Metadata
WORK ID: YFA 3359 (Master Record)
Title | Year | Date |
THE WHEEL OF FORTUNE | c.1958 | 1955-01-01 |
Details
Original Format: 16mm Colour: Colour Sound: Sound Duration: 6 mins 21 secs Credits: E.B. Production (Eric Bolderson) |
Summary This is a comedic film by Eric Bolderson of two men playing roulette in a casino; with a poor man winning all the money and clothes of a wealthy man. |
Description
This is a comedic film by Eric Bolderson of two men playing roulette in a casino; with a poor man winning all the money and clothes of a wealthy man.
Title - The Wheel of Fortune, an E.B. Production
The film opens in the casino, where women and men are gathered around a roulette table with three female croupiers. There is no talking but a jazz music plays in the background. All of them are dressed in very fashionable clothes. The payers place bets of £1 notes and the wheels rolls. The...
This is a comedic film by Eric Bolderson of two men playing roulette in a casino; with a poor man winning all the money and clothes of a wealthy man.
Title - The Wheel of Fortune, an E.B. Production
The film opens in the casino, where women and men are gathered around a roulette table with three female croupiers. There is no talking but a jazz music plays in the background. All of them are dressed in very fashionable clothes. The payers place bets of £1 notes and the wheels rolls. The croupiers then collect any money that is left on the table.
A man then enters the casino and signs in, lighting a cigar. He wears a smart suit and large white hat. He is followed a shabbily dressed man wearing an overcoat, old pink scarf and a flat cap. He too signs in and sits at the roulette table as more comical music plays in the background. The smart man takes a seat at the roulette table and proceeds to take off his hat and bring out a number of expensive cigars and a huge roll of notes that he places on the table. The poorer man then takes off his cap and empties his pockets of a few coins that he places on the table.
With each passing game the rich man's pile of money shrinks, whilst that of the poorer man grows. He then signals to the rich man to ask him for a cigar, but he refuses and instead offers him a cigarette. A man and several women drinking tea at a bar are stood talking and laughing.
Back at the table the rich man has now lost all his money and sells his watch, hat, jacket and cigars to the poor man to continue playing. The poor man dons his clothes and passes his old ones to the other man which he now has to put on. The final humiliation comes when the poor man offers him a cigarette even though he has a pile of cigars in front of him. The film closes with the rich man, now stripped of all his material assets leaving the table.
Title - The Wheel of Fortune an E.B Production
Title - The End
Context
The Wheel of Fortune is an apt title for this comical 50s piece with a moral message as two punters - one rich, one poor go head to head in what turns out to be a humiliating game of Roulette. Belittled by his wealthy opponent, the tables turn. An exchange of cigarettes for cigars and coppers for cash, signals the crushing defeat, leaving our ‘poor’ hero victorious.
Eric Bolderson, a man who can only be described as ‘Yorkshire through and through’ captured his family, his interests, and life...
The Wheel of Fortune is an apt title for this comical 50s piece with a moral message as two punters - one rich, one poor go head to head in what turns out to be a humiliating game of Roulette. Belittled by his wealthy opponent, the tables turn. An exchange of cigarettes for cigars and coppers for cash, signals the crushing defeat, leaving our ‘poor’ hero victorious.
Eric Bolderson, a man who can only be described as ‘Yorkshire through and through’ captured his family, his interests, and life in Castleford on film throughout the ‘50s and ‘60s. ‘Wheel of Fortune’ is one of the few wonderful mini comic features he created. Eric was to find himself on the other side of the camera in 1969 when a colleague suggested he put himself forward for a small role in an upcoming film about a boy and his kestrel. The film was, of course, Ken Loach’s ‘Kes’, and after attending an audition where he had to act out a scene with Colin Welland from ‘Z Cars’, Eric was cast as the farmer, receiving payment of £25. He later said that he felt he was cheating by taking payment as he enjoyed his experience so much. |