Were it not for the lifelong heroic efforts of Rick Prelinger, an archivist, filmmaker, writer, and educator, an entire history of American cinema would be largely lost and gone forever: that of so-called “useful,” or purpose-driven, films like advertising, educational shorts, and industrials. In 2002, Prelinger’s remarkable collection of some 60,000 films was acquired by the Library of Congress, a collection that has since grown by tens of thousands with the addition of home movies and film ephemera. As a special guest of To Save and Project, Prelinger presents two self-curated programs featuring some of his favorite sponsored films, most of them shown in his own unique archival prints. He observes, “Today, corporations, associations and government agencies reach people principally through websites. But during the age of film (starting at the dawn of cinema and ending in the 1980s) they reached people through sponsored films—perhaps as many as 300,000 titles, many of which no longer survive. Sponsored films were produced to encourage consumers to buy goods and services, promote companies and organizations, train workers, and strengthen the free-enterprise system. The extant body of sponsored films expresses a near-infinite range of subjects, treatments, and esthetic strategies, which we celebrate in this program.” All descriptions by Rick Prelinger.
Beginning with two magisterial works that stage industrial production and Cold War consumerism as grand spectacles and ending with a promotional film that speaks the language of the 1950s avant-garde, this program presents four distinct non-theatrical masterpieces, all projected on film, three in archival prints.
Master Hands. 1936. USA. Produced by Jam Handy Organization for Chevrolet. 35mm. 32 min.
Produced the same year and sharing some aesthetic characteristics with Modern Times and Triumph of the Will, this industrial symphony pictures the manufacture of Chevrolets from foundry to driveway, with striking imagery, one line of spoken narration, and a Wagnerian score.
American Look. 1958. USA. Produced by Jam Handy Organization for Chevrolet. 35mm (original IB Technicolor print in Superscope). 28 min.
Produced to link the design of Chevrolets with the flowering of consumer-facing design in the late 1950s, this might be called the definitive Populuxe film, surveying mid-century industrial, product, graphic, and automotive design and showing the bureaucratic styling process at Eero Saarinen’s modernist GM Tech Center.
Long Distance. 1946. USA. Produced by Audio Productions for Bell System. Archival 16mm print. 18 min.
One of a host of Bell System institutional promotional films, Long Distance expresses the wonder and utility of our long-distance telephone system, linking its growth and reach to European settlement of North America and Manifest Destiny.
In the Suburbs. 1957. USA. Directed by Virginia Bell (as Tracy Ward). Produced by On Film, Inc., for Redbook magazine. Archival 16mm Kodachrome print. 20 min.
One of the rare sponsored films openly crediting a woman codirector (Virginia Bell, under the gender-neutral pseudonym of Tracy Ward, working with cinematographer Bert Spielvogel and a racially integrated crew), this short promotes Redbook magazine and its nascent yuppie/Mad Men suburban readership. A product of what I am calling the “New York School” of sponsored filmmaking, in which radical filmmakers, social documentarians, and experimentalists collaborated to make sponsored media unlike what was produced at any other time and place, this film expresses a playful, avant-garde sensibility and stands well outside the mainstream of sponsored filmmaking.
Program 98 min.