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Making Christmas Crackers (1910)
 

BFI

Main image of Making Christmas Crackers (1910)
 
35mm, black and white, silent, 380 feet
 
Production CompanyCricks and Martin
SponsorClark, Nickolls & Coombs

Cast: A.E. Coleby (father around the Christmas tree)

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The manufacture of Christmas crackers, with a glimpse of a family enjoying them.

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This seasonal interest film shows the girls and women of Messrs Clark, Nickolls and Coombs factory making Christmas decorations (probably at the company's licensed Clamico Works, at Victoria Park, London). It illustrates the various processes involved, with some work done by hand and some with the aid of machines.

The workforce that we see consists exclusively of women. The girls are all very neatly dressed and orderly - in marked contrast to some other films of industrial processes such as the same year's A Day in the Life of a Coal Miner, in which women are seen doing very heavy physical labour. As was usual for interest films of this type, the finished product is seen being enjoyed by a bourgeois family round the Christmas tree, with Santa putting in a special cameo appearance. Presumably the producers were aiming at this respectable middle-class audience and at those a bit further down the social scale who might aspire to join it.

Bryony Dixon

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Video Clips
Complete film (6:17)
GALLERY / SCRIPTS / AUDIO
SEE ALSO
Day in the Life of a Coal Miner, A (1910)
Visit to Peek Frean and Co.'s Biscuit Works, A (1906)
Cricks, George (1861-1936)
Cricks and Martin
A Year in Film: 1910