Color Video Footage of Bangkok in the 1930s

See it here. It runs almost 8-1/2 minutes and is some sort of MGM travel documentary. This is very rare just because it’s in color.

That’s our main train station at the beginning, Hualamphong Station, still very much in use. Then it shows the Temple of the Emerald Buddha. Most of the canals have sadly been filled in and today are streets, but there are still a few around. The narrator keeps referring to the big river that cuts through the city as the Nam River, which is incorrect. The Thai word for river is mae nam, literally “mother water,” so whoever wrote the script probably picked up on the nam in that. The river’s actual name is the Chao Phraya (always spelled exactly like that in our alphabet, but the Ch at the beginning is actually a J sound.

The narrator mentions at the end that Siam has 12 million people. Today, that’s one estimate of Bangkok alone; Thailand is about 65 million now.

Very interesting, thanks!