OUR SECRET CENTURY: REVELATIONS FROM THE PRELINGER ARCHIVES PROGRAM NOTES BY RICHARD PRELINGER (c) 1994 by Richard Prelinger This booklet includes selections from the narration of the videodisc Call It Home: The House That Private Enterprise Built which is copyrighted (a) 1992 by Keller A. Easterling and Richard Prelinger. For further information or for access to films contact: Prelinger Archives (800) 633-2033 or (212) 633-2020 Fax: (212) 255-5139 Email: footage@well.sf.ca.us To New Horizons: Ephemeral Films 1931-1945 (Laserdisc, VHS and CD-ROM) You Can't Get There From Here: Ephemeral Films 1946-1960 (Laserdisc, VHS and CD-ROM) Call It Home: The House That Private Enterprise Built (Laserdisc) are all available from The Voyager Company (914) 591-5500 or (800) 446-2001 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This program would not have been possible without the advice and assistance of many others. Special thanks are extended to all those who have provided films to the Prelinger Archives; to David Schwartz, Mark McElhatten and Mike Maggiore of AMMI; to Ken Smith for introducing the SOCIAL GUIDANCE CLASSICS program, his ongoing work with the Prelinger Archives and his generous offerings of research information, advice and visuals; to Anne Maguire, Eileen Clancy and Marcy Kenyon Riedel of Prelinger Archives for feedback, critical judgment and support; to Keller A. Easterling, my collaborator on the Call It Home videodisc, from which certain cowritten program notes and segments of narration have been excerpted; to Jack Stevenson for his pioneering research into the films of Dwight V. Swain; to Celeste Ries, for her insights into the suitability of certain films for this program; and finally to Kathy High, for her continuing love, reality checks and support. INTRODUCTION The end of the century and the hundredth anniversary of the movies are almost here -- and the histories of both are filled with secrets. The 14 programs and 3 video installations in Our Secret Century bring to the screen monumental machines, idealized workers, Technicolor vegetables, kitchens of the future, troubled youth and animated products that behave like people. Focusing on the fascinating but overlooked history of advertising, industrial and educational film, the series brings back over 160 films and film segments in an attempt to reveal some of our century's deeply hidden histories. Most of the films in Our Secret Century have not been shown publicly in many years. Although ephemeral films -- films produced for a specific purpose at a specific time -- haven't received much attention from scholars and film historians, they secretly dominate American film history. Since the advent of the talkies in 1927, over 600,000 advertising, industrial and educational films were produced in this country -- perhaps ten for every feature film ever released. Many were produced to show in theaters, but the majority reached their audiences in classrooms, in the workplace or on broadcast television in its early years. Although educational and industrial films are still being produced (practically all on video) the advertising film is just about extinct save for its semi- legit heir, today's infomercial. The American Heritage Dictionary defines ephemeral as "lasting for a brief time," and this is a fair description of these mostly obscure films. No one knows how many survive, but perhaps as many as 50% no longer exist. No logical principle governs what has survived and what has disappeared. No archive is equipped logistically or financially to house the remaining films, and, as a result, an infinitesimal percentage has been preserved. In fact, they're one of American film's best-kept secrets. But over the last ten years, some 25,000 have been preserved in the Prelinger Archives, the source of all films in this series. This collection functions both as an archives, with the primary aim of preserving films for posterity, and as a source of stock footage for producers seeking historical imagery. So why bother to preserve films like Girls Beware, Down the Gasoline Trail, Make Mine Freedom and Perversion for Profit? First, these are our "national home movies," the best and most vivid records of our public and private lives -- how Americans have lived, worked, thought and consumed. Somewhere in a forgotten industrial, advertising or educational film, there's something for every one of us -- scenes of our hometown, pictures of how our fathers and mothers worked for a living, a treatise on social etiquette, or maybe the look of a roadside farm or Fifties supermarket. Unlike the carefully crafted fictions of feature films and many newsreels, these films revolve around daily life, culture and industry. But ephemeral films reveal more than the way things used to look. They demonstrate how corporations, institutions and government agencies labored to create and sustain a single national identity -- playing on deeply held, complex feelings like individualism, fear, and insecurity. These films trained Americans to be keepers of consensus, rugged individualists, expert consumers and builders of nuclear families. Often, the films encouraged us to delegate responsibility for our collective future to the companies that made our cars, houses and appliances. Communal memory revises and excuses itself over time, and it has repressed much of what these films dare to tell. To see them now is to snap back immediately into the mindsets of our recent forebears, to feel the limits of their behavior and of their world. More vividly than other types of historical documents, these films recontextualize and provoke discussion about complex and highly charged issues like gender roles and sexualities, the decline of American industry, changing family structures, the deterioration of the environment, and the distribution of national wealth. And, in addition, they're frequently very funny. Extraordinary innovation, creativity and effort went into the production of ephemeral films, not surprising when one considers how difficult it is to make anything designed to sell, convince or teach. Though this series includes many films with high production values, it also showcases the work of semi-professional and unschooled makers. Made by producers who didn't always master the niceties of film language, these less pretentious films are often hilarious, original and stimulating, pointing in new (even if unintended) cinematic directions. Like most film archives, the resources of the Prelinger collection have barely been exploited. Many potential projects based on its holdings wait for adventurous producers to make them happen. Although no one can predict how the films will ultimately be used by mediamakers and historians, especially in a rapidly changing media environment, this series seeks to prove that the history of daily life is not a matter of nostalgia or quaintness, but a vehicle to understand the heritage of our own communities, lives and labors. This program includes 89 films to be shown in the Riklis Theater and an additional program of 42 very short films. In addition, two CD-ROM and one laserdisc compilations will be on continuous display, allowing viewers to access material at their own order and pace; these installations include another 35 films and film segments. Rick Prelinger will introduce most programs in the series, and Ken Smith, who is currently writing a history of ephemeral films, will also introduce a program. Many films that will be familiar to aficionados of ephemeral film or those who have seen previous Prelinger screenings from 1987-1991 aren't included in the Riklis Theater programs, but can be seen as part of the CD-ROM and laserdisc compilations available for continuous public viewing. Since an effort was made to present as many films as possible in this series, there is relatively little duplication between the discs and the theatrical programs, except for certain key films that had to be shown on the big screen. All in all, 166 different films and film excerpts make up this series -- an unprecedented opportunity for today's audiences to acquaint themselves with some of the most unusual, revealing and funniest films ever made. .