Paris Mil Neuf Cent Chronique de 1900 à 1914

A charming compilation which broke new ground in its day with its breezily impressionistic portrait of La Belle Epoque, all fun and frolic but ending with a trainload of fodder setting off for the front in 1914. It may have been overtaken by more recent efforts on TV, but the marvellous footage is wittily used: Blériot's triumph after flying the channel, Eiffel and his tower (plus the birdman who sadly plopped from the top), the great flood of Paris, a street round-up of anarchists, snippets of a whole host of personalities from Monet, Renoir and Rodin to Bernhardt, Réjane, Melba, Mistinguett, Colette, Willy and Buffalo Bill. Pity that in the American version, which was cut to 50 mins, Monty Woolley's phrasing of the commentary is so archly facetious.