Delft Blue

Content

The film Delfts Blauw opens with live action footage. After atmospheric images of Dutch farmland, the camera zooms in on a Delft blue plate and then reveals a Dutch animated backdrop. In the end, everyone in the film is involved in Dutch dairy.

Trivia

The client, the Dutch Dairy Bureau (NZB), had enjoyed years of success with the ‘Dutchy’ film concept: ‘A Dream Comes True (1955)’, ‘Holland Invites The World (1957)’ and many other films. Suddenly, the seemingly endless series of films that Dollywood produced for the Dutch Dairy Bureau came to a halt. Until 1966, when this film was released. ‘Delft Blue’ (1966) is distinguished by an entirely different style. The explanation could probably be sought in the client's changed market approach. In later promotions, the logo of Dutchy was increasingly replaced by an image of a woman. She is wearing the traditional costume of the (eel) fishing village of Volendam. This village has nothing to do with cheese or dairy, but this colourful traditional costume is very popular with tourists. Many consider this costume to be the Dutch national costume. The logo with the woman at the end of the film became known in Germany as Frau Antje. She turned out to be very successful in marketing. The little Dutchy boy was pushed into the background and eventually disappeared.

From supporting role to leading role

The idea for Frau Antje as a mascot for the Dutch Dairy Bureau is said to have come from an employee of the Dutch Dairy Bureau. However, anyone who watches the first Dutchy films can see that Frau Antje has been appearing in the films from the start. So we can say that Frau Antje appeared in the media as early as 1957, although she only had a supporting role at that time.

One more time Dutchy

We see the mascot Dutchy one more time in Delft Blue. To see him, you have to pay close attention to the final shot. A tower of cheese, milk bottles and tins of condensed milk are piled up on top of each other, with Dutchy depicted on the label.

Advantages

The makers chose to blend ‘Dutch dairy products’ with traditional Delftware pottery depicting stereotypical images of the Netherlands.. The film score by Ger van Leeuwen is also a collage of old, traditional Dutch songs. This puppet film style looked refreshing thanks to the stylised puppets and simpler, brighter sets.

Modern

The film shows that the client wanted a more modern approach than we see in the Dutchy films. This is expressed in the live-action shots, where we see windmills, but also cows with modern apartment buildings in the background. The opening music is smashing. In the earlier films you saw Dutchy milking the cows by hand; here they use a milking machine. The dairy is in full swing and a dairy merchant shows off the ‘new’ invention of pre-packaged milk in plastic bags. A novelty of 1965.