This film is part of Free
What's Wrong with the Fish?
Sing up and eat up! Billingsgate market traders sing for your supper
Overview
Billingsgate market traders sing for your supper in this delightful newsreel item, which highlights a campaign to promote a 'piscatorial diet'. It might seem odd that a song should be centre stage in a silent newsreel, but the intertitles helpfully provide the words, and hopefully the cinema pianist would have had the sheet music... The 'Offishal Fish Song Fox Trot' was composed by popular British songwriters Harry Tilsley and Tolchard Evans. Evans became a silent cinema pianist in the same year.
Uncharacteristically for a Topical Budget newsreel item, the delightful song sheet illustration is used as an opener in place of the usual item title card.
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