Courtesy of Scottish Screen Archive

Northen Capital (c. 1937) gives an evocative insight into daily life in Scotland's capital in the 1930s. One of several films by keen amateur woman cineaste Jean L. Gray, it was entered in the 1939 Scottish Amateur Film Festival. Eschewing the more familiar aspects of this city of architecture, historical landmarks and tourism, Gray's camera seeks out ordinary people, on the principal thoroughfares and in the environs of the poorer and grubbier parts of the city.

It is interesting to contrast the city high life depicted here (for example the two well-to-do ladies enjoying tea in the Royal Hotel), with scenes of working-class life in the old Canongate. A 'warts and all' portrayal of a city normally presented on screen in more respectable light.

Kenneth Broom

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