Fresh As a Daisy

A retired Major's efforts to hone his golf skills are thwarted by the diminutive but defiant common daisy.

Pioneer cinematographer Percy Smith's spectacular stop-motion close-ups awaken us to the splendour and resilience of the common daisy. Smith's skill, patience and inventiveness (he made many of his own photographic 'gadgets') combined with a liberal sprinkling of wry humour made for educational yet entertaining viewing. It is a forerunner to later wildlife television documentaries.

British Instructional Film's Secrets of Nature series continued into the 1930s, when it became Secrets of Life (1934-1950) and thrived until Percy Smith's death in 1945, the year this film was made. The films were shown in cinemas and classrooms across Britain and abroad and in their day were as popular as David Attenborough's wildlife documentaries.