This film is part of Free
The Princess and the Wonderful Weaver
It’s the 60s – what better way to sell wool than animating a spurious fable about a mile-high naked princess?
Overview
What do you get if you cross a fairy tale with a naked mile-high princess, a history of manufacturing, modernist animation and a happy ending? Increased UK wool sales? Who knows – but that was why this unusual promotional film for the National Wool Textile Export Corporation was dreamed up. With the Beatles' Yellow Submarine on the big screen, the swinging 60s offered new creative freedoms for animation producers.
Director Richard Taylor (best known for producing the nation's favourite Charley Says cartoons) had been pushing the boundaries of animation design in sponsored filmmaking since the mid-1950s. He later wrote that "despite some occasional felicities, and the prizes it was awarded", he considered this film "a desperate failure" because of the number of fingers in the creative pie during its two year gestation. The frustrations of a creative artist aside, the resulting film remains enormous fun.
Related
Strangers Strangers
Animation & Artists Moving Image 1973 1 mins
Who needs to talk to strangers when you're the only one who can understand the garbled mewling of your best buddy cat, Charley?
Giro - Fast and Loose Giro - Fast and Loose
Animation & Artists Moving Image 1935 9 mins Silent
Don’t listen to Slacky the Sloucher or Giro the Germ will stage a jailbreak – public health cartoon by the Health & Cleanliness Council
Pan-tele-tron Pan-tele-tron
Animation & Artists Moving Image 1957 10 mins
Ye Gods! It’s the future of telecommunications – as seen through a cartoon modern lens from the 1950s
John the Bull John the Bull
Advert 1930 5 mins
Bloody foreign cows coming over here and becoming our dinners
The Dream of Arthur Sleap The Dream of Arthur Sleap
Advert 1972 1 mins
Dangerously addicted to boring old movies? This is a case for Dr BFI, as demonstrated in this 1970s animated promo
"T" For Teacher "T" For Teacher
Animation & Artists Moving Image 1947 5 mins Silent
Do you know the golden rules of tea making? The Tea Bureau set out to put your cuppa straight in this progressively designed post-war cartoon
China O'Brien: The Reunion China O'Brien: The Reunion
Documentary 2024 60 mins
Cynthia Rothrock, Richard Norton and Keith Cooke reunite three decades on from the groundbreaking martial arts classic.
Women in Action Panel Discussion Women in Action Panel Discussion
Inside Film 2024 28 mins
Action Xtreme - the UK's leading action film studio - hosts this panel discussion with four leading women in action cinema - Soo Cole, Jo Rolison, Jadey Duffield and Ioanna Karavela.
Starve Acre - Exclusive Q&A Starve Acre - Exclusive Q&A
Short interview 2024 24 mins
Daniel Kokotajlo talks to Nia Childs about Starve Acre, his folk horror about a couple digging deep into grief in the heart of the Yorkshire Dales.
Sky Peals - Exclusive Q&A Sky Peals - Exclusive Q&A
Short interview 2024 30 mins
Sky Peals director Moin Hussain and lead actor Faraz Ayub talk to Tomisin Adepeju about their magic realist drama.
Inside the Archive: The Early Films of Michael Powell Inside the Archive: The Early Films of Michael Powell
Documentary 2024 42 mins
Documentary exploring the BFI National Archive’s role in rediscovering and remastering the early films of Michael Powell.
Inside the Archive: The Riviera Revels Inside the Archive: The Riviera Revels
Short documentary 2024 12 mins
Bryony Dixon, curator of silent film at the BFI national archive, explores the origins of a series of comic travelogues, and Michael Powell's involvement in making them.