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In addition to his social realist films, James Williamson also made a number of anarchic comedies, many of which featured his own sons in the role of mischievous pranksters (another surviving example is Our New Errand Boy from 1905). Here, two brothers wreak havoc in their parents' house, filling top hats with flour, tying tablecloths to coat-tails, painting beards and moustaches on helpless infants, and exploiting the opportunity left by a servant being distracted by one of the maids (the boys aren't the only ones up to mischief) to insert a live rabbit under the cover keeping their father's breakfast warm. They are, inevitably, caught and soundly thrashed (Williamson himself plays the irate paterfamilias), but not before they were able to insert some pre-emptive padding down the back of their trousers, which they triumphantly pull out at the film's end. In cinematic terms, this is less rewarding than Williamson's other surviving films of the period, as for the most part the camera is content to observe the action from a fixed position, though he does grant us a close-up of the baby after its involuntary make-up session. This also appears to be the oldest surviving film featuring a trademark Williamson company title card, with the film's title framed by a genuine curtain. Michael Brooke
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Complete film (3:34)
