There's a famous magazine photograph -- well, it's famous in Britain, at any rate -- that was published in Picture Post in 1943. Titled 'Dancing the Lambeth Walk', it depicts a girl about nine years old in an East End street, wearing a woman's high-heeled shoes and spoofing an elegant dancer while other street urchins of the same age laugh at her la-di-dah efforts.
I was reminded of that photo when I saw this brief film, shot in London almost half a century earlier. We see three girls about the same age as that Lambeth Walker, or perhaps just a bit older, performing an elaborate dance in the street while a hurdy-gurdy plays nearby. These girls are wearing elaborate Victorian hats and frocks, yet while they dance they raise their skirts to display their high-buttoned shoes. The crossroads shown here -- as well as the people in the film, and their clothing -- are all clearly more genteel than the East End neighbourhood in that Picture Post photo.
These girls are not extemporising; it's clear that they're performing some dance which they've carefully rehearsed. I wish I could recognise the dance; it might help if I knew what music was playing in this silent film. Although this movie is very brief, it gives us a fascinating glimpse of girls' clothing and shoes of the time period, and the dance may have some historic value as well. My rating for this: 9 out of 10.
