The Big Four in Conference

(1946)

Earth's four superpowers meet.

Cinema advertising film for Van Nelle's Coffee and Tea. But also: Caran d'Ache pencils.

Story

De film "The Big Four" (1946) is about a meeting of the four superpowers: France, UK, US and USSR at the United Nations building. The press reports on an acrimonious meeting. In the end, an important message leaks out... "They agree!"
The question, however, is: about what?

Breakthrough

'The Big Four in Conference' made Joop Geesink instantly world-famous in his own country. The concept for the film was rock-solid. During the war, Geesink made cartoons about the three superpowers. He had great success with these. After the war, France was added as the fourth superpower. A subject that concerned politicians and citizens alike.
Joop Geesink's film concept deftly capitalised on this. He came up with this script and looked for a sponsor to finance the film. In the Netherlands, this was found with De Erven van Van Nelle coffee and tea. The slogan became famous: "They agree,.... that Van Nelle coffee and tea is in a class of its own."
While this film is one of the Geesink classics, it has also achieved a position of its own in the history of national (cinema) advertising.

Trivia

The film shown above, however, concludes with another slogan: "They all agreed that you can't do better than buy from Holland". A freestyle translation of the slogan from the days of post-war: "Buy Dutch goods, and we'll help each other". The English version here was sponsored by the Ministry of Economic Affairs and was used for foreign markets.

In this pioneering time of the theatrical advertising film, the rights of the film concept and thus those of the entire film lay with the maker, i.e. Joop Geesink.
Due to success in the coffee and tea industry, Joop Geesink started offering this concept outside the country. For instance, he sold the concept to the Ministry of Economic Affairs but also to Switzerland, where Caran d'Ache pencils are 'the best'.
The exact same film was used for each new customer, with just a different slogan at the end. Some 20 years later, this script was filmed in colour once more for Martini.

Technical ingenuity

In 1946, material to build sets was very hard to come by. In fact, everything was scarce. However, the set-builders had to produce four limos, each scale model almost a metre long. They were resourceful enough to make one car with interchangeable parts. The viewer sees the first car disappear out of the picture on the left before the second one drives in from the right. The same car is used for this, fitted only with a different bonnet.
The production crew at the time consisted partly of former George Pál employees. The Pál puppetoon style is recognisable in the Russian puppet on the bonnet.