Metadata
WORK ID: YFA 2929 (Master Record)
| Title | Year | Date |
| A BEDTIME STORY | 1959 | 1959-01-01 |
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Details
Original Format: 16mm Colour: Colour Sound: Silent Duration: 7 mins 53 secs Credits: Filmed by A R Smith Subject: Family Life |
| Summary Made by A R Smith, this film features Ann, age 2, as she reads a book before bedtime. However, this is no ordinary bedtime story, for as she reads about the animals, each one comes to life. After finishing the book, Ann goes upstairs and climbs into bed with all of her toys. |
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Description
Made by A R Smith, this film features Ann, age 2, as she reads a book before bedtime. However, this is no ordinary bedtime story, for as she reads about the animals, each one comes to life. After finishing the book, Ann goes upstairs and climbs into bed with all of her toys.
Titles:
"A Bedtime Story"
"Filmed by A R Smith"
In the background of the titles is a picture of a pig sitting with some chickens.
Title: "With Ann Aged Two",
Ann is in background....
Made by A R Smith, this film features Ann, age 2, as she reads a book before bedtime. However, this is no ordinary bedtime story, for as she reads about the animals, each one comes to life. After finishing the book, Ann goes upstairs and climbs into bed with all of her toys.
Titles:
"A Bedtime Story"
"Filmed by A R Smith"
In the background of the titles is a picture of a pig sitting with some chickens.
Title: "With Ann Aged Two",
Ann is in background.
Ann, is dressed in a blue dressing gown, slippers, and night clothes. With a doll in her hand, she enters the living room. Ann arranges her doll on the sofa with her other toys already there.
Whilst cradling a doll in her hand, she picks up a book with a horse on the front titled "Our Friends." She opens the book to a page with ducks.
Four children play by the side of a lake and feed the ducks. One of the children has a net.
Ann is still on the sofa, now reading about rabbits. Real rabbits sit eating some grass. Ann reads the next page about a kitten. Real Siamese kittens crawl around on a mat. Ann then passes the book in front of a doll to read. She looks at horses in the book, and Ann points to an ornament of horses on a shelf. Real horses stand in a field.
A puppet pops up behind the sofa on which Ann is seated. She turns and tries to grab at it. The puppet claps. Two wooden Owl-shaped salt and pepper shakers turn towards each other. Ann laughs and continues to read with the same pattern of looking at animals in the book, then real ones. This occurs with: pigs, cows, sheep and hens.
Ann kisses all her toys on the sofa individually before gathering them all up and taking them to bed. She arranges them all on her bed then gets in herself. She sucks her thumb and then falls fast asleep.
Title: "The End"
Context
This film was made by a keen filmmaker who lived in Skidby, East Yorkshire, Albert Smith. Albert left a sizeable collection of extremely well made films, often revealing his interests in wildlife and travel. The films that the YFA have date form 1956 to 1970, and include a film on The Changing Face Of Skidby from 1967. This film was made in the same year as another of Albert’s that can be seen on YFA Online, The East Riding. Both films give a good indication that Albert was a lover of...
This film was made by a keen filmmaker who lived in Skidby, East Yorkshire, Albert Smith. Albert left a sizeable collection of extremely well made films, often revealing his interests in wildlife and travel. The films that the YFA have date form 1956 to 1970, and include a film on The Changing Face Of Skidby from 1967. This film was made in the same year as another of Albert’s that can be seen on YFA Online, The East Riding. Both films give a good indication that Albert was a lover of animals. In fact it is his nature films that Albert felt most pleased with, especially a film he made in 1956, Birds and their Nests. For more on Albert see the Context for The East Riding, also made in 1959.
Albert and his wife had no children of their own, but they would frequently see their nieces and nephews. One of his nieces, Ann Baker, features in this film. Ann lived above the bakery that her father ran, and where this film was made. Although aged just two at the time, Ann still remembers the film being made, especially the many bright lights that Albert set up for the filming. It films a typical bedtime routine of bath, and then being told a story. As can be seen in the film, Ann had a sizeable collection of dolls and cuddly toys which she always played with, and used to read to – Ann still has a collection of dolls. Those of us who are of the same generation as Ann will remember sleeping in beds with blankets, and those striped sheets! Not having children of his own, Albert liked to film his nieces and nephews, preferring to make short films rather than simply have photo albums. These films he used to show in his home and those of the extended family. Ann has carried on the family tradition both of reading to, and filming, her own children. Although the filming of Ann was done on just one day, the filming of all the animals took many months. Albert was able to bring to bear his knowledge of farm animals, especially of chickens, which his father kept on his farm, as did Ann’s father in his garden. The breed of cows that can be seen in the film, Ayrshire, can still be seen in the East Riding, which has a large variety of breeds, including Jerseys and Friesians. Ann can also still remember her auntie playing with the puppet Noddy, as well as the salt and pepper pots that turned to face each other. Not having a TV himself until the 1970s, Albert presumably wouldn’t have been too influenced by children’s television of the time, and Albert was clearly more interested in real animals than puppets. For Ann though Noddy may well have been familiar from TV – his TV series bagan in 1954 – as well as the books. More TV shows appeared in the 1970s, narrated by Richard Briers. At that time Noddy was extremely poplular, as it has proved ever since his first book, Noddy Goes to Toyland, was published in 1949. Since then over 200 million Noddy books have been sold in over 30 languages, including Medieval Latin and Icelandic! Noddy is known as Oui Oui in France, Doddi in Iceland, Purzelknirps in Germany and Hilitos in Spain. In fact the creator of Noddy, Enid Blyton – author also of the Famous Five and the Secret Seven – is the fifth most translated author worldwide. The books still sell around four million copies across the world each year. Since this film was made Noddy has come under heavy fire for being racist, sexist and elitist, and in particular for the use of golliwogs, who rightly became goblins in 1989. Now criticism centres on the way he has been adapted by Disney. It is perhaps tempting to contrast the innocence of being a child in the 1950s, as Albert’s film portrays it, with being one in the 21st century. But even then children’s characters were quickly exploited for commercial reason, so that throughout the 1950s very many jigsaw puzzles and games were brought out on the back of the success of the books, so that in 1959, for example, a Noddy's Tiddleywinks Game came onto the market – see the Enid Bleyton Society website in References. But whatever the film shows about 1950s childhood, it also has a timeless charm that will probably endear it to viewers as much in 2059 as it must have in 1959. References Happy 50th birthday Noddy The Enid Blyton Society |
