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The Cream Industry

Accession number: 
1919.0005
Production Years: 
1919
Release Year: 

Languages:

Film Properties: 
Bibliography: 

Louis Pelletier, "Useful Cinema, Film Genres, and Screen Networks: The Story of Canadian Films Limited (1919-1920)," The Moving Image 11, no. 3 (2011): 70-71.
"Starting with its second completed production, The Cream Industry, Canadian Films tried to make it easier for commercial firms to sponsor films by devising projects that would feature the products and services of more than one firm, thus permitting multiple sponsors to split the bill. Funding for The Cream Industry came from the DeLaval Separator Co., of Peterborough, Ontario (a subsidiary of the Sweden-based multinational), and from the Montreal Dairy Co. The film showed a variety of DeLaval apparatuses, including specimens of the company’s famed milk separators, in use on a farm and at the installations of the Montreal Dairy Co. While it was not framed as a paid-for advertisement, the film did make sure to identify various apparatuses depicted as 'DeLavals.' Upon completion, The Cream Industry was submitted to its sponsors, who declared themselves very pleased with the results, and exhibited between December of 1919 and April of 1920 in a few Montreal theaters. This minor success must however be weighed against the time and energy spent in the making of The Cream Industry. Between Canadian Film’s first exchanges with the DeLaval Separator Co. in early June 1919 and the film’s first screening in early December, no less than half a year had elapsed. Part of this unseemly delay can be explained by the fact that Canadian Films had found itself stuck in a position where it had to cajole and coordinate multiple participants and sponsors. DeLaval’s general manager had for instance made it clear that his company would only agree to sponsor the film if DeLaval apparatuses could be showcased in J.B. Hanmer’s farm, home of a famous prize-winning cow. But Hanmer was at the time in the process of overhauling his installations, and only half-heartedly agreed to get involved after receiving several increasingly desperate letters from Tennant."