Making Christmas Crackers (1910) | BFI National Archive

Making Christmas Crackers (1910) | BFI National Archive. Subscribe: bit.ly/subscribetotheBFI.
After a businesslike introduction to the manufacture of crackers, 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?
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[@Alucard1191]

I kept expecting some sort of horrible industrial accident with all that old scary equipment.

[@MegaBeforeandafter]

+Justin Silvasy today you will be operating the steam slitter…..

[@suzannereilman4516]

...What colossally mind-numbingly tedious, yet inSANELY frenetic work to do, hour after hour, day in and day out...!!!

[@billhosko7723]

GO away Karen.

[@gobalik]

I believe the film is running quite a bit faster than actual speed. They were probably much slower and more careful about what they were doing

[@matrags]

I imagine the romantic notion of that era is far greater than the reality of it.

[@englandshark6698]

Some of the places I've worked at are not much different to this!

[@shweefranglais7900]

Wonderful that this footage is available and we are able just to click on a link on KZbin and watch it all ! ( I'm an oldie and I love what the Internet has brought )

[@MaggieJones1953]

Thanks BFI, a great little film. I never realised that bandsaws and guillotines were in use a 100 years ago.

[@pzk12]

Thank God someone thought to film those people doing those jobs. No one films manufacturing processes anymore. No one in a hundred years will know what it was like to work in a factory in 2008.

[@ducter2001]

WoW.. special effects to make santa were very good - 100 years before CGI. I'm amazed how well dressed the ladies were at work!

[@modigbeowulf5482]

The country was richer back then. I live by the Rotherhithe pictorial museum. They were better dressed then than now as I often look through the albums

[@youngsteph1]

The women in general were a lot cleaner looking & not so slovenly as todays. Which is ridiculous when you think about it, considering the poverty around then.

[@kristinesharp6286]

Too much fabric. To hot and dangerous.

[@maunster3414]

0:50, oh my freekin gawd! That machine always commin' at me like that I'd go run screaming after a minute on that job.

[@julsjewels3185]

When things were handmade!!! Love the little skit at the end.

[@AaranAardvark]

@MaryOMackie Absolutely I couldn't agree more, the evolution of the moving image is what fundamentally separates us from past generations and gives us the opportunity to look over the shoulder of our great grandmother at work. As you say it is astounding!

[@Erictheirritated]

Not a guard or protective device in sight! It gives me the grues.

[@debbutcher9087]

We have Christmas crackers every year. It’s nice to see how they’re made.

[@davids8449]

There are Christmas Crackers & Christmas Crackers ...The one's being hand made are very different then the one's you buy in 2023 . I am 68 and Christmas Crackers I remember are 99% better then the one's you buy today especially at Christmas time , we had Crackers with small fireworks in them, like an Indian that smoked a pipe , magnesium strip, Bengal matches , a volcano that erupted etc .....Today the Government with not trust you to brake wind

[@debbutcher9087]

@@davids8449 , I bet those were marvellous back in those days!

[@bethetruth1842]

Silence is golden

[@baddacoodoo]

wow .. those days seem such a world away now.. I think i would have preferred to live in that world than the one we live in today..!

[@JADEAV]

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

[@patricktheil8844]

My grandfather was born 1915, but he died aged 93. Crazy to think that he was alive during the first world war and lived in a country still ruled by the Kaiser. Or that your grandma lived through the 20s.

[@irenejohnston6802]

My mother was three lived to be 107yrs old, at home in house where I was born, died in 2014. The women were paid probably at 'piece work' rate.

[@PLuMUK54]

My first thought was that my grandma would have been dressed like that. She was born in 1890.

[@davidevans3227]

one of my grandmothers would've been 17 in May 1910..

[@davidevans3227]

some very skilled workers

[@momof2momof2]

Enjoyed this, thanks! :)

[@cobsyboy]

i cant believe the length of that mans pipe near the end!

[@tennysonfordblackbird2087]

Film reminds me of my grandmother with the clothes.

[@travtotheworld]

Did you also have a grandmother without clothes?

[@modigbeowulf5482]

They didn't hang about in them days.

[@jemandjemand2362]

the ending was wild

[@fmazzar]

makes one wonder what we are here for.,..these people all living their lives and working and now they are long gone. Very interesting.

[@maroulio2067]

the last part is amazingly funny..

[@Jeff98177]

This was a fun little film to watch. :-)

[@80stimeagain]

Awesome. Made me think of the Nutcracker by Tchaikovsky. I love this old footage. Things were made so primitively back then.

[@logarithmic7]

wow check out the stem on that clay pipe! @5:12

[@terryvision42]

Im surprised the man working on the saw still has all his own fingers,Health and Safety wouldn't allow that today.Anyhow great stuff BFI.

[@ShannonFreng]

As one who's worked bandsaws, I completely agree. That blade guide/guard is way too high, but I'm thinking they raised it up, just so it would afford more of a view to the camera. At one woodshop I worked, an OHS inspector caught one of the guys using the bandsaw, with the blade guide/guard that high and flipped the fuck out (we all got a stern lecture from the owner, after he finished having to deal with the OHS guy). The OHS guy came back, a week later, to check if we were all 'working to code.' We had to start wearing hearing and eye protection, etc., while he was there, but most of the guys stopped, a short time later. For a time, the owner had this one female worker go around with a clipboard, every Monday morning, doing a safety check. The guys would just make sure their required ppe was on, until she left. Then, even that was discontinued. That's the way it was in most shops (at that time, anyway).

[@ecoecoltd]

A little judicious Googling has reminded me that one of the verses in "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" contains the lines: "With little tin horns and little toy drums. Rootie-toot-toots and rummy tum tums." Furthermore, King Edward VII was apparently known as 'King Tum Tum' to his friends. There's even a reference that suggests Fortnum and Mason were called 'Tum Tums' but I can't find any further information. Seems to me that tum-tums were novelty sweetmeat gifts of the period.

[@davidevans3227]

hello.. i like ur piece thankyou.. after reading it i googled tum tums and besides all the anti- acid stuff i found a page with a synopsis of this little film! it even has a spoiler alert warning.. it suggests tum tum was the card centre in the Christmas cracker..

[@homegrown802]

santa looks like a wizard.

[@brettelliott4116]

Geez they worked fast

[@LINYVideo]

The guillotine at 2:18 is identical to the ones in use today except that the operator has to keep their hands on two safety buttons while the blade is cutting. People used to cut their hands off all the time.

[@kristinesharp6286]

Good to know that safety improved.

[@greenisland75]

These workers had very repetitive jobs. It was a very hard life for people in those days - poor pay, long hours, poor conditions and uninspiring jobs.

[@DEEPAKVAIDYA4u]

great one! a gud industrial docu of dat time

[@KidKandyful]

This is Jagex 2001

[@15743_Hertz]

The movie was filmed at about 15 frames per second and we're seeing a transcribed film at about 24 frames per second. Isn't there a modern digital process that would extend it to show what speed the ladies really worked at?

[@389383]

I slowed it by half and they were still working fast!

[@billhosko7723]

JFC... another KAREN Folks.

[@vanreliant5584]

You can see their on piece work by the speed and dexterity of their work, and not paid much at the end of the week either.

[@billhosko7723]

GO away KAREN... JFC... u low-lifes forever trolling the internet desperate for online affirmation...

[@Merseysiderful]

Most likely the workers were employed on piece work. From 1914 - 18 the factory would have been manufacturing war products instead.

[@greenisland75]

@miamad People still work in England you know. We are just stuck in offices these days doing rather boring admin jobs!

[@alexmckenna1171]

...all that work in the factory, Gladys, and then you have to fight Jack the RIpper on your way back to the Barking tram.... Gawd luvvus!

[@ohmeowzer1]

Oh that is so sad they are working so hard ,,and probably 12 hours a day 6 days a week ,,back breaking labor and then the accidents from being so tired ,,

[@yourfakeplasticlove]

as unsafe as it was to work in places like that...the manufactoring process was relatively new then and im sure people had a lot of respect for the machinery they use and may have been a bit intimidated by it...nowadays we are so free and think nothing would ever happen to us that we need modern safety practices to protect us..great film :)

[@youtuuberoxx]

ahhh...old world craftsmanship...er craftswomanship

[@effyleven]

"Watch what you're doing with that long-stem pipe.... He'll have somebody's eye out, y'know!"

[@LanguorousLass]

Just a warning to other viewers: the "introduction" lasts more than five minutes (out of a 6:19 film). The charming family sequence doesn't begin until 5:08. Still a film worth watching, if you understand that it's largely an industrial documentary with a very brief fantasy sequence at the end.

[@bcgrote]

Wonderful film from nearly a century ago! As fun and funny as the last scene was, the woman sewing the stockings was hypnotic to watch. Piecework. I wonder what she got paid - a penny a hundred? I would hope a bit more than that!

[@billhosko7723]

GO away KAREN.

[@TheWitch]

And yet, 100 years later, nothing has changed.

[@debbieharriman9044]

no the old machines back.then where more original. and the quality of the products were made better.

[@kobecakes2660]

I wish you had some kind of audio telling what is going on?

[@tahirmahmood7098]

to handle machine, 'em need to behave like a machine; so to take care of a buffalo 'em should first of all turn into buffalo- a matchin' type in specific case ... !

[@anyname666]

takes one to know one

[@bgarr99]

I bet that factory was a butcher shop of lost fingers in all that machinery.

[@ThePeaceableKingdom]

@MaryOMackie Yes! Exactly! The same with cylinder recordings and early phonograph records. Written history has been around for several thousand years, but we truly stand at The *Begining* of Recorded History. I'm astounded that more people are not amazed by that...

[@rachelstrahan2486]

👍

[@greenisland75]

@elenore9 Its a rather sad state of affairs. We should be making a lot of these products ourselves rather than importing them from countries on the other side of the world. Its isn't good for our economy and isn't good for the environment.

[@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.

[@Crecybowman]

@babywu48 I reckon it would have been piece work. No way would a factory owner potentially pay someone for not doing their share...

[@geoforn]

This needs some Philip Glass.

[@jongleurette]

I wonder how many people suffered injuries to their hands, and if they were cared for in any way afterward.

[@ohmeowzer1]

jongleurette no I doubt it ,,you lived with your injuries ..no one cared

[@brendantatertot9628]

@Pzk12 actually we do know how things were made in 2008. How it's made. Yeah... Think before you comment

[@PitBoyb]

5:48 How do you make this?

[@anyname666]

HELP!!!!! MOMMIE HELP ME some one took the gag off GrenadeChick and she is doing her thing. waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

[@anyname666]

how about that lady making Clue Cluck Clan hats????

[@trojanette8345]

6 min of no sound?

[@hdug86989]

the part with the children at the end is such a downer!

[@angelcitygirl]

Excellent vintage video. They were really working hard. All that repetitive movement. I wonder what their life's span was back then.

[@trippytoad5437]

+Angel CityGirl The oldest person alive today was 11 then.

[@user-oj5bw7sl8p]

The female life span was about 48 years.

[@user-oj5bw7sl8p]

Since these ladies at the factory look at least 20 years old, the youngest of them were probably born in 1890s. Back then female life expectancy at birth was 47,8 years. www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/lifeexpectancies/articles/howhaslifeexpectancychangedovertime/2015-09-09

[@PLuMUK54]

Life expectancy in 1910, in the UK was 55 for women and 51 for men. In the US it was 51 for women and 48 for men.

[@19smokey19]

i bet 4 yrs later most were working in factorys making shells and bullets during ww1 maybe it was better money to ..

[@92RedRevolver]

Did they really work that fast, or is that just the jerkiness of the film?

[@CaptchaNeon]

They knew exactly what they were doing and yes it was fast paced but fast paced also means dangerous mistakes

[@DottyDotDitto]

What did that have to do with my comment?

[@ghostriderjoemomma]

this is sowe fuunytolookat

[@DottyDotDitto]

Women have always worked... (No, I'm not about to launch into a rant on how housework is a job.) I mean women have always worked in the 'workforce' (or the time's equivalent) There were fish-wives and maids and so on. Whats changed is what women are allowed to work AS. As for when womens rights came along... It depends on the right to what? If its work, then they were already, what to work as came slowly and still isn't finished. (Female soldiers still aren't allowed on the font line after all.)

[@Travisab1]

Great film to be saved all these years. Wonder if T. Eddison had anything to do with the making of this film. Great find. Women have almost always been in the work force one way or another. Men didn't like their wives working away from home. Kinda screws up the lives of their children and home life. Few men want to be Mr. Mom butttt, that's quickly coming to an end. Who really gives a damn about their kids welfare these days??? The Government of course. Kids make them money! Lots of it!!!

[@stevef9530]

Anyone know what tumtums are?

[@elizabethshaw734]

Somebody could have narrated this! We are out of the silent movie days.

[@ushoys]

Elizabeth Shaw Why don’t you narrate it yourself, smarty pants?

[@nodnops]

i`ll bet and the same wages as well ziggy lol.............

[@user-kh6vv4xe3g]

مما أدهشني جدا نساء محتشمات جدا ،لاتوجد اي امراة منهن ترتدي فستانا (بدون كم ) ..حتى الأناث من الأطفال يرتدين لباسا محتشما....!!!!!! ياليتكم تعودون لما كنتم عليه ....

[@psp785]

they got alot less then that

[@livinglife8333]

Holy crap those were safe machines 😳😳👎🏼👎🏼

[@TheWhanfried]

They don’t look Chinese.

[@thorne62]

Man that was creepy... 😳

[@TheSuperPsychoKiller]

What a fun job. NOT

[@trupodur]

Not true for the USSR!

[@zaftra]

All that mind numbingly boring work would probably be for 50p a week.

[@TheLeonhamm]

Ah! but then .. popular historians (punting a piece of Marxian Socialist dialectic) still try to tell us that 'women' did not go out to work (in factories, shops and offices etc) until the Great War.

[@anyname666]

Dorthy No one forced anyone to work These women applied for an open position Got the position Did the work And got paid what they had agreed upon. Compared to todays wages it seems little but then the price of eggs and milk back then was relatively little. If you ask ANY worker today the will say they dont pay me enough for this job waaaa waaaa waaaa FYI a female has been allowed to pilot a $2,000,000,000 stealth bomber in combat

[@cidvasconcelos6919]

Resenha sobre o filme: magiadoreal.blogspot.com/2022/07/filme-do-dia-making-christmas-crackers.html