[LONDON - BRITISH FACT AND GERMAN FICTION]

Spanish language version of a British propaganda film on the effects of German air raids on London up to 26th September 1917.

The film contrasts quotes from a German newspaper given as 'Westphalia Daily News' reporting the damage or destruction of prominent landmarks in the centre of London with film of those places taken on dates after the report. The authenticity of the dates is established by the presence of a British special constable who holds up a placard giving the date on which filming is taking place. Care is taken to pan, rather than cut, from these placards. II. Landmarks shown include the Tower of London, the Palace of Westminster, and Westminster Bridge, all undamaged. Piccadilly Circus is undamaged at 3.40pm on 25th September (note the clock). The Bank of England and the Mansion House are also undamaged. Within the Mansion House, the bearer of the Mace announces the Lord Mayor, Colonel Sir William Dunn. German claims to have bombed a munitions factory in central London are contrasted with the actual damage to a small café, probably in King's Cross Road. Further undamaged landmarks are the church of Saint Martin-in-the- Fields, Charing Cross Station, Trafalgar Square and Whitehall. This is contrasted, by way of a headline in the newspaper 'Evening Standard' for 26th September, with a bomb crater outside the Bedford Hotel in Southampton Row in which eleven (actually thirteen) people were killed. An officer in the New Zealand Medical Corps who helped rescue survivors is shown. A fifteenth century house in Holborn, and Saint Paul's Cathedral, also undamaged, are contrasted with "another munitions factory" - a small dairy in Bermondsey - and with working-class houses in Burgoyne Road, Brixton, all gutted by bombs. Liverpool Street Station and Buckingham Palace (with the King in residence) are undamaged. "The population of London is 7 million, the casualties caused by air raids are 191 dead and 749 wounded or 27 dead per million. The total casualties caused by air raids during the war is therefore 940, compared to a total of victims of accidents of all kinds of 14,591." (All quotes translated.)

Catalogue entry from Imperial War Museum: http://film.iwmcollections.org.uk/record/index/45346