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An Exercise In Nonsense

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

Not sure how, but this is easily one of the best movies all summer. Multiple levels of funny, never takes itself seriously, super colorful, and creative.

. . . in your own backyard, favorite picnic area, or on your local ball field during the past million years or so. LOOKING AT LONDON is narrated with the attitude that normal people WANT to know that this small pile of ashes was "Bill Shakespeare's" original draft of TWELFTH NIGHT, or that those smoking embers were once the final resting place chopping block for the noggins of "Annie Boleyn, Walt Raleigh, and King Chuck I." There's way too much historical stuff and famous art work still around for any one person to view it all in even a dozen lifetimes (largely because a few parochial nations insist upon making the "Kodak Moment" process highly expensive, time-consuming, and inefficient by REFUSING to move their most important relics to Arizona for safe-keeping: London Bridge has been kept from falling down ever since it was relocated to near the Grand Canyon decades ago--what are The Great Pyramids, Notre Dame Cathedral, and that Tower of Pizza waiting for, an engraved invitation?) LOOKING AT LONDON strives for a melancholy tone likely to cause viewers to vow NEVER to set foot in England. But the fact of the matter is that if you're the first one in a couple centuries to dig down 10 feet virtually ANYWHERE on this globe, you're simply bound to unearth a few human skeletons before working up a sweat.

Views of damage in London are hard to find in postwar movies. Passport to Pimlico is a rare exception, as is this travelogue. Still to come for plucky peacetime London are additional years of rationing and the killer smog of 1952. The effect of coal smoke is clearly evident in the dark cast to all the buildings. (Yes, I know they also had fires from bombs.) It's no wonder one reviewer remembered this as black and white. Between the condition of the buildings and the fading of the film, it nearly is! :) Looking at this as an opportunity to rebuild on better lines with more appreciation for the landmarks is of course the right way to view the devastation. Sometimes it takes a disaster to put things on a better path.I doubt I would have appreciated these travelogues when they first came out but as history, wow, they are sensational. They went all over Europe right up to the start of war and went back right afterward. Incredible. I hope they are restored some day and kept in an archive for future historians.

Looking at London (1946) *** (out of 4) Another entry in MGM's TravelTalk series this time taking a look at London with such sites as Buckingham Palace, the Bank of England, Hyde Park, the various bridges and much more. This series paid quite a few visits to England so the sites here aren't anything new but what is new is that this was filmed just years after WW2 so we get to see some of the destruction caused by the war. We get to see various buildings that were involved in bombings and this includes the birthplace of Charles and Mary Lamb. While the documentary does look at many bombed sites, it also wants to make clear that the British people are very strong and moving out in repairing their cities.

An MGM TRAVELTALK Short Subject. While LOOKING AT LONDON in this little film we are shown some of the major sights of this mighty capital: Buckingham Palace, the Bank of England, Trafalgar Square, Piccadilly Circus.After gazing at bomb damage left from the Blitz, we are left to contemplate majestic St. Paul's Cathedral. This is one of a large series of succinct travelogues turned out by MGM, beginning in the 1930's. They featured Technicolor views of beautiful & unusual sights around the globe, as well as vivid, concise commentary. These films were produced & narrated by James A. FitzPatrick.