London Can Take It by GPO Film Unit Lyrics
Title card featuring a close-up shot of St. Paul's Cathedral and the title "LONDON CAN TAKE IT!"
The next card reads features a distant shot of Buckingham Palace and the text:
"Commentator QUENTIN REYNOLDS
War Correspondent - Collier's Weekly"
COMMENTATOR: I'm speaking from London.
A London street with terraced houses is shown.
COMMENTATOR: It is late afternoon and the people of London are preparing for the night. Everyone is anxious to get home before darkness falls, before our nightly visitors arrive.
Londoners are shown queuing at a bus stop labelled "S". A van and some London Transport RT buses drive by, one featuring an advert for "MANN'S BROWN ALE".
COMMENTATOR: This is the London rush hour. Many of the people at whom you are looking now are members of the greatest civilian army ever to be assembled.
A shot of Westminster Bridge showing traffic, people walking by, the clock tower of the Houses of Parliament (commonly referred to as Big Ben, which is actually the name of the bell inside ) to the right, and some barbed wire to the left.
COMMENTATOR: These men and women who have worked all day in offices or in markets are now hurrying home to change into the uniform of their particular service.
People are shown going down into the London Underground.
COMMENTATOR: The dusk is deepening.
Listening devices are shown, with a man wearing headphones positioning them.
COMMENTATOR: Listening crews are posted all the way from the coast to London to pick up the drone of the German planes.
A street is shown with a sign on a building reading "CARRY ON LONDON AND KEEP YOUR CHIN UP!"
COMMENTATOR: Soon the nightly battle of London will be on. This has been a quiet day for us, but it won't be a quiet night.
A bus stop is shown. The camera pans down to the street showing a group of people.
COMMENTATOR: We haven't had a quiet night now for more than five weeks. They'll be over tonight. They'll destroy a few buildings and kill a few people - probably some of the people you are watching now.
An ARP warden opens the door to a public shelter and people begin to enter.
COMMENTATOR: Now they're going into the public shelters. This is not a pleasant way to spend the night, but the people accept it as they're part of the defence of London.
An anti-aircraft gun pans across the sky. The shot then changes back to the people entering the shelter.
COMMENTATOR: These civilians are good soldiers.
Big Ben chimes out as we see another shot of the Houses of Parliament from Westminster Bridge. Traffic passes by.
COMMENTATOR: Now it's eight o'clock. Jerry's a little bit late tonight.
Soldiers are shown looking at the sky, waiting for German planes to arrive. Men position the searchlights.
COMMENTATOR: Searchlights are in position.
An anti-aircraft gun is raised.
COMMENTATOR: The guns are ready. The people's army of volunteers is ready. They are the ones who are really fighting this war.
Firefighters check their equipment.
COMMENTATOR: The firemen...
An ARP warden stands in front a building protected by sandbags.
COMMENTATOR: The air raid wardens...
Ambulance drivers are shown rushing to a vehicle with a sign on the front reading "STRETCHER PARTY No. 103 St. MARYLEBONE."
COMMENTATOR: The ambulance drivers...
A hand turns the lever on a siren from OFF to WARNING.
COMMENTATOR: And there's the wail of the banshee!
An air raid siren sounds out over an aerial shot of London. The shot changes to a deserted street with a terrace of Georgian houses.
COMMENTATOR: The nightly siege of London has begun. The city is dressed for battle.
A dark room, with people moving around by a single light. Outside, two ARP wardens look to the sky.
COMMENTATOR: Here they come.
The droning of aeroplane engines is heard over a shot of some clouds. Abandoned furniture sits in the street. Some buildings are shown. The droning continues and steadily gets louder.
Searchlights are activated and are pointed at the sky.
COMMENTATOR: Now the searchlights are poking long, white inquisitive fingers into the blackness of the night.
The camera pans up to follow the searchlight into the sky. A still shot of some clouds, and then an anti-aircraft gun fires a volley into the sky.
COMMENTATOR: These are not Hollywood sound effects. This is the music they play every night in London.
Various men attend to searchlights that are shining into the sky.
COMMENTATOR: The symphony of war.
More volleys from an anti-aircraft gun. The shot changes to the the same bus stop from earlier. There is the whistling sound then an explosion and a bright flash.
COMMENTATOR: That was a bomb.
People are shown playing darts and sleeping in a bed in the pubic shelter. Another bright flash goes off followed by more volleys from the anti-aircraft guns. A man is shown sleeping in a hammock also in the public shelter.
More bright flashes, searchlights scanning the sky, and anti-aircraft guns. The flash of a bomb illuminates the silhouette of St. Paul's Cathedral. A man sleeps in a bed next to two children.
COMMENTATOR: The very young and the very old, with that deep wisdom given only to the very young and the very old, sleep in the shelters. Do you see any signs of fear on these faces?
A fire illuminates two ARP wardens.
COMMENTATOR: Now the army of the people swings into action. The bombs have started fires.
A building explodes into flame.
COMMENTATOR: When a bomber starts a fire he immediately returns, uses it as a target, and drops more bombs hoping to spread the fire. Yet the people's army ignores the bombs and the shredded shrapnel that rains down constantly.
Firefighters carry a hose and prepare to fight the fire.
COMMENTATOR: Brokers, clerks, peddlers, merchants by day - they are heroes by night. The night is long, but sooner or later dawn will come. The Germaners are creatures of the night.
The sun rises over London. The Houses of Parliament are filmed from the south bank of the River Thames.
COMMENTATOR: They melt away before the dawn and scurry back to the safety of their own airdromes.
A hand turns the lever on a siren from WARNING to RAIDERS PASSED. Another siren sounds. The waters of the Thames are shown as well as a couple in bed together just waking up.
COMMENTATOR: And there's the wail of the banshee again, this time a friendly wail. The all clear signal tells us that the bombers have gone. It's just six am.
A misty Houses of Parliament and the lamp posts along the Thames are shown.
COMMENTATOR: In this last hour of precious sleep the strange new world finds peace.
Another couple sleeping together in a bed. Then, an aerial shot over a residential area of London showing the Houses of Parliament and Battersea Power Station in the distance.
COMMENTATOR: London raises her head, shakes the debris of the night from her hair, and takes stock of the damage done.
A shot of a narrow street with damage to the surface. Then, a house that has been bombed and reduced to rubble.
COMMENTATOR: London has been damaged during the night. The sign of a great fighter in the ring is: Can he get up from the floor after being knocked down?
Above, a person looks out of a window. A woman takes in the milk delivery from her doorstep and gently pushes aside a piece of debris with her foot.
COMMENTATOR: London does this every morning. London doesn't look down upon the ruins of its houses, of those made homeless during the night...
Two women talk to a police officer on some damaged ground.
COMMENTATOR: ...upon the remains of churches...
Debris and twisted fences are piled up against a lone gravestone. A bent sign post reads "PUBLIC FOOTPATH".
COMMENTATOR: ...hospitals, workers' flats.
A block of flats has had a chunk taken out of it by a bomb. A man lights his pipe and walks past some bombed houses.
COMMENTATOR: London looks upwards t'ward the dawn and faces the new day with calmness and confidence.
On a main road leading to a bridge over the Thames, traffic and pedestrians carry on past bomb sites where workers are clearing debris.
COMMENTATOR: The peoples' army go to work as they did in that other comfortable world which came to an end when the invader began to attack the last strongholds of freedom.
Another bomb site is shown with a bus on its side and wedged into a building. Workers clear debris.
COMMENTATOR: Not all the services run as they did yesterday. But London manages to get to work on time.
Across a damaged viaduct a London Underground P Stock train passes by.
COMMENTATOR: One way...
Four people ride to work along Oxford Street in the back of a horse and cart.
COMMENTATOR: ...or another. In the centre of the city the shops are open as usual.
People walk along a busy street past furniture blocking off a bomb site. A worker sweeps glass and debris from a doorway.
COMMENTATOR: In fact many of them are more open than usual.
A woman steps into a blown-out shop window to and a worker helps her to buy a coat.
COMMENTATOR: Doctor Paul Joseph Goebbels said recently that the nightly air raids have had a terrific effect upon the morale of the people of London. The good doctor is absolutely right.
People bring furniture and other items out of their damaged homes.
COMMENTATOR: Today the morale of the people is higher than ever before.
Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother examines a bomb site.
COMMENTATOR: They are fused together not by fear but a surging spirit of courage the like of which the world has never known.
People are shown at work, then there is a shot through the windows of a damaged building of crowds outside walking to work.
COMMENTATOR: They know that thousands of them will die.
ARP wardens and other workers use a pickaxe to dig through debris.
COMMENTATOR: But they would rather stand up and face death than kneel down and face the kind of existence the conquerer would impose upon them.
Men line up to talk to Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother. Then a shot of two men clearing a large pile of debris near the Monument.
COMMENTATOR: And they know too, and are comforted by the thought, that England is not taking its beating lying down.
Traffic passes along a street past a damaged building, and then a shot of Trafalgar Square with soldiers passing by.
COMMENTATOR: They are guarding the frontiers of freedom. It is hard to see five centuries of labour destroyed in five seconds.
More damaged buildings are shown, including Buckingham Palace. Then a shot from the City of London showing St. Paul's Cathedral at the end of the street.
COMMENTATOR: But London is fighting back. I am a neutral reporter.
Firefighters spray water onto a building, while ARP wardens and other workers clear debris.
COMMENTATOR: I have watched the people of London live and die ever since death in its most ghastly garb began to come here as a nightly visitor five weeks ago.
People stand and talk in the street. Then workers take furniture out of a bombed house.
COMMENTATOR: I have watched them stand by their homes. I have seen them made homeless. I have seen them move to new homes.
Evacuee children queue to board buses as a man speaks through a megaphone.
COMMENTATOR: And I can assure you there is no panic, no fear, no despair in London town.
A bus drives past another bus waiting labelled "PRIVATE" which is full of children. The bus leaves as people wave goodbye.
COMMENTATOR: There's nothing but determination, confidence, and high courage among the people of Churchill's island.
A man writes "BERLIN BOMBED" on a chalkboard. Members of the RAF load a bomb onto a plane.
COMMENTATOR: And they know that every night the RAF bombers fly deep into the heart of Germany.
Another chalkboard reads "RAF SMASH INVASION PORTS".
COMMENTATOR: Bombing munition works, aeroplane factories, canals... cutting the arteries which keep the heart of Germany alive.
RAF bombers fly over the countryside.
COMMENTATOR: It is true that the Nazis will be over again tomorrow night. And the night after that.
Workers are shown sweeping debris from machinery and from the pavement outside their shops. Two ARP wardens talk.
COMMENTATOR: And every night.
Various shops and businesses are shown including "DUTCH BOY LAUNDRY".
COMMENTATOR: They will drop hundreds of bombs. And they'll destroy hundreds of buildings. And they'll kill thousands of people.
ARP wardens rescue a black and white cat from a pile of debris.
COMMENTATOR: But a bomb has its limitations. It can only destroy buildings and kill people.
Another bomb site is shown. An ARP warden asks a van driver to light his cigarette.
COMMENTATOR: It cannot kill the unconquerable spirit and courage of the people of London.
The statue "Richard Coeur de Lion", a statue of Richard I riding a horse and holding aloft a sword, is shown in front of a blown-out window in the Palace of Westminster.
COMMENTATOR: London can take it.
The text "THE END" appears over the above shot.
The next card reads features a distant shot of Buckingham Palace and the text:
"Commentator QUENTIN REYNOLDS
War Correspondent - Collier's Weekly"
COMMENTATOR: I'm speaking from London.
A London street with terraced houses is shown.
COMMENTATOR: It is late afternoon and the people of London are preparing for the night. Everyone is anxious to get home before darkness falls, before our nightly visitors arrive.
Londoners are shown queuing at a bus stop labelled "S". A van and some London Transport RT buses drive by, one featuring an advert for "MANN'S BROWN ALE".
COMMENTATOR: This is the London rush hour. Many of the people at whom you are looking now are members of the greatest civilian army ever to be assembled.
A shot of Westminster Bridge showing traffic, people walking by, the clock tower of the Houses of Parliament (commonly referred to as Big Ben, which is actually the name of the bell inside ) to the right, and some barbed wire to the left.
COMMENTATOR: These men and women who have worked all day in offices or in markets are now hurrying home to change into the uniform of their particular service.
People are shown going down into the London Underground.
COMMENTATOR: The dusk is deepening.
Listening devices are shown, with a man wearing headphones positioning them.
COMMENTATOR: Listening crews are posted all the way from the coast to London to pick up the drone of the German planes.
A street is shown with a sign on a building reading "CARRY ON LONDON AND KEEP YOUR CHIN UP!"
COMMENTATOR: Soon the nightly battle of London will be on. This has been a quiet day for us, but it won't be a quiet night.
A bus stop is shown. The camera pans down to the street showing a group of people.
COMMENTATOR: We haven't had a quiet night now for more than five weeks. They'll be over tonight. They'll destroy a few buildings and kill a few people - probably some of the people you are watching now.
An ARP warden opens the door to a public shelter and people begin to enter.
COMMENTATOR: Now they're going into the public shelters. This is not a pleasant way to spend the night, but the people accept it as they're part of the defence of London.
An anti-aircraft gun pans across the sky. The shot then changes back to the people entering the shelter.
COMMENTATOR: These civilians are good soldiers.
Big Ben chimes out as we see another shot of the Houses of Parliament from Westminster Bridge. Traffic passes by.
COMMENTATOR: Now it's eight o'clock. Jerry's a little bit late tonight.
Soldiers are shown looking at the sky, waiting for German planes to arrive. Men position the searchlights.
COMMENTATOR: Searchlights are in position.
An anti-aircraft gun is raised.
COMMENTATOR: The guns are ready. The people's army of volunteers is ready. They are the ones who are really fighting this war.
Firefighters check their equipment.
COMMENTATOR: The firemen...
An ARP warden stands in front a building protected by sandbags.
COMMENTATOR: The air raid wardens...
Ambulance drivers are shown rushing to a vehicle with a sign on the front reading "STRETCHER PARTY No. 103 St. MARYLEBONE."
COMMENTATOR: The ambulance drivers...
A hand turns the lever on a siren from OFF to WARNING.
COMMENTATOR: And there's the wail of the banshee!
An air raid siren sounds out over an aerial shot of London. The shot changes to a deserted street with a terrace of Georgian houses.
COMMENTATOR: The nightly siege of London has begun. The city is dressed for battle.
A dark room, with people moving around by a single light. Outside, two ARP wardens look to the sky.
COMMENTATOR: Here they come.
The droning of aeroplane engines is heard over a shot of some clouds. Abandoned furniture sits in the street. Some buildings are shown. The droning continues and steadily gets louder.
Searchlights are activated and are pointed at the sky.
COMMENTATOR: Now the searchlights are poking long, white inquisitive fingers into the blackness of the night.
The camera pans up to follow the searchlight into the sky. A still shot of some clouds, and then an anti-aircraft gun fires a volley into the sky.
COMMENTATOR: These are not Hollywood sound effects. This is the music they play every night in London.
Various men attend to searchlights that are shining into the sky.
COMMENTATOR: The symphony of war.
More volleys from an anti-aircraft gun. The shot changes to the the same bus stop from earlier. There is the whistling sound then an explosion and a bright flash.
COMMENTATOR: That was a bomb.
People are shown playing darts and sleeping in a bed in the pubic shelter. Another bright flash goes off followed by more volleys from the anti-aircraft guns. A man is shown sleeping in a hammock also in the public shelter.
More bright flashes, searchlights scanning the sky, and anti-aircraft guns. The flash of a bomb illuminates the silhouette of St. Paul's Cathedral. A man sleeps in a bed next to two children.
COMMENTATOR: The very young and the very old, with that deep wisdom given only to the very young and the very old, sleep in the shelters. Do you see any signs of fear on these faces?
A fire illuminates two ARP wardens.
COMMENTATOR: Now the army of the people swings into action. The bombs have started fires.
A building explodes into flame.
COMMENTATOR: When a bomber starts a fire he immediately returns, uses it as a target, and drops more bombs hoping to spread the fire. Yet the people's army ignores the bombs and the shredded shrapnel that rains down constantly.
Firefighters carry a hose and prepare to fight the fire.
COMMENTATOR: Brokers, clerks, peddlers, merchants by day - they are heroes by night. The night is long, but sooner or later dawn will come. The Germaners are creatures of the night.
The sun rises over London. The Houses of Parliament are filmed from the south bank of the River Thames.
COMMENTATOR: They melt away before the dawn and scurry back to the safety of their own airdromes.
A hand turns the lever on a siren from WARNING to RAIDERS PASSED. Another siren sounds. The waters of the Thames are shown as well as a couple in bed together just waking up.
COMMENTATOR: And there's the wail of the banshee again, this time a friendly wail. The all clear signal tells us that the bombers have gone. It's just six am.
A misty Houses of Parliament and the lamp posts along the Thames are shown.
COMMENTATOR: In this last hour of precious sleep the strange new world finds peace.
Another couple sleeping together in a bed. Then, an aerial shot over a residential area of London showing the Houses of Parliament and Battersea Power Station in the distance.
COMMENTATOR: London raises her head, shakes the debris of the night from her hair, and takes stock of the damage done.
A shot of a narrow street with damage to the surface. Then, a house that has been bombed and reduced to rubble.
COMMENTATOR: London has been damaged during the night. The sign of a great fighter in the ring is: Can he get up from the floor after being knocked down?
Above, a person looks out of a window. A woman takes in the milk delivery from her doorstep and gently pushes aside a piece of debris with her foot.
COMMENTATOR: London does this every morning. London doesn't look down upon the ruins of its houses, of those made homeless during the night...
Two women talk to a police officer on some damaged ground.
COMMENTATOR: ...upon the remains of churches...
Debris and twisted fences are piled up against a lone gravestone. A bent sign post reads "PUBLIC FOOTPATH".
COMMENTATOR: ...hospitals, workers' flats.
A block of flats has had a chunk taken out of it by a bomb. A man lights his pipe and walks past some bombed houses.
COMMENTATOR: London looks upwards t'ward the dawn and faces the new day with calmness and confidence.
On a main road leading to a bridge over the Thames, traffic and pedestrians carry on past bomb sites where workers are clearing debris.
COMMENTATOR: The peoples' army go to work as they did in that other comfortable world which came to an end when the invader began to attack the last strongholds of freedom.
Another bomb site is shown with a bus on its side and wedged into a building. Workers clear debris.
COMMENTATOR: Not all the services run as they did yesterday. But London manages to get to work on time.
Across a damaged viaduct a London Underground P Stock train passes by.
COMMENTATOR: One way...
Four people ride to work along Oxford Street in the back of a horse and cart.
COMMENTATOR: ...or another. In the centre of the city the shops are open as usual.
People walk along a busy street past furniture blocking off a bomb site. A worker sweeps glass and debris from a doorway.
COMMENTATOR: In fact many of them are more open than usual.
A woman steps into a blown-out shop window to and a worker helps her to buy a coat.
COMMENTATOR: Doctor Paul Joseph Goebbels said recently that the nightly air raids have had a terrific effect upon the morale of the people of London. The good doctor is absolutely right.
People bring furniture and other items out of their damaged homes.
COMMENTATOR: Today the morale of the people is higher than ever before.
Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother examines a bomb site.
COMMENTATOR: They are fused together not by fear but a surging spirit of courage the like of which the world has never known.
People are shown at work, then there is a shot through the windows of a damaged building of crowds outside walking to work.
COMMENTATOR: They know that thousands of them will die.
ARP wardens and other workers use a pickaxe to dig through debris.
COMMENTATOR: But they would rather stand up and face death than kneel down and face the kind of existence the conquerer would impose upon them.
Men line up to talk to Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother. Then a shot of two men clearing a large pile of debris near the Monument.
COMMENTATOR: And they know too, and are comforted by the thought, that England is not taking its beating lying down.
Traffic passes along a street past a damaged building, and then a shot of Trafalgar Square with soldiers passing by.
COMMENTATOR: They are guarding the frontiers of freedom. It is hard to see five centuries of labour destroyed in five seconds.
More damaged buildings are shown, including Buckingham Palace. Then a shot from the City of London showing St. Paul's Cathedral at the end of the street.
COMMENTATOR: But London is fighting back. I am a neutral reporter.
Firefighters spray water onto a building, while ARP wardens and other workers clear debris.
COMMENTATOR: I have watched the people of London live and die ever since death in its most ghastly garb began to come here as a nightly visitor five weeks ago.
People stand and talk in the street. Then workers take furniture out of a bombed house.
COMMENTATOR: I have watched them stand by their homes. I have seen them made homeless. I have seen them move to new homes.
Evacuee children queue to board buses as a man speaks through a megaphone.
COMMENTATOR: And I can assure you there is no panic, no fear, no despair in London town.
A bus drives past another bus waiting labelled "PRIVATE" which is full of children. The bus leaves as people wave goodbye.
COMMENTATOR: There's nothing but determination, confidence, and high courage among the people of Churchill's island.
A man writes "BERLIN BOMBED" on a chalkboard. Members of the RAF load a bomb onto a plane.
COMMENTATOR: And they know that every night the RAF bombers fly deep into the heart of Germany.
Another chalkboard reads "RAF SMASH INVASION PORTS".
COMMENTATOR: Bombing munition works, aeroplane factories, canals... cutting the arteries which keep the heart of Germany alive.
RAF bombers fly over the countryside.
COMMENTATOR: It is true that the Nazis will be over again tomorrow night. And the night after that.
Workers are shown sweeping debris from machinery and from the pavement outside their shops. Two ARP wardens talk.
COMMENTATOR: And every night.
Various shops and businesses are shown including "DUTCH BOY LAUNDRY".
COMMENTATOR: They will drop hundreds of bombs. And they'll destroy hundreds of buildings. And they'll kill thousands of people.
ARP wardens rescue a black and white cat from a pile of debris.
COMMENTATOR: But a bomb has its limitations. It can only destroy buildings and kill people.
Another bomb site is shown. An ARP warden asks a van driver to light his cigarette.
COMMENTATOR: It cannot kill the unconquerable spirit and courage of the people of London.
The statue "Richard Coeur de Lion", a statue of Richard I riding a horse and holding aloft a sword, is shown in front of a blown-out window in the Palace of Westminster.
COMMENTATOR: London can take it.
The text "THE END" appears over the above shot.