The Yorkshire Film Archive collects, preserves, and shows film made in, or about Yorkshire. Our collections are non-fiction, dating from the 1890s to the present day, and providing a rich and visually compelling record of all aspects of lives, cultures, landscape, industries, major events and everyday activities, many of which are available to watch, free of charge, on our website.
This film is part of Free
Moorlands
A rather different view of the world, as seen through the eyes of a poodle, as “Mimi” is taken for a walk by two ladies in their summer dresses.
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Overview
A lovely whimsical film made by York amateur filmmaker May Webb. This has her pet poodle “Mimi” comically narrating her view of a walk through a colourful wood accompanied by two women, Janet and Valerie, in equally colourful dresses, reflecting the fashions of 1962. Mimi has a rather different take on the walk than her minders, wanting to be let off her lead and then managing to lose the two ladies, and wistfully awaits for them to turn up.
May and her husband Frank ran a photography business in York, and the two were also keen filmmakers, and ran the York cine club, called the Apollo Film Unit. May also collaborated on two marionette animations with another York filmmaker Patrick Olsen. A poodle is the perfect choice for this film with their intelligence and highly trainable nature. However, they are also highly sociable, and they don’t like being left on their own for too long. It was filmed at Moorlands, a beautiful small woodland owned by the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust, and remains as it is in the film. 'The name “Mimi” may have been inspired the 1935 film of that title set in Paris, and of course poodles are closely associated with the French.
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