Australian
Screen

Teacher’s notes

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This clip shows a silent, black-and-white advertisement for Kiwi Boot Polish. It opens with a view of a hotel service entry with an Australian soldier standing nearby. A hotel manager puts up a sign advertising for boot boys, which attracts two young boys walking by. They mime the action of polishing boots and then shake their heads. The Australian soldier takes them to a shoe shop and hands each a tin of Kiwi Boot Polish. The boys then return to the hotel and apply for the job. The manager is reluctant to hire them, but after much pleading he agrees to give them a trial run.

Educational value points

• This clip is from an early cinema advertisement which ran for a total of about six minutes. Like many early advertisements it revolved around a story. Most stories have three distinct stages – orientation, complication and resolution – and here the orientation and complication stages are shown. In the orientation the main characters, in this case the boys, are introduced and the setting established. The complication is two-fold – the boys don’t know how to polish boots and the manager is reluctant to hire them.

• This Kiwi Boot Polish advertisement capitalised on the widespread support for the British Empire’s involvement in the First World War (1914–18) by associating the product with patriotism. The first link is to an aspect of Australia’s national identity through the figure of the Digger who represents the Australian ideals of mateship and egalitarianism. The second link is that with the help of Kiwi the two boys secure jobs as 'boot boys’, freeing up men for military service.

• The clip reveals that some children (below 16 years of age) were in the labour force in 1916. Poverty forced many children out to work, while labour shortages due to the enlistment of men during the War also led to a greater demand for children to enter the workforce, particularly as factory workers.

• 'Boot boys’ are now unknown in contemporary hotels, but in the early 20th century most men and women wore lace-up or button-up leather boots that required frequent polishing. Boot boys were responsible for polishing the hotel guests’ boots whenever required, although most polishing was done at night.

• The filmmakers use various devices to indicate the boys’ poverty and social class. They wear collarless shirts and, ironically in an advertisement for shoe polish, are shoeless. An intertitle shows one of the boys using the word 'guvnor’ to address the manager. This word was originally Cockney slang, derived from the word 'governor’ and was used as a term of address to someone of a higher status, particularly a boss. It was also a sign of respect for an adult in authority.

• Before about 1930 films were both silent and black-and-white. The size and weight of the camera meant that films tended to have long, static shots, such as the ones in this clip, and few close-ups. Intertitles were used to help tell the story or present key dialogue. Actors often used facial expressions and gestures to convey what they were feeling or doing, as here when the boys and the manager make rubbing gestures to indicate that they are discussing boot polishing.

• Kiwi Boot Polish, launched in 1908, revolutionised shoe polish in that it not only added shine but also preserved leather and restored colour. Scottish expatriates William Ramsay and Hamilton McKellan began making shoe polish in a small factory in Melbourne in 1904. Originally called Mirror Polish, it was relaunched in 1906 as Kiwi, a name Ramsay chose as a tribute to his New Zealander wife.