A gift for love.

UK : Scope, 1963.

1 videocassette (digibeta) (20 min. ea) : sound, colour, PAL.
1 videocassette (VHS) (20 min. ea) : sound, colour, PAL.
1 DVD (20 min. ea) : sound, colour, PAL.

The colour is very faded and mostly magenta.

Produced by Margaret K. Johns, directed by Charles de la Tour, photographed by Otto Heller, camera operated by Godfrey Godar and Bernard Ford. Conceived and written by Ian Dawson- Shepherd, edited by Peter Austen-Hunt. Judy's mother; Mary Peach, Judy; Amanda Humby, the voice (narrator); Michael Redgrave. Margaret Penrose made the jewellery; Tony Davey printed the Christmas cards. Music and lyrics for 'A Gift for Love' John and Ian Dawson Shepherd, musical director; Cyril Stapleton, orchestration by Len Stevens. The singer; Vera Lynn.

A Gift for Love is a film about a seven-year-old girl, Judy, finding her mother the perfect Christmas present; she has 6 shillings and 8 pence in her money box. The only problem is that they both live a fairy tale existence with everything they want (according to the narrator, Michael Redgrave). Whilst shopping Judy notices her mother's interest in a lavish designer brooch from New York made of platinum and diamonds. As Christmas approaches, Judy notices a pretty brooch (made of glass) in the window of a shop but is distraught to discover that it is sold already. The kindly narrator intervenes and takes us on a journey to visit one of the makers of the jewellery, Margaret Penrose, a young 'lonely' woman with cerebral palsy, who painstakingly constructs another brooch using a number of aids in her home. As if by magic, the brooch appears on Judy's Christmas tree together with a Christmas card (also made at home by a young man with cerebral palsy, Tony Davey).

Scope