Summary: Second World War British Ministry of Information newsreel trailer encouraging the public to save fuel.
Description: The opening title "The Bonnie Earl O'Murrain" appears on the curtain of a life-size version of a child's toy theatre. The curtain is raised to reveal a small stage with painted backdrops depicting the interiors of a Scottish castle. Actors wearing Jacobean dress emote in an exaggerated manner and mime to the words of the rhyming, comic commentary.
The opening scene shows a cook in the kitchen receiving a large cut of meat from a ghillie and placing it on the pretend hearth. "The Bonnie Earl O'Murrain's fuel saving conscience, since his cook (?) would use no fuel, save to cook the red deer haunches". The following scene shows the Earl and his sweetheart seated in the parlour "...so that evening in the parlour when his true love came and sat there, his true love knees began to freeze and his false teeth they did chatter. A fire, a fire cries the Bonnie Earl for the girl I love the best, loves hot flood doth heat my blood, it cannae heat the rest". The cook and ghillie join them in the parlour "..if you want a fire in the parlour, then we have no fire below, and the wedding feast, to say the least, will be as cold as snow". The Earl replies "...our wedding then is a mockery cold, for I have lost my ardour, against Jack Frost I have loved and lost, for Frost it seems was harder". His fiancee then replies "...hey stop... to the kitchen we'll retire, and warm our feet while they cook the meat, we'll all use the kitchen fire". The closing scene sees the Earl and his sweetheart seated in the front of the kitchen fire with the cook and ghillie looking on "...so the Bonnie Earl O'Murrain has shut the ancestral hall, and beside the roast they are as warm as toast, thus true love comforts all". The Earl and his sweetheart both wink at the audience and then, concealed behind her fan, they kiss. The fan bears the words "Be Cosy in the Kitchen" to which an end title adds AND SAVE FUEL.
