The Tocher

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Description: An animated silhouette film by the innovator of the technique, Lotte Reiniger, to promote the Post Office Savings Bank. A simple Scottish fairy tale of thwarted love, which ends happily when an arranged marriage is narrowly avoided by the suitor presenting a dowry in the form of a Post Office Savings book. Tocher is the Scots word for dowry.
Duration: 4 mins 52 secs
Director: Lotte Reiniger
Credits: Animation: Lotte Reiniger Rossini themes arranged by Benjamin Britten The Folk: Angus; Rhona; The Laird, her father; her kinsmen; and [last credit obscured by timecode]
Year: 1938
Subjects: Banks, Postal services, Savings, UK, Folk literature, Marriage
Segment 1: Main title and credits. Music track. A wooded mountainous scene. A horse ridden by Angus enters the scene. He dismounts and climbs across rocks to a castle, where Rhona appears at the balcony. They greet each other, then Rhona drops a note down to him which says that she is to wed her rich kinsman and wishes him farewell. They blow kisses to each other in a distraught manner. Rhona's father appears and removes her from the balcony, coming back to gesticulate at Angus. He throws a chair at him and shakes his fist. Rhona reappears, but her father removes her and sits down to guard the balcony. A new scene is shown, with Angus sitting dolefully by a lakeside. Three dancing fairies appear through the mist, then a plant grows out of the mist and another fairy appears from the middle of the flower. She also dances, then takes a casket from the flower and presents it to Angus. After more dancing by the four fairies they float off, waving goodbye. Angus holds up the casket. He mounts his horse and, holding the casket, rides through the forest and over hills to the town. He arrives at the church as the wedding party is about to enter, with Rhona being pulled reluctantly by her father towards the church door. Angus presents the casket to Rhona's father, who looks inside and finds a Post Office Savings Book (her dowry or Tocher). Under the banner heading 'Post Office Savings Bank' the father embraces Angus, then Rhona and Angus kiss while her father does a jig. End credit.
Persistent URL: http://edina.ac.uk/purl/isan/0013-0000-2913-0000-0-0000-0000-0
Written and compiled by the British Universities Film & Video Council © BUFVC 2005
Subject classification by University of Edinburgh Library © 2006