This film is part of Rentals
The Partridge Tureen
Entertaining novelty promo film - swinging with 60s trappings.
Director: Cedric Maggs
Overview
This novelty promo, for Royal Worcester porcelain of all things, positively swings with 60s trappings. Boy meets girl, boy marries girl, boy and girl set up house - falling in a big way for the sponsor's tableware and household decorations. The story is told via images and music, without dialogue or commentary, intercut with documentary footage of Royal Worcester's high-quality materials and production processes, plus pleasing Worcestershire landscapes.
Greenpark Productions were, at the time, Britain's primary purveyor of polished sponsored films for deeper-pocketed clients. What's fascinating here is to see their normally tasteful style pushed in a modish direction. The film has high production values - the cinematography positively glows at times - but an assortment of 'with-it' devices are piled on top, from whip-pans and fast zooms to tilted angles, jump-cuts, and the odd suggestive close-up. No doubt this determinedly contemporary approach was intended to orient a heritage brand towards a youthful demographic. You have to admire the attempt, even if the result can safely be filed in the same drawer as trendy vicars and dad dancing. An entertaining curio.
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