The Nightmare

(1952)

"Either with 1 or 2 round shaving heads."

Cinema advertising film for Philips shavers

This video has been visually enhanced using Ai technology. The original was done on 35 mm film, corresponding to a 4K video sharpness. This scan is an upgrade from an analogue video tape.

Story

A man is asleep in bed. He has a nightmare in which he meets a pirate who holds up a mirror to him. The man has a stubby beard and is taken by the pirate to a pirate ship where a barber is beheading a crew member during a shave. The dreaming man then takes his turn but stoops when the barber lashes out with his knife, cutting the ship's mast in half. The dreaming man then wakes up and immediately starts shaving with the Philips razor that comes flying towards him.

Trivia

Anyone who carefully watches the films on this website will find that the setting of this pirate ship recurs several times in other advertisements. We also see the setting of the pirate ship in ‘The Discovery of America’ (1953). Reusing set pieces was a substantial saving on set construction costs. That said, the other production costs of a puppet animation could still add up. Client Philips had a special and close relationship with Joop Geesink and his Dollywood. This client provided an almost continuous series of commissions for shorter and longer animation films.

Tracing the date

Tracing the production year of this film proved to be a difficult task. It is not documented. The introduction of the type of shaver with 2 shaving heads dates from 1951, according to the manufacturer's statement. Before this time, a shaver had only 1 shaving head. See: Phi-Garo in the Forest (1943).

The announcement in the credits that the customer can now choose between 1 or 2 shaving heads gives the impression that this film was made during the period of the introduction of the new model. That would then be from 1951/52 onwards.

Laughter, with no head

When this film is watched AND listened to carefully, the pirate's laughing sound bears a strong resemblance to the laughing sound from the haunted house scene of Kermesse Fantastique (1951). Likewise, a similarity can be seen in the scene where the ‘decapitated’ crew member gropes for his missing head. Compare this animation with that of the laughing-mirror scene at Kermesse Fantastique. This might indicate that the direction/animation comes from József Misik.