DVD Review: London in the Raw (1964)
At last, after talking them up for the last few weeks, we've finally got our hands on the first releases from the Flipside label. Where do we start? Well, why not go in chronological order, kicking off with London in the Raw.
London in the Raw is a documentary. Well, not really, but that's how it is pitched. In reality, this is as much a work of fiction as fact, staged recreations of real life intended to entertain and titillate, despite the high moral tone of the movie's commentary. Yet despite that, you'll still learn an awful lot about 1960s London in this 'mondo' flick and indeed, from the shorts that accompany it.
Kicking off with the moral high ground of the British public school and the British gent getting fitted up for a suit on Savile Row, we're soon taken downmarket by director Arnold Miller inside a bookies, then onto a prostitute entertaining a German tourist. The tone is set - and it rarely goes beyond the seedy and sensationalist from here on in.
On the more 'respectable' side of things, we visit a health club, see a young lady buying lingerie, watch some pretty primitive beauty treatments (including a rather gruesome hair transplant), drop into several teen-friendly night clubs in the capital, take in a nostalgic eatierie, see how those from overseas have settled into London life (Germans and Cypriots in particular), check out a Jewish cabaret, have a drink in a good ol' London boozer with Tommy Pudding, head off to the casino and take a trip to the (in)famous Churchills club, skipping the seedier end of the club's activities.
On the 'wild' side, we enjoy a spot of belly dancing, watch some long-haired beatniks doing some nude life drawing (and bizarrely, eating cat food), see more life drawing in a high-class nightclub, check out how a clip joint rips off its drunken punters, yet more belly dancing, street soliciting, drug dealing, backstreet strip clubs and a night on the meths. You get the idea.
All through the movie, narrator David Gell sits back and casts a disapproving eye and voice on all he sees, making sure the movie stays just on the right side of the censors, while at the same time offering up all the sensationalism required to pull in the punters in the backstreet movie houses. These boys ain't daft.
London in the Raw is amusing, laughable, entertaining, but also incredibly informative. Yes, much of it is staged, but it's a re-staging of a very real world, a world before London started swinging, before society got permissive and a world still naive enough to be shocked by a few beatniks, a belly dancer and a drug dealer in sunglasses. And all of it in bright and bold colours, thanks to an excellent video transfer. I've only watched the DVD version, but I suspect the Blu-ray copies are something else.
That's not all - this disc is packed full of extras too. The booklet is a weighty number, full of essays, background detail and photographs, certainly one of the best DVD booklets I've seen in a long time. Not only that, there's also a bunch of superb archival shorts featuring London life in the era - Pub, Chelsea Bridge Boys and Strip - not to mention an alternative version of the main flick (shorter, but with some extended segments, if that makes sense) and the original trailer. It's what you might call value for money.
Should you buy it? Well, if you have any interest in London past and the 1960s or you just want to be entertained by some low-brow moralising, of course you should. London in the Raw is perfect post-pub viewing and a fascinating glimpse into a world long gone. In short, this is well worth adding to your collection.
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