Tommy Atkins in the Park

1 Jan 1898
Silent
1m

A soldier takes boisterous revenge when an unwelcome stranger interrupts his romantic moment

In this brief comedy a soldier and a nursemaid take a minute out of their day to go courting. With the baby safely stowed in its pram, they think their privacy is assured, but along comes a redoubtable Victorian matron to share their bench. Tommy the soldier chooses to fight back rather than put an end to his fun. After all, if he's on leave, he hasn't a moment to waste - and his ladyfriend will be wanted back at work soon.

Tommy Atkins', often shortened to 'Tommy', had long been slang for a rank-and-file soldier, but the name would became especially popular in the First World War. This comedy film was made by Robert W Paul, one of Britain's earliest filmmakers. He was a successful instrument-maker by trade and became the co-inventor of the country's first moving-picture camera in 1896. He built a studio in London's Muswell Hill in 1898 and continued to make films there until around 1910, when he turned his focus back to instruments and military technology.

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From the collection

Robert Paul: Giant of Early Film

The most prolific filmmaker of the pioneer period of British film

The multi-talented Robert Paul (1869-1943) was the first British filmmaker to project film for a paying audience, in 1896. A contemporary of the Lumiere brothers, Paul had been producing film, in partnership with Birt Acres, for his own brand of Kinetoscope viewer since April 1895. Shortly after, he began producing for his Theatrograph and Animatographe machines, enjoying a long run at the Alhambra in Leicester Square. As an engineer, Paul made a number of significant innovations - such as an intermittent mechanism for efficiently projecting film. But he also made key innovations in film language, such as the first two-shot fiction film, Come Along Do! (1898). To cap it all, he was a shrewd businessman, with an instinctive grasp of audience tastes.