Sandy Hobbs | Letters to Ambrose Merton # 20, 1999

In her paper, “Preaching tolerance?” Folklore, 106 (1995) pages 21–30, Veronique Campion-Vincent discusses four short films which present variants of the legend she calls “Sharing by Error”. They were Blues, Black and White (Switzerland, 1987), Boeuf Bourguignon (Netherlands, 1988), The Lunch Date (USA, 1989) and Clin d”Oeil (France, 1991). To these may now be added a British film, The Cookie Thief, copyright 1998 by Big Daddy Film Company.

This film which is around 10 minutes long was shown in late 1999 on British television Channel Four’s series Shooting Gallery, which features short films. The Cookie Thief was produced written and directed by Toby Leslie and Hugh Currie who were interviewed briefly before the film was shown. They describe it as an “urban myth” and a “friend of a friend pub story” but also give as a source a poem by Sylvia Potts written in the 1960s. The poem is also noted as a source in the end credits of the film.

The story has a simplicity similar to the films discussed by Veronique Campion-Vincent. A woman (played by Honor Fraser) buys a bag of cookies, she to a station cafe and sits down at a table with her cofee. A man (Jack Davenport) wordlessly asks permission to sit at the same table. She sees him taking a cookie from what she believes to be her bag. She takes one herself and together the eat all the cookies in an atmosphere of mutual hostility. The woman leaves the cafe and catches her train. Once seated, she opens her handbag and finds there her own cookie bag, unopened.

Although the makers of The Cookie Thief did not indicate any awareness of previous version, knowingly or unknowingly they have extended the range of relationships between the characters. Veronique Campion-Vincent points out that two of the four films she discussed involved a White Female and a Black Male. One involved two Females, one Black one White and one involved two Males, one Black and one White. In The Cookie Thief both the Male and the Female are White.