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  • Short Summary

    Scenic shots unidentified places all around the World, including shots of British colony.

  • Description

    Various scenic shots unidentified places all around the World.

    Shot from rocky mountain, pan across small valley with narrow road to show trees and another hillside. Tracking shot (slightly wobbly) from vehicle moving down mountain hillside passing rocky slopes and trees. Tracking shot along road winding through valley with steep rocky slopes and trees on either side. Could be Southern France or Spain.

    Panning LS cathedral with trams and pedestrians passing in foreground.

    MS quaint country cottages, pan up to show rocky cliff face behind them - possibly France or could be Wales / Scotland. MS two men going into cave. CU waterfall, pan up to show river, village and cliff face in background.

    Various tracking shots going through town - street scene showing shops, double-decker tram approaching, cars and carriages parked on side. Buildings look colonial, street signs in English. Big building with pillars, people strolling passed stone church. Tracking shots of streets showing houses.

    Shots of tree-lined road curving up hill, mountains in distance. Tram coming down road round curve, pedestrians move to side of road. Shot panning from high place looking over valley showing palm trees and clothes hanging on line with houses beyond. Could be colony, perhaps Caribbean.

    Few more shots of various location shown earlier in item.

    Amendment December 2011: A visitor to the site has written in with additional information. The first section might be an early traffic-less journey up Cheddar Gorge. The double-deck trams passing the "cathedral" are in fact passing Glasgow University. The longer section showing trams (double and single-deck), are in Cape Town. The single-deck trams on the single track are on the Camp's Bay route.

  • Tags

  • Data

    Film ID:
    2430.01
    Media URN:
    76792
    Group:
    Old negatives
    Archive:
    British Pathé
    Issue Date:
    1910 - 1929
    Sound:
    Silent
    HD Format:
    Available on request
    Stock:
    Black & White
    Duration:
    00:10:31:00
    Time in/Out:
    01:00:02:00 / 01:10:33:00
    Canister:
    ON 351 B

Comments (1)

  1. ANTOINE says

    These are not random scenes of different places on the planet, but (with one exception) views of Capetown and its environs, about 1920-25 (from the cars and the fashions). Evidently, the sequence of shots was either never edited up at the time or has been scrambled since. The remainder of the film features the Capetown Parliament Building; Adderley St. (the main commercial thoroughfare); suburban Capetown as viewed from above the city. In various later scenes Table Mountain is seen looming behind the city.

    The opening shots are on/of Table Mountain, with the travelling sequence down the mountain road to the city, via riverside cottages.

    1:20 Two small figures are seen on the rocks far below (bottom right, obscured by Pathé titles), then in close-up at 5:35, suggesting those two scenes are related.

    4:50 NB: the large unidentified cathedral or college is definitely not in Capetown, nor is it Glasgow University, as suggested elsewhere. This is the only anomalous shot on this reel.

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