Guinness - Film

High concept: a pint of the black stuff, downed in truly cinematic style.

Long before Jonathan Glazer’s Surfer, Guinness was noted for advertising that felt cinematic, even if shown mainly on TV. High concept reaches a logical conclusion, here, as an expert spoof of Hollywood blockbusters’ visual conventions lavishly adorns the quaffing of a pint of the black stuff. Every glass, we take it, contains its very own narrative arc - and always leads to a satisfying finish.

Director John Krish was himself no mean filmmaker. Having excelled as a director of documentary shorts in the 1950s and early 1960s, his own feature film career had proved disappointing; by the 1970s he was specialising in striking public information films and stylish commercials, latterly under exclusive contract to top ads firm Sierra Productions. A master of expressive visual economy, he here offsets the expense of a bravura helicopter shot by meticulously staged studio close-ups. Incidentally there is no such place as ‘Acclesford’: the aerial footage was taken above Gravesend, Kent, whose pub The Three Daws convincingly acts the part of the ‘Dog and Duck’.