Going Shopping with Elizabeth Allan - Harrods (1955) | BFI National Archive

Everyday essentials like brandy, teabags and Tupperware are all on offer at London’s most famous store, in this infomercial from 1955. Subscribe: “I do a great deal of my shopping here, do come in and help!“ commands actress Elizabeth Allan as she strides through Harrods’ famous Food Hall in this early ’infomercial’, made for the fledgling ITV network. If one needed help in sourcing one’s teabags, brandy or Tupperware, one was in luck! First up, Allan surprisingly bypasses the displays of foie gras to give a typically kitchen-phobic 1950s man a lesson in those newfangled Tetley teabags. A trip up the “moving staircase“ later and our hostess has progressed to the hard stuff, extolling the joys of Martell 3-Star brandy. Next on the list, a grinning blonde saleswoman pushes the Bex Housewares range with gusto (“Incidentally, aren’t the lids attractive!“), confirming the suspicion that ordinary British housewives - rather than Knightsbridge’s ladies-who-lunch - were the film’s real target audience. Skegness-born Allan, who enjoyed a brief Hollywood career in the 1930s, also visited the Marshall & Snelgrove department store on Oxford Street for a further episode of the ’Going Shopping’ series. This video is part of the Orphan Works collection. When the rights-holder for a film cannot be found, that film is classified as an Orphan Work. Find out more about Orphan Works: This is in line with the EU Orphan Works Directive of 2012. The results of our search for the rights holder of this film can be found in the EU Orphan Works Database: Watch more on the BFI Player: Follow us on Twitter: Like us on Facebook: Follow us on Google : britishfilminstitute/