Facts and Fancies

Joan Collins gets to grips with the by-products of coal in her first screen appearance

Four years before heading a cast of thousands in Howard Hawks' epic Land of the Pharaohs, Joan Collins made a more auspicious film debut - in this short, comic documentary about the by-products of coal. In a blink-and-you'll-miss-it performance, Collins appears as a groovy young thing whose family discover how wretched their lives would be if it wasn't for those aforementioned coal by-products.

Facts and Fancies was produced on behalf of the Gas Council by Public Relationship Films - a company which specialised in applying a sparkling and quirky wit to potentially dull public information films. Public Relationship was headed by Richard Massingham, the inimitable on-screen star of many of these productions. Here he has a supporting role, playing the father of the family.