Frigidaire Imperial Line (available for download on Open Video Project. Also available for download on Prelinger Archive).

This bombastic film from 1957, meant to introduce the new “Imperial Line” of Frigidaire appliances, is the ultimate populuxe monstrosity. Appliances are talked about in endlessly bombastic, yet reverent tones while a single, elegantly dressed housewife walks from one to the other to demonstrate them. At times, she caresses the appliances almost ecstatically, yet it is a restrained ecstasy designed not to undercut the reverence. The campiest and weirdest section involves a surrealistic montage of appliance parts that drift past the women, supposedly reprenting “a woman’s dreams.” Monderninity is worshipped here, as everything new, technological, and modernistically designed is portrayed as All Good. The appliances have the spare design of a modern glass-walled skyscraper, while the range control panel resembles the controls of an airplane. All of this is great fodder for post-modern critique, though the film’s reverent tone reduces its camp value somewhat. Still, this is a striking example of 50s populuxe thinking at its apex.

Ratings: Camp/Humor Value: ****. Weirdness: ****. Historical Interest: *****. Overall Rating: ****.

Freedom and Power (available for download from Open Video Project. Also available for download from Prelinger Archive).

This 50s film, sponsored by General Electric, is the quintessential industrial capitalist propaganda film. It tries very hard to sell the idea that what’s good for General Electric is good for the nation. It starts with a brief history of the American Revolution and manifest destiny, then goes on to the history of electrical technology, calling invention “another kind of pioneering.” Then we get to see the world of the 1950s “electrical age,” and how electricity has given us more freedom and power. Then the life of an old man is profiled, as it shows how electricity has changed American life in his lifetime. Then, of course, it goes on to show us the electrical future, including a wonderful profile of an all-electric “Home of the Future.” We just get to the glories of atomic energy, when suddenly the film casts a Cold War shadow on all these rosy proceedings, and starts emphasizing how we must diligently protect our freedoms against the godless Commies. It ends bombastically, with the future of America involving endless industrial growth, with no downside to such growth presented whatsoever. This is a great film for showing us what corporate America wanted the American people to think during the 50s. It’s all here: endless growth, technology as the answer to all human problems, red-baiting, and visions of the World of Tomorrow. A great piece of history, as well as a film that is ripe for parody and msting.

Ratings: Camp/Humor Value: ****. Weirdness: ***. Historical Interest: *****. Overall Rating: ****.

Casting a Guide Box, Westinghouse Works (film #32 on America at Work, America at Leisure. Also, film #3 on Inside an American Factory. Also in the Historical section of Open Video Project.) [Category: Early Film & TV]

Molten metal pours from a huge vat into a mold. This takes a good long time and requires lots of manpower. It also looks like very dangerous work. This goes on a bit, but it has lots of historical value in documenting metal casting practices at the turn of the century. A 1904 Biograph film.

Ratings: Camp/Humor Value: *. Weirdness: **. Historical Interest: ****. Overall Rating: ***.

The Electrician (in the Ephemeral section of Open Video Project. Also, film #479 on Prelinger Archive). [Category: Industrial]

Another chapter in the “Your Life’s Work” series, this vocational guidance film profiles the different kinds of careers in the electrical industry. This is pretty straightforward and ordinary, but it does have lots of interesting visuals of various electrical devices, guys repairing different kinds of machinery, and some cool neon signs. The narration is dull, but the visuals hold interest and provide a historically interesting look at electrical work and machinery in the 1940s.

Ratings: Camp/Humor Value: **. Weirdness: **. Historical Interest: ***. Overall Rating: ***.

Young Man's Fancy (MST3K Episode #610: The Violent Years. Also in the Ephemeral section of Open Video Project. Also, film #1723 on Prelinger Archive. Also, track #30 on Ephemeral Films CD-ROM (Voyager) (excerpts)). [Category: Industrial]

Teen-aged Judy falls head over heels for her older brother's friend Alexander Phipps––he makes her feel "squishy"––but Alex is too obsessed with electrical appliances and time and motion study to notice her. So Mom comes to the rescue, helping Judy plot a "nice little conspiracy" involving a nice home-cooked meal made in their all-electric kitchen. This film was made by a group of electric companies, and no opportunity was missed to plug electrical appliances. A very ripe piece of 50s camp.

Ratings: Camp/Humor Value: *****. Weirdness: ****. Historical Interest: *****. Msting: ***. Overall Rating: *****.

Leave It to Roll-Oh (film #2 on Lifestyles U.S.A., Vol. 1 (Something Weird, 2000). Also in the Ephemeral section of Open Video Project. Also, film #819 on Prelinger Archive. Also, film #13 on Ephemeral Films CD-ROM (Voyager) (excerpt)). [Category: Industrial]

If you want something that's guaranteed campy, you can't go too far wrong with early visions of robots. Roll-Oh is a robot taken straight out of a cheap serial and placed in the home with a housewife. He waters flowers with his own water supply, vacuums the carpet with his feet, and scares away a delivery boy. Despite this, he looks incredibly clunky and more trouble than he's worth. After awhile, the narrator tells us he's "just a dream", but that his counterpart already exists in our homes in the form of modern appliances. This film was shown at the GM exhibit at the 1939 New York World's Fair, probably as a rip-off of Electro, the Westinghouse robot that caused such a stir at the fair. But it's a really lame rip-off. This was made during the time when they still couldn't decide how to pronounce the word "robot"––in this film it's pronounced "ROB-but" one time, and "ROBE-it" another.

Ratings: Camp/Humor Value: *****. Weirdness: *****. Historical Interest: *****. Overall Rating: ****.

Assembling and Testing Turbines, Westinghouse Works.

A guy with a clipboard inspects a big steam-belching turbine. He finds many things to note on his clipboard. A slice of life from an early factory.

Ratings: Camp/Humor Value: **. Weirdness: **. Historical Interest: ****. Overall Rating: ***.

Assembling a Generator, Westinghouse Works.

Overall-clad workmen assemble a big turbine-like thing, which I assume is the generator. That?s it, really, but it?s a mighty piece of equipment and thus kind of fun to watch being assembled. A nice bit of factory history. A 1904 Biograph film.

Ratings: Camp/Humor Value: *. Weirdness: **. Historical Interest: ****. Overall Rating: ***.

Ellis in Freedomland (Hollywood's Attic).

When I saw the description of this one in the Movies Unlimited catalog, I knew I just had to have it, and when I got it I was not disappointed. This industrial film made by Westinghouse delivers a triple whammy of weirdness. The first part of the film tells the story of Ellis, a discouraged Westinghouse appliance salesman, and how he falls asleep in the department store he works for one evening and wakes up to find all the appliances talking to him––and not just talking, complaining about how he's been trying to sell them. The second part outlines the Westinghouse Freedom Fair––one of the most blatant examples of corporate coopting of women's desire for emancipation. And then it turns into another Design for Dreaming, as a harried housewife is whisked away from her messy kitchen by a Westinghouse salesman and taken to "Westinghouse Wives' Heaven", where women dress in frilly pinafores and dance ecstatically around appliances. This film has something for everybody: supernatural visitors (talking appliances, mannequins who come to life, a dancing appliance salesman who takes housewives to heaven), weird sexual innuendo (MALE-VOICED REFRIGERATOR: "Ellis, I love you!" FEMALE MANNEQUIN: "I better leave you two alone.", a swishy Daniel Boone mannequin that embarrasses two other male mannequins, a randy Indian chief mannequin who chases a female bathing beauty mannequin until she hides from him in a refrigerator), racial stereotypes (the black doorman mannequin loves watermelon, the Indian chief mannequin says, "Ug! Ug!"), weird credits ("Jerry Colonna as the Voice of Waste-Away"), bad acting, and more jaw-dropping moments than you can shake a stick at. Jerry Colonna's singing garbage disposal is probably being used right now as a torture device in some third-world dictatorship (though he is convincing as a garbage disposal who fancies himself a singer). I could go on and on about this one––let's just say that you need it in your collection!

Ratings: Camp/Humor Value: *****. Weirdness: *****. Historical Interest: *****. Overall Rating: *****.

At the End of the Rainbow (film #163 on Prelinger Archive). [Category: Industrial]

Made by the Sun-Kraft ultraviolet lamp company, this film tells us all about the healthful benefits of ultraviolet radiation, including sunburn, skin cancer, and the prevention of rickets. Actually, no, skin cancer wasn't mentioned––if that danger had been known about back in the 50s when this was made, perhaps they wouldn't have shown a baby being irradiated by her mother holding a portable UV device. Sunburn, though, is portrayed as a sign of health and that inconvenient peeling can be prevented by an application of Sun Kraft skin cream. The film's most amazing premise is the idea that poor people should all be supplied with UV lamps, because everybody knows that the primary effect of poverty is that you don't get enough sun. This film is quite appalling, but considering its subject matter, it should have been lots more appalling than it is, which makes it kind of disappointing. Still, it has a fair amount of camp value and it's quite mstable. And it contains lots of shots of people of all walks of life wearing dorky protective sunglasses, if you're looking for that.

Ratings: Camp/Humor Value: ****. Weirdness: ****. Historical Interest: *****. Overall Rating: ****.