OLD FATHER WILLIAM [Main Title]

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  • Title: OLD FATHER WILLIAM [Main Title]
  • Film Number: IWM 543
  • Other titles: KINCARTOONS [Series Title]
  • Summary: Cartoon appeal for British people to buy National War Savings Certificates for social improvement, 1917-1918.
  • Description: The cartoon, a parody of Lewis Carroll's poem, shows a young man talking to his father after the war. A pencil draws the scene which animates itself. The old man tells how during the war he and his wife got jobs in munitions, investing the money in National War Savings Certificates, and this has given him a private income for life. Before the war over half of British goods were bought from abroad, from German-looking suppliers, but (in this vision of the future) after the war the money invested in the certificates is used to make the same consumer goods at home using the industrial capacity generated by munitions production. Final shot of John Bull sitting beside a factory from which pour consumer goods.
  • Access Conditions: IWM Attribution: © IWM (IWM 543)
  • Featured Period: 1914-1918
  • Production Date: 1917 1918
  • Production Country: GB
  • Production Details: National War Savings Committee (Production sponsor) Kinsella and Morgan (Production company)
  • Personalities, Units and Organisations:
  • Keywords: propaganda, British - practical (object name) economics, British national - trade (object name) 31/3(41) (event) Animation (concept)
  • Physical Characteristics: Colour format: B&W Sound format: Silent Soundtrack language: None Title language: English Subtitle language: English
  • Technical Details: Format: 35mm Number of items/reels/tapes: 1 Footage: 356 ft; Running time: 6 mins
  • HD Media:Yes
  • Notes: Summary: see IWM 542 and the rest of the KINCARTOONS series. See also the Pathé KINKARTOONS Remarks: an elegant, simple way of conveying a complex political message. So much so that, if its implications are realised, it begs several important political questions. Also unusual in that it discusses post-war society in terms of economic programmes rather than visions of eternal peace and harmony. Sadly, it cannot be precisely dated
  • Link to IWM Collections page:

    IWM 543

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