Australian
Screen

an NFSA website

Lifesavers: Cryst-O-Mint Flavour (1925)

play Please note: this clip is silent
Email a link to this page
To:
CC:
Subject:
Body:
clip
  • 1
  • 2
Lifesaving education content clip 1, 2

This clip chosen to be G

Clip description

This clip from a silent black-and-white cinema advertisement for Life Savers sweets shows a young woman dive into the surf, only to be rescued by a surf lifesaver. He lies her down and gives her a Life Saver mint to revive her. It ends with an intertitle that states ‘good ain’t they huh’.

Curator’s notes

Apart from introducing two of the characters, this clip introduces us to Life Savers, a mint lolly.

Teacher’s notes

provided by The Le@rning FederationEducation Services Australia

This clip shows a silent black-and-white cinema advertisement for Life Saver sweets. It opens with a shot of a poster advertising Life Savers. The remainder of the poorly conserved footage comprises the narrative of a rescue from the water of a woman who has feigned drowning in order to attract the attention of a male lifesaver. After rescuing the woman the lifesaver revives her with a Life Saver and she agrees when he says, via an intertitle, ‘Good, ain’t they? huh!’

Educational value points

  • In silent films, gesture and expression, which often seem exaggerated and repetitive to contemporary audiences, were necessary to indicate motive and emotion, given that the bulky cameras of the time were seldom used for close-ups and mid-shots. Sound films took over silent ones in the mid-1930s after the success of the first feature-length sound film, The Jazz Singer (1927), and became known as ‘talkies’.
  • Life Saver mints, the subject of this clip, were created in 1912 by Clarence Crane, a producer of chocolates in Cleveland, Ohio. The following year Edward Noble bought the formula, manufactured the sweets, and had them sold as Pep-O-Mint Life Savers. He established the Mint Products Company in New York City. With takeovers in the confectionary industry the formula has been resold many times but Life Savers survives as a distinctive product.
  • By the 1930s swimming at the beach or ‘surf bathing’ had become a popular form of recreation. In the 1920s and 30s the beach and forms of exercise such as swimming were promoted as healthy, with the eugenic and physical culture movements linking physical fitness to mental health and to the strengthening of the nation.
  • This advertisement shows an enduring example of good product design: the ring shape of Life Savers represents a miniature ‘life preserver’ (a life buoy, vest or jacket), a safety device that originated in the mid-19th century. The sale of Life Savers in small aluminium-foil rolls contributed to their distinctive branding. Edward Noble encouraged retailers to place them next to their registers to promote them and increase sales, a practice still common today.
  • This clip is an early example of cinematic advertising. Cinemas offered a new type of venue and form of advertising in the early 20th century. Both the branding and the narrative focus on the Life Saver v lifesaver pun, evident also in the ring shape of the mint sweets. The clip starts with a poster-style screen and moves into a hero-saves-heroine narrative typical of the day. Throughout, the key aim is to tempt the viewer to try a Life Saver.
  • Swimming costumes worn in the 1920s are illustrated in the clip. State and council laws dating back to 1907 required costumes to extend from neck to knee. By the late 1920s, however, beachgoers had started wearing less modest outfits. Men often rolled their costumes down to their waists, even though it was illegal for them to wear topless swimming costumes on beaches until the 1930s.
  • By the 1930s, beach culture was becoming an entrenched part of the Australian way of life, with the iconic figure of the bronzed Australian surfer, inspired by images of surf lifesaving, emerging as a symbol of nationhood. The beach, a public space offering the pleasures of sun, sea and surf to all, came to be regarded as a symbol of Australian egalitarianism. However, the Surf Life Saving Association did not permit women to join as full members until mid-1980.

Thanks to the generosity of the rights holders, we are able to offer Lifesaving from the advertisement Lifesavers: Cryst-O-Mint Flavour as a high quality video download.

To play the downloadable video, you need QuickTime 7.0, VLC, or similar.

You must read and agree to the following terms and conditions before downloading the clip:

australianscreen is produced by the National Film and Sound Archive. By using the website you agree to comply with the terms and conditions described elsewhere on this site. The NFSA may amend the 'Conditions of Use’ from time to time without notice.

All materials on the site, including but not limited to text, video clips, audio clips, designs, logos, illustrations and still images, are protected by the Copyright Laws of Australia and international conventions.

When you access australianscreen you agree that:

  • You may retrieve materials for information only.
  • You may download materials for your personal use or for non-commercial educational purposes, but you must not publish them elsewhere or redistribute clips in any way.
  • You may embed the clip for non-commercial educational purposes including for use on a school intranet site or a school resource catalogue.
  • The National Film and Sound Archive’s permission must be sought to amend any information in the materials, unless otherwise stated in notices throughout the Site.

All other rights reserved.

ANY UNAUTHORISED USE OF MATERIAL ON THIS SITE MAY RESULT IN CIVIL AND CRIMINAL LIABILITY.

This clip is available in the following configurations:

File nameSizeQualitySuitability
lifesave1_pr.mp4 Large: 9.5MB High Optimised for full-screen display on a fast computer.
lifesave1_bb.mp4 Medium: 4.5MB Medium Can be displayed full screen. Also suitable for video iPods.

Right-click on the links above to download video files to your computer.

Thanks to the generosity of the rights holders, we are able to offer this clip in an embeddable format for personal or non-commercial educational use in full form on your own website or your own blog.

You must read and agree to the following terms and conditions before embedding the clip:

australianscreen is produced by the National Film and Sound Archive. By using the website you agree to comply with the terms and conditions described elsewhere on this site. The NFSA may amend the 'Conditions of Use’ from time to time without notice.

All materials on the site, including but not limited to text, video clips, audio clips, designs, logos, illustrations and still images, are protected by the Copyright Laws of Australia and international conventions.

When you access australianscreen you agree that:

  • You may retrieve materials for information only.
  • You may download materials for your personal use or for non-commercial educational purposes, but you must not publish them elsewhere or redistribute clips in any way.
  • You may embed the clip for non-commercial educational purposes including for use on a school intranet site or a school resource catalogue.
  • The National Film and Sound Archive’s permission must be sought to amend any information in the materials, unless otherwise stated in notices throughout the Site.

All other rights reserved.

ANY UNAUTHORISED USE OF MATERIAL ON THIS SITE MAY RESULT IN CIVIL AND CRIMINAL LIABILITY.

Copy and paste the following code into your own web page to embed this clip: