many steamers! I'd give my eyeteeth to see something like that today. True, you don't have all the smutz and smoke with today's riverboats, but things just seem so much more lively with all the steam powered ships and boats, puffing up and down the water.

The particular about the film is that it was filmed in 3 colour Gaspar color. It is one of the first films in natural colour. The pictures comes much closer to the viewers eyes.

I very much enjoyed watching, thank you for sharing this wonderful time.

Nothing lasts forever,I remember the docks being busy when I was a child in the 60's.My father and grandfather worked for Harland and Wolff shipbuilders and repairs on the woolwich stretch of the river.All the docks and the thousands it employed long gone along with generations of East Enders.

I know....quite sad actually. However, I met a 70 year old white British man who was born and still lives in London, who told me that he loves how much London and Britain has changed. I am the child of immigrants and I love watching this film as much as I still love walking around London. I am grateful for these films, makes me appreciate London so much more! So lets just ignore what we hope are the racist few.

I felt rather sad to see this old film. Having been born in the 60's I was too young to remember when London was such an important international port, busy with trade from all over the world. Such a shame it has all gone now...

Nice to see the river so busy (with trade).

What a wonderful film! Interesting to see how things have changed in less than 100 years.

I wonder if anyone has ever seen a grand parent in one of these old films.

I often canoe the Thames in central London. If I tried it in the 30's I'd be dodging ships all the time. Now I only have to look out for the Clippers and the rubbish barges.

that is fabulous hard to believe its so old

I took 50 or 60 still shots and each one of them looks like a painting it’s absolutely beautiful and it is so convincing that you are there in this wormhole of time and I think of everything else that’s going on out in the world whilst filming this, my parents would’ve been 12 or 13 at so many things to recollect and identify with that time and yet they look fresh and new The smoke in the air the the dust from the cold gives a aerial perspective a glazed look like an old painting

Really lovely old film at 6:45 it shows how big those lovely old ship were ,and the sailors hit the deck watching the camera i bet they never did that once before.Its sad to think the older ones probably went threw WW1 and the younger WW2 and some both....Great film

Really lovely film from so long ago...as film goes.

I wish someone invented a time traveller so that I can go back into time and get to know these people and how they lived etc.

Absolutely fascinating. All the old funnels. Pretty sure I saw a P&O two funnel job there plus some Blue Star ships. I must have seen the very tail end of London as a port when I was an apprentice in the 60s and we used KG V docks as well as Tilbury. Great stuff.

Lovely, thank you.

Shots near the end have a J.M.W. Turner quality about them.

Lovely old film, thanks for sharing

I thank you for this piece of history. We can't change the past but can remember the happy memories before the 1939 war changed the world. Thank you for you contribution.

Thank you so much for posting !

This film is running too fast, because it originally was probably shot at 16 fps. But you can get close to what the actual speed should be if you use the 0.75 speed option in RU-vid. The music gets a bit odd, but the image gets a realistic speed.

Fantastic, thanks.

Really great, thouroughly enjoyed this, thanks for posting.

Fascinating to see barges under sail on the Thames.

I'd love to see an HD transfer of this

This is so amazing. Thank you so much.

Wonderful footage. Thank you...

Wonderful, brings home how great Britain once was...thanks for posting!

Wonderful !

I can feel by eyes stinging and my throat burning just looking at this.

Thank you for 8 minutes and 28 seconds of sanity and thoughtfulness. These BFI clips are very much appreciated. Loved the gentleman on the tug "primrose" with the tweed jacket and a hankie in his top pocket. Another striking thing is that all these dock workers- without exception- seem to get on perfectly well without the obligatory fluorescent lifejackets their "risk assessments" would require them to wear nowadays.

Thanks for posting such wonderful movie.

It's lovely and haunting knowing everybody you are watching is likely dead. Maybe that's just me wanting to step in the screen and go hug my nan again making me think that way. Londoners from long before these movies were shot.

8.26 minutes of pure bliss !! Thanks for posting !

i love old footage thankyou

Beautiful, stunning footage

Superb. Thank you so much for sharing this treasure with us.

Fantastic, what a healthy short film. Great for the mind and soul.

Wonderful stuff.Black and white film in documentaries has a tendency to distance the subject,where as colour brings the film in to the contemporary.Thanks for posting.

As Technicolor wouldn't license their beam splitter camera to Gasparcolor, my understanding is this film would have been shot in a modified cine camera shooting at 72fps through a RGB filter wheel onto panchromatic film.( to obtain colour records as grey scales only; on successive film frames) This is then printed onto the Gasparcolor print film three panchromatic frames at a time through a RGB filter wheel onto one Gasparcolour print film film frame. This leads to some colour fringing apparently( see 2.39,2.40); although it looks pretty good. I'm surprised there is so few actual comments about Gasparcolor on this thread. It's a fascinating system, being a chromolytic system, not chromogenic like Kodachrome or Agfacolor. It's descendent was Ilfochrome/Cibachrome for still photography. The film has 100% of the red, blue, green dyes already present, but exposure to a positive colour image leads to a positive copy.( through dye destruction) You can use either a colour film (chromogenic;such as Kodachrome-colour reversal)or positive panchromatic film records through a filter wheel like this, as your primary film record, then print on Gasparcolor film. Gasparcolor was quite slow though so was unsuited as primary camera film. It was a print film only. However it doesn't suffer from print fading like Eastman colour is prone to. Or suffer from misregistration errors that Inbibition printing(Technicolor) could suffer from. A fascinating upload, very interesting to see. Edit: After further reading Adrien Cornwell-Clyne; developed for Gasparcolor UK a prismatic beam splitter camera superceding the Sequential 72fps system developed by Oskar Fischinger for the German Gasparcolor company. Its fascinating! So I apologise for posting inadvertently duff information. !! This camera was used to shoot the negatives on panchromatic film apparently. A prism was used to split light into three paths of light, blue/Green/Red. Cant find more technical info though.

Very interesting film; the river has changed a lot although I recognised Richmond immediately!

a peaceful time, little did they know.

these were in indeed the halcyon days of the Thames. When you think that the pool of London had on the south bank Tooley street. Which was said have fed the country.

Following an afternoon of cranky customers & co-workers, this is a nice rest. Color images from this period (30's & 40's) are magical for me, these people & things a re usually black & white and only look 'real' in greyscale, color gives things I have never seen such depth. Nice animation at the beginning too.

Oh boy this is a good time to live in London

Magnífico Esplêndido tenho imenso fascínio pelo Continente Europeu especialmente Londres ❤️❤️❤️🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇧🇷

Gorgeous film.

Oh Gosh...this is so nostalgic! Where has our Merchant navy gone?

This film is beautiful, there is no speaking, no sound, it just let's you listen to the amazing music as you can see the ships and tugs in London in the British Empire at the time, very rare film in terms of how most short films at that time were like compared to this.

Great footage of a wonderful bygone era, spectacular film. Amazing to witness the decline of British Shipping in such a short period of time!

I photographed the Avelona Star coming into the Tyne for refit in 1987 she was the last one of that company I ever saw.

I sailed from the Pool twenty two years later - it looks amazingly familiar ! Thanks to BFI for this/these lovely images.

Great to see all the shipping on the river. These really are the last dying days of the Empire, and of Europe for a while. How vastly different everything would be 10 years later.

Beautiful content !

this is just incredible, its amazing how everyone is more involved back then. Would love to have been around back then. Everything is real, not like the fakery today where everything is a metal frame with bits of plastic stuck to it.

That is remarkable , To think the winds of war were blowing in Europe at this time contrasted to the serene images in this piece, Priceless footage..

Enchanting piece of footage.

true that life goes by in the blink of an eye

My late father was born in Brixton in 1931, so this is the London of his childhood.❤️ Also this London before the Blitz of World War Two. Much of docklands you see here that survived that war, started disappearing in the early Seventies, as dock life moved to Tilbury.

It all looks rather nice, but the river was a foul stinking sess pit back then. Today it is has come on leaps and bounds, this is surely one thing that has changed for the better.

Fabulous stuff. It's difficult even for those of who've known this city for a long time to remember that it used to be a very different place. I've been here 50 years and can just about recall the cranes disappearing although there were very few big ships here by the time I got here.

I'm not far behind that man - born near Kings Cross and I too love how international London is. We absorbed all sorts.. jews from the middle ages thru to 20th C, Germans (Karl Marx of course lived and died in London and is buried in Hampsted), Dutch (my own grandmother was from Dutch parentage), Irish (on my father's side), West Indians, Asians, Africans, Greeks, Turks, and now Polish. It makes me so proud to call London Home. Its not ANOTHER country. It's MY country.

Superb ...

At 1.40 we see Richmond Bridge and some of the buildings that were incorporated into Quinlan Terry's redevelopment in the 1980s.

Wow. Good quality.

really beautiful

If I been alive in 1935, depending on my age then, might be dead now, and I’m 62, well this was 83 years ago, my late father would have been 17, and my late mother - 8.

85 years on and the world has dramatically changed. What will happen in the next 30 years let alone next 85 will see an amazing change again. Never has the world gone through such an upheaval in known history.

I don’t know why, but seeing the dog made me sad.