What's On

At 12 noon on Thursday 19th September The Friends of Dundee City Archives, with the help of Dundee Central Library and the National Library of Scotland, will be showing half an hour of Dundee's earliest silent movies, with an introduction and commentary by Iain Flett.

The selection will start with "Railway Ride over the Tay Bridge". Two years after the Lumière Brothers filmed their 50 seconds of internationally known "Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat, Provence) the Dundee photographer Peter Feathers and exhibitor Pennycook made film in 1897 from the engine front as a steam train pulling away from Wormit station, crossing the Tay rail bridge and passing south bound trains. Four and a half minutes survive of what had been a longer film.

This is followed by 3 minutes of the funeral cortege in 1901 of Alexander Buist, proprietor of Ward Jute Mills, Dundee, one of the first mill owners to supply a creche and school for children of his mill workers. His firm became Don Brothers Buist and continues in Forfar as Don anf Low. The action packed "Strike in Dundee" filmed by Pathe during the Dundee carters' strike, in December, 1911 is only 1 and a half minutes long but shows a packed and tense scene where the Caird Hall now stands.

A Glimpse of the Camperdown Works lasts 2 minutes and was made the next year in 1912 A factory gate film, it shows workers leaving the Camperdown Jute Mill in Dundee and round corner in High St, Lochee.

One of the earliest surviving local topicals in Scotland, it was an idea derived from Lumiere's film of workers leaving factory in Lyon 1896. Filmed by Baillie John Noble, owner of the Oxford Picture House, workers would have queued to see if they could spot themselves,.

Leaping forward to 1920, there is a full five minutes of the action-packed visit of Miss Violet Hopson, "the first British actress to be exploited as a glamorous film star, " when she was entertained by the Dundee Fire brigade demonstrating their firefighting drills in Bell Street.

Finally the Dundee Police Sports Day in 1921 at Dens Park Stadium was obviously the highlight of the year with shots of a women's football team, a pillow fight, gymnastic display, hammer throwing, a display of Highland dancing, boys from the training ship "Mars" demonstrating kickboxing and gymnastic display.

Booking via eventbrite.

Information published by Leisure and Culture Dundee.