Mitchell & Kenyon ... Wonderful!!

Subject: Mitchell & Kenyon ... Wonderful!!
From: GUEST
Date: 24 Jan 05 - 08:22 AM

BBC (in UK) are currently running a series of OLD (approx. year 1902 to 1904) films which have recently been discovered.

This week's prog had a sequence of morris dancers, clog dancers, stilt dancers etc. all processing down a street in Crewe. Amazing.

They also had a clip of Manchester United playing in about 1904 - they didn't look as if they'd beat yer average schoolgirls team now.

Anybody else see this ??

Subject: RE: Mitchell & Kenyon ... Wonderful!!
From: GUEST
Date: 24 Jan 05 - 10:16 AM

Fantastic stuff...a Tutankhamun's Tomb of images of a generation we thought lost to sight., These are working people as we never thought we'd ever see them. Quite often I've been moved to tears by these ghosts of our past.All those young boys with ten or twelve years to grow ready for the slaughter of the First World War.The football scenes are incredible, crowd,grounds, players etc. I hope they put it all on DVD for us soon.

Subject: RE: Mitchell & Kenyon ... Wonderful!!
From: DMcG
Date: 24 Jan 05 - 10:23 AM

And for your second wish?

Subject: RE: Mitchell & Kenyon ... Wonderful!!
From: GUEST
Date: 24 Jan 05 - 10:25 AM

Merci!!

Subject: RE: Mitchell & Kenyon ... Wonderful!!
From: John C.
Date: 24 Jan 05 - 02:03 PM

Yes, fantastic. I wasn't born in the Northwest but when I first moved here, over 30 years ago, I remember meeting an elderly couple who had memories stretching back to the early years of the 20th Century and they made a deep impression on me. They are long gone now but I think that I glimpsed, in these incredible films, something of the world that they might just have known in their childhoods.

Subject: RE: Mitchell & Kenyon ... Wonderful!!
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 24 Jan 05 - 02:12 PM

Amazing stuff. One thing that comes across, looking back from today, is how much of what you see there was still pretty much that way when I was growing up in the 1940s.

But as GUEST 24 Jan 05 - 10:16 AM (give us a handle of some kind, for Gawd's sake!) comments, it's impossible to look at scenes of kids in the early years of the last century without having a shiver go down your back about what was waiting for them a few years down the road. It adds an extra layer of poignancy.

Subject: RE: Mitchell & Kenyon ... Wonderful!!
From: Willa
Date: 24 Jan 05 - 02:14 PM

Wonderful stuff. We take so much for granted these days!

Subject: RE: Mitchell & Kenyon ... Wonderful!!
From: el_punkoid_nouveau
Date: 24 Jan 05 - 03:13 PM

I haven't got as far as watching it yet - but I plan to. I saw a couple of clips, setting up the video, and it looks absolutely fascinating.

The beeb were talking of doing a series on people's archives of movie footage, but naught seems to have come of it - shame, for I have about 60 years of movie footage to get on to video/DVD, with film of pre-war UK and Germany.

epn

Subject: RE: Mitchell & Kenyon ... Wonderful!!
From: Fliss
Date: 24 Jan 05 - 06:57 PM

I cant get over how clear the footage is. I cant wait for the next set of films. Havnt they been well restored.

We are so used to seeing film footage but for the people at the turn of the 20th C it must have seemed like magic.

The best thing is the people watching their long dead relatives who they have only seen in photos. Its really very moving.

Ive had a look at the BBC website and aim to get the DVD soon.

f

Subject: RE: Mitchell & Kenyon ... Wonderful!!
From: GUEST,E C Miller
Date: 28 Jan 05 - 05:42 PM

Wonderful all I want now is to know where I can buy the DVD be gratful if you can tell me My wife and I have so enjoyed the series

Subject: RE: Mitchell & Kenyon ... Wonderful!!
From: Emma B
Date: 28 Jan 05 - 07:06 PM

Oh wasn't it just - and the last one tonight! I was born and bred and still live in the North West - a delight!

Subject: RE: Mitchell & Kenyon ... Wonderful!!
From: gnomad
Date: 28 Jan 05 - 08:36 PM

Terrific stuff, what a change. It seems that the quality is because what was found was the master films (negatives) which didn't get the wear and tear of being projected.

All credit to the guy who found them and donated them to the National Film Archive.

Subject: RE: Mitchell & Kenyon ... Wonderful!!
From: GUEST
Date: 29 Jan 05 - 07:39 AM

Wonderful programmes! Can anyone identify the Morris side that appeared in last nights broadcast?

Subject: RE: Mitchell & Kenyon ... Wonderful!!
From: Flash Company
Date: 29 Jan 05 - 07:42 AM

Today's DT indicates that the three programmes broadcast have already been released on DVD, with a second set being released later in the Spring.

FC

Subject: RE: Mitchell & Kenyon ... Wonderful!!
From: Manitas_at_home
Date: 29 Jan 05 - 10:41 AM

There was a discussion about the films on the Morris Dance Discussion List a few weeks ago. Some film of the Leyland Morris dancers was expected to be shown.

Subject: RE: Mitchell & Kenyon ... Wonderful!!
From: GUEST,NIckp
Date: 29 Jan 05 - 11:10 AM

There was about 5 seconds of a north west team. A wonderful series and I'll look forward to a second helping

Subject: RE: Mitchell & Kenyon ... Wonderful!!
From: Mr Red
Date: 29 Jan 05 - 11:20 AM

Yep I caught most of it, I did notice that the cloggies were dancing at a very attractive pace, And at the same lilt as the alternat4e leg hoppers too. But the engineer in me doesn't believe gravity works that slowly. I think the jerkiness was removed by translating the 16 frames a second common then into 50 frames a second (25 interlaced). But I ain't never seen moon walkers in clogs till now. Even for morris dancers that is a bit unusual.

Subject: RE: Mitchell & Kenyon ... Wonderful!!
From: Fliss
Date: 29 Jan 05 - 03:35 PM

Just ordered the DVD, cant wait to watch it. Makes you wonder just what other archive lurks undiscovered in someones basement or loft!
f

Subject: RE: Mitchell & Kenyon ... Wonderful!!
From: Manitas_at_home
Date: 30 Jan 05 - 03:06 AM

I think the jerkiness is caused by the film being hand-cranked. I'm not sure they even had a governing mechanism. I can't believe that we've changed the way we walk that much.

Subject: RE: Mitchell & Kenyon ... Wonderful!!
From: GUEST,Marianne Smits-Jansen, The Netherlands
Date: 30 Jan 05 - 05:26 AM

I enjoyed the showing on BBC so much, when in secondary school a very long time ago, just after WW 2, I loved history, and the industrialization that began in England, was my favourite period. Now I could watch how life of people was in reality, hope to see more of it!

Subject: RE: Mitchell & Kenyon ... Wonderful!!
From: Billy Weeks
Date: 30 Jan 05 - 06:44 AM

It would be wonderful to have these films on DVD with a measured commentary instead of Dan Cruickshank's boring breathlessness and without (purlease without)the god-awful comic interruptions. This amazing chronicle does not need to be patronised in such a dumbed-down manner. The presentation said a lot about what the producers think of the intelligence of their viewers and very little of value about the quality of Mitchell and Kenyon's work. By contrast, the reactions of the descendants were sheer magic. I would have liked more of them and more of the original footage. Incidentally did anyone else find the background music mostly irrelevant?

Subject: RE: Mitchell & Kenyon ... Wonderful!!
From: Folk Form # 1
Date: 30 Jan 05 - 10:15 AM

I agree about Dan Cruickshank being boring. I reallly do not enjoy watching someone reading from a newspaper, even if it is a turn of the century newspaper. The footage, however, was amazing.

Subject: RE: Mitchell & Kenyon ... Wonderful!!
From:
Date: 03 Feb 05 - 12:46 PM

If you wait until April this year, the British Film Institute will be releasing a DVD of selected footage from the vast catalogue of films. Commentary by Dr Vanessa Toulmin and a specially commissioned score

`worth waiting for......

Subject: RE: Mitchell & Kenyon ... Wonderful!!
From: Hawker
Date: 03 Feb 05 - 07:06 PM

Thanks DMcG for the link, my old man will be delighted - and you all know what he's getting for his birthday!!!!!
Cheers, Lucy