A Growing Business

Sweet ‘docu-commercial’ for Cadbury’s Bourn-vita, filmed around Bourne St Mary’s, Hampshire.

Mrs Ennals of Bourne St Mary’s, Hants, is one busy lady. Her day includes a shift at a watercress farm, housework, taking care of her son and then entertaining her wide circle of friends in the evening. And those evenings, and her husband’s, are always topped off by a warming, soporific cup of Cadbury’s Bourn-vita, the brand that sponsored this sweet-tasting ‘docu-commercial’.

Growing Business was one of a dozen films made, in this brisk and capable style, by the production company Anglo-Scottish for commissioner Cadbury’s. They were released to cinema supporting programmes between 1952 and 1955, under the series title Other Women’s Lives. Squarely aimed at a female demographic, they’re a highly digestible hybrid of straight commercial with sponsored documentary (or in today’s parlance, branded content). In each case, the advertiser’s money shot kicks in only in the final moments of an engaging two-minute ‘day-in-the-life’ doc.