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by illusive4080 222 days ago
It’s crazy to me watching this and thinking that if that kid lived to 100 he would’ve died 30+ years ago. That unknown child will be forever captured on this film.

Every time I watch old films with children in them I always think about how they’ve been dead, hopefully of old age, for a long time already.
3 comments
brohee 222 days ago
Not to be grim, but he was the perfect age class to spend 4 years in the trenches...

The French males born in 1894 had a 92% mobilization rate (those who survived infant mortality that was still huge at the time). In 1920, only 48% of this age class was still alive (the big three killer being infant mortality, combat losses and the "Spanish" (Kansas) flu).

See figure 2a in https://shs.cairn.info/revue-population-et-societes-2014-4-p...

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Jean-Philipe 222 days ago
There's a German black-and-white comedy "Die Feuerzangenbowle" from 1944 and most of the actors knew this was going to be their last film. They were drafted into the war right after filming wrapped up and all of them died, apart from the main star.
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agurk 222 days ago
You may be thinking of a different film, as all the cast members listed on wikipedia[0] are stated to have died after 1945.

The trivia section of the German wiki page of the same film says there's a disputed rumour that the film was prolonged to help the young extras avoid conscription.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Die_Feuerzangenbowle_(1944_fil...

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Jean-Philipe 220 days ago
Thank you for pointing that out! I think that's the rumor I heard...
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TacticalCoder 222 days ago
> Every time I watch old films with children in them I always think about how they’ve been dead, hopefully of old age, for a long time already.

I've got movies (black & white, no audio) recorded on a "Pathe-Baby" camera [1] from my grand-mother and her sister, my great-aunt, in the early 1920s, where they're both little girls playing.

I knew them both very well, they lived through WWII in Europe and they both died old. My great-aunt lived until her 100th year.

Very few things are as moving as this little, short Pathe Baby vids I've got of them.

A few years ago we asked a little local shop to convert these to digital format and these files are precious treasure in the family.

[1] https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Path%C3%A9-Baby

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