Movies - London in film

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	Movies - London in film

London has been used as a film location more times than almost any other city in the world. These have ranged from historical recreations of the Victorian London of Charles Dickens and Sherlock Holmes, to the romantic comedies of Bridget Jones's Diary and Notting Hill
, by way of crime films, spy thrillers, science fiction and the "swinging London" films of the 1960s.

Because of the dominant role played by the city in the British media, the number of British films set in London is huge. It has also been used many times in American films, and often recreated on a Hollywood studio backlot. The purpose of this article is to identify some of the main topics in the cinematic depiction of the city.

Historical London

Historical recreations of London on screen have been relatively frequent. The Victorian, Tudor, Edwardian and Second World War periods in the city's history have all been regularly depicted.

Pre-Victorian London

London in the Elizabethan Era has often been portrayed in films, including Fire Over England
(1937), The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex
(1939) and Elizabeth (1998). Much of Shakespeare in Love
(1998), a comedy involving Shakespeare in a fictionalised romance, was set around the original Globe Theatre, as was Laurence Olivier's 1944 Henry V
.

The Tudor period has also been shown in other films, including the 1966 film of Robert Bolt's play A Man for All Seasons
, and various versions of Mark Twain's The Prince and the Pauper.

Cromwell
(1970) is one of the few films to show the city during the English Civil War, but several have been set during the subsequent restoration of the monarchy under Charles II. These include Nell Gwynn (1937), Forever Amber
(1947) and Stage Beauty
(2003). The 1995 film Restoration
incorporates both the Great Plague and the Great Fire of London of 1665-66.

Late 18th and early 19th century London has been seen in a number of films, including Lady Hamilton (1941), Lady Caroline Lamb (1972), A Bequest to the Nation (1973), Princess Caraboo (1994), Sense and Sensibility (1995), and the various versions of The Scarlet Pimpernel
.

Several 1960s films showed a grimier, more realistic depiction of 18th Century London, including Where's Jack? (1968), based on the true story of highwayman Jack Shepherd and crime boss Jonathan Wild.

Victorian London

One of the most popular images of the city is the Victorian era of Charles Dickens, Jack the Ripper and Sherlock Holmes. There have been almost 200 films based on the novels of Charles Dickens alone, beginning with the silent short film Death of Nancy Sykes in 1897. The most memorable of these are probably the musical Oliver!
and the two David Lean films of Oliver Twist
(1948) and Great Expectations
(1946). Other film adaptations include David Copperfield in 1935 and 1969, Nicholas Nickleby in 1947 and 2002, The Pickwick Papers
in 1952 and Little Dorrit in 1987. There have also been many versions of Dickens' A Christmas Carol
, the best known of which is probably the 1951 Alastair Sim film Scrooge
.

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