Making Christmas Crackers (1910)

After a businesslike introduction to the manufacture of crackers (did you know the cardboard centres were called tum-tums?), this appealing short suddenly switches tone, as a festive family prances around a Christmas tree and pulls a gigantic cracker. But what - or who - lurks within? (Alex Davidson)

You can watch over 1000 other complete films and TV programmes from the BFI National Archive free of charge in the Mediatheque at BFI Southbank, London and from October 2008 at the new QUAD centre for art and film in Derby -- http://www.bfi.org.uk/mediatheque http://www.derbyquad.co.uk/bfi-mediatheque

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• BFI
• Father
• Christmas
• Cracker
• Early
• Silent
• Film
• Santa
• Claus
• Family
• Children
• Factory
• Edwardian

[MaryOMackie]

All these people are long dead. Ghosts from the past,

I don't think people grasp how utterly astounding it is we get to peer in so casually on these people who were our ancestors. Never before in the history of mankind was anything like this possible.

[26highstreet]

the gold ole days were great if you were well off and if you were poor you worked from dawn to dusk for a crust of bread and an ounce of shag, rough cut of coarse. you were also happy that the lord gave you a pupose in life and said your prayers everynight...Now these long forgotten souls are here as a stark reminder of the way we use to live, a facinating windows back in time.

[Sheri451]

I had ro watch this for a few minutes to realize this is not about saltine crackers, but the kind you pulled and it made a popping sound and you got a surprise.

[yerk3]

@exposed97 That sounds bizarre. When was this supposed to have happened? Japan didn't have dictators, they've had an Emperor from before recorded history to the Present, they had a feudal period with various warlords from the 1300s to the 1600s, a shogunate from then until the 1870s, and a parliament and Prime Minister from then until the Present, but no dictators.

[KidKandyful]

This is Jagex 2001

[JADEAV]

9 years later my grandma was born and still alive at age of 92!!

[TheRuindragon]

@exposed97 That is very controvercial. Im interested in which war you're talking about. Also, how can you say the Japanese are superior? Do you have proof?

[TheRuindragon]

@bearcub410 Yep. You have a point man. This is the clunky time between the old handcrafted days and the rising of industry. These people went through hell to feed their families. They were glad to know their children could have a better life. They are saints.

[TheRuindragon]

@lesorciercalifornien Clever.

[futuristfood]

wow!!!

[lesorciercalifornien]

With outsourcing being the latest trend, I'd love to see a Christmas-cracker factory open up in, say, Tbilisi, inthe former Soviet republic of Georgia. They could ship the packages to england with the label "AUTHENTIC GEORGIA CRACKERS"

[lesorciercalifornien]

As fascinating as this is, what we culturally-ignorant US types really need to know is, how has cracker technology evolved over the decades? Is the procedure automated now, or have they joined the 21st century and outsourced the labor to Asian sweat shops? The fast-paced world of Christmas-cracker construction demands intelligent and far-sighted business making decisions if the industry is to survive.