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Review

A star rating of 3 out of 5.

The BFI examines the struggle for women's suffrage with this impeccably researched compilation. In addition to newsreel clips of the demonstrations led by the Pankhursts, the selection also explores how women were portrayed in comic shorts that suggest they were socially emancipated long before they were enfranchised. Directed by Lewin Fitzhamon, Tilly's Party and Tilly and the Fire Engines (both 1911) star Alma Taylor and Chrissie White as the mischievous siblings Tilly and Sally, who defy their parents respectively to flirt with a couple of sailors and turn a hose on some firemen. The curly haired moppet in Wilfred Noy's Did'ums Diddles the P'liceman (1912) proves just as reckless as she taunts a bobby on the beat. But a clearer picture of the ingrained chauvinism Edwardian women faced emerges in Percy Stow's Milling the Militants (1913), in which a henpecked husband dreams he is the Prime Minister passing laws to keep women in their place. While these are revealing, the footage of Emily Davison's funeral following her fatal injury at the 1913 Epsom Derby and the war effort documentaries A Day in the Life of a Munition Worker and Scottish Women's Hospital (both 1917) have greater historical value.

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Details

Theatrical distributor
BFI
Released on
2015-10-23
Languages
English
Formats
Black and white
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