Help me identify this film from the John Lewis advert?

[BOFster]

It's driving me crazy

Here's a link to the John Lewis advert- take a look at the old movie showing on the television at 1 minute in, please.

Everybody thinks it's from It's A Wonderful Life, the embrace you can see at 3:21 in this clip:

But it really really isn't.

Ooh I was hoping you film geniuses had found the answer by now! I will join the tweet barrage (is it a barrage yet??)

Yes and surely it's about the onset of puberty/adulthood. The 'penguin' ie boy is looking at couples kissing and becoming interested in sex.

What a depressing ad!

where is bloody Sherlock??

I don't think it's mocked-up, because it's too well-done. Any Thirties/Forties mocking-up you see in ads and on telly tends to have the lighting slightly off.

OttiliaVonBCup may be on the right track -- that could be June Travis.

Santa isn't real?

This does look promising...

Suggestions or random guesses from looking at the covers of his DVD collection from my DF include Gary Cooper and Loretta Young in Along Came Jones, James Stewart and Jean Arthur in Mr Smith Goes to Washington, Gary Cooper and Barbara Stanwyck in Ball of Fire.

I don't think any are correct though .

Alan Ladd?

It's definitely the woman.
And a movie called Love is in the air would tie in so nicely with the ad.

Oh dear, BOF, hope it wasn't me wot led the BBC astray earlier this week.

because it's all about me innit

I think theories about clip rights costing less than mocking it up are very much helped by the fact that it's a clip from something so obscure none of us can identify it.

Zing - yawn. Now, if you'd said it was you and BOF's husband ...

It's "Love is ON the Air" rather than "in" (plot is about radio people). But yes, very true.

Oh yes, it's on rather than in. got distracted.

BTW, I think we should concentrate on the woman; as we never really see the man in the clip it could just be the stand-in. Yes, of course they're meant to look like the leading man, but workmanship can be shoddy sometimes.

really need to get out into the fresh air and sunshine

Apparently a Whatsapp message has been sent AND READ.

Will be back with further updates.

I thought there was a kind of doubled proxyi going on: the boy's penguin is led away by the intimations of sexual intimacy - a species divide rules out the possibility of potential loss being resolved through boy- penguin coupling.
That is a proxy for the onset of adolescence, and loss of the intimacies of childhood and the immediacy of fantasy.
However, the other proxy is that this is all a projection by the mother .: suddenly aware that she will lose her baby to growing ip; another person (woman or man - but sexual) - she tries to hold this back / assuage it through capitalism. And capitalism will also sell her the sugary solace that her 'baby' is going to stay in this state of bonded innocence forever.
It reminds us that a lot of modern 'childhood' is a capitalist construct.
The species divide is a proxy for the finis den resolution of maternal loss through some kind of sexual relationship with the child.

... And the penguin was probably stuffed by little third-world children ....

(Bah! Humbug)

Sorry I know the thread has moved on but I can guarantee that is not Rosalind Russell. I am related to her and that ain't her!

I fell asleep again, sorry, dd2 had me up a lot last night. Right, let me catch up with the new suggestions,..

Hearts - how wonderful!

HeartsTrumpDiamonds Blimey, that is a claim to fame . Mind you I'd be a dreadful relative to RR, I'd be wanting to shout out "Sing out Louise" all the time.

so none of you think it's the Lion King then?

I'm trying to find the Ronald Reagan film now. I haven't found it yet, but he DID feature in a 1938 film called The Amazing Dr Clitterhouse . Please let it be that...

There's not much video available, but looking at google images for June Travis, she looks very very similar.

Arf @ Lion King. It's not Frozen either.

There's A kiss with Ronald Reagan, but it's not THE kiss.

Slightly off -topic, but this is clearly the thread for this question: where do you go to find/see/buy old movies these days?