Underplayed Gems

London to Brighton in Four Minutes (1953)

London to Brighton in Four Minutes poster
Directed by
Don Smith
Genre
documentary
Country
United Kingdom
Runtime
4 min
Rating
6.2 of 10 from 16 voters
Elsewhere
IMDb
The 3D catalogue: film cases on wooden shelves, with the cat sitting at the counter next to its greeting.

The catalogue in 3D

The film shelves have a room of their own that you can walk around in. The cat behind the counter is the AI Catbot, and they pick real films from the same catalogue when you tell them what you feel like watching. Nothing is for sale, here or in there. Go in from here and this film is already out on the counter, with more like it waiting on the shelf next to it.

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How it feels

A camera shows a train ride from London to Brighton in fast motion, compressing an hour-long journey into four minutes. Made for a children's TV news program, it became a beloved British broadcast that viewers watched over and over.

fast-pacednostalgicwhimsicaltime-capsulelight-heartedobservationalspeedy

What happens

London to Brighton in Four Minutes is a short film produced by the BBC Film Unit in the early 1950s showing a train journey from London Victoria to Brighton in England. The camera was manually undercranked to produce a fast motion film so that the journey lasted only four minutes instead of the actual time of about one hour. It was originally shown on BBC Television's Children's Newsreel and over the years its frequent repeat transmissions became very popular with British television viewers of all ages. Later versions were produced, particularly in 1983 and 2013, showing some of the cultural and operational changes that had taken place. The films show the train driver's view ahead during a journey aboard the Brighton Belle. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

More like this

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