The North East Film Archive is one of a network of regional film archives established to collect, preserve and show film made in, or about the North East of England. Our collections are non-fiction, and date from the early 1900s to the present day, providing a rich record of life in the region over the 20th century. Many of our films are available to watch, free of charge, on our website.
This film is part of Free
Things Are Not What They Seem
The temperance movement gets a boost from a bonkers visual gag about sunstroke by a Middlesbrough amateur with a split personality.
From the collection of:
Overview
Middlesbrough dentist, Tom Brown, hams it up as a sunbather with delirious vision. Following in the footsteps of cinema pioneers G.A. Smith and Georges Méliès, this late ‘trick’ film experiments with rudimentary special effects such as reversing footage, double exposure and split-screen techniques to humorously create the hallucinatory effects of too much sun.
T. H. Brown was a keen and creative amateur film-maker and member of the Tees-Side Cine Club, based in Middlesbrough, who began his hobby in 1929 with a spoof melodrama made for the princely sum of 15 shillings. In addition to shooting home movies, documentaries and travelogues between 1930 and 1960, Tom and his wife both acted in many Tees-Side Cine Club productions on location around Middlesbrough and the Cleveland area. A cine club colleague and best man at his wedding, Albert Riley, assisted in making this film.
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