FORTY-TWO ADS IN EIGHTY MINUTES Saturday, January 29 at 2:00 p.m. A tribute to the theatrical advertising film, often called the "Minute Movie." Since paying audiences have always objected to advertising, minute movies had to conquer their resistance through novelty, humor or surprise. Although this effort wasn't always successful, it served advertisers well when it came time to produce TV commercials. This varied selection (which includes a handful of non-advertising films as well) also explores the dimensions of making a narrative in two minutes or less. GENERAL SCREEN ADVERTISING SHORTS 1936-40, color and black and white, 11 films, 16mm. Today's television commercials descend from a little- known ancestor, the "Minute Movie," a regular offering on motion-picture screens throughout the thirties and forties. An evening at the movies in the Nineties, generally consisting of several preview trailers, a warning against smoking, drinking or talking, and a feature presentation, is highly condensed by comparison with the many-barreled shows of the prewar era. The typical neighborhood theater program included a newsreel (new issues were released semiweekly), a studio short subject, perhaps a travelogue or novelty short, a B-picture and finally the main feature. In addition to the usual preview trailers, there were often Minute Movies or "Screen Ads." Made by several contract producers, each responsible for hundreds of ads annually, these shortest of all subjects faced the indifference and hostility of paying audiences, who, then as now, considered themselves captives of advertising. In order not to wear out their welcome, Minute Movies were required to make their point in one minute, more or less, and employed various strategies to this end. Extra, almost entirely devoted to hammering home the idea of the sales concept of "something extra," mentions the word 9 times, ending in a surprising animation sequence designed to stick in a viewer's mind. Breakfast Pals uses familiar characters, "Snap," "Crackle" and "Pop" created by the advertising agency N.W. Ayer in the 1920s, pitting them against "Soggy," "Mushy" and "Toughy," creating a mini- narrative in which evil is vanquished by good, all staged for the benefit of two boys. Three Smart Daughters tells yet another story of women who get their men as a result of their skills at a conventionally feminine pursuit, in this case sewing. Though MTV and other shortform programming genres are frequently blamed for the shortening of America's attention span, it seems to me that condensation and acceleration of the narrative (as found in these Minute Movies) is also responsible. This change in the pace of storytelling is most often found in the television commercial, and it begins here in the era preceding the birth of commercial TV in 1941. Early television often featured long ad-centered interludes, as when Arthur Godfrey delivered three- to-five minute soliloquies on chicken noodle soup, but the sixty-second spot, a direct descendant of the short spots in this program, won out. MAX MINUTE MOVIES Jam Handy Organization for Max Cigarettes, ca. 1944. 6 titles, 16mm. This reel includes Cafe Max Starring Dolores Brown; Cafe Max Starring Thelma Carpenter; Cafe Max Starring Thelma Carpenter (I Got It Bad); Max Cigarettes Presents Ethel Smith at the Organ Playing "Brazil"; Max Cigarettes Presents Ethel Smith at the Organ Playing "Cuban Medley"; and Max Cigarettes Presents Ethel Smith at the Organ Playing "Limehouse Blues." These short theatrical advertising films feature African American entertainers performing or singing in a fashionable nightclub. Thelma Carpenter and Dolores Brown's films end with their puffing on a cigarette in satisfaction and reciting the slogan, "Fiction is fiction and facts is facts; and men of the world smoke Max." Ethel Smith's show her vigorously playing the organ with hands on keyboard and feet on pedals, and end with her puffing on a cigarette and saying, "Mmmm. This strikes a happy note. Now I know why men of the world smoke Max." CURTISS-WRIGHT SHORTS Jam Handy Organization for Curtiss-Wright Aeronautical, 1944. 7 films, 16mm. These ads seek workers for wartime production operations at Curtiss-Wright. OLDSMOBILE "FUTURAMIC" MINUTE MOVIES Jam Handy Organization for Oldsmobile Division, General Motors, 1948. 4 titles, 16mm. Promotes the Olds "Futuramic," the first true postwar automobile. 1949 CHEVROLET MINUTE MOVIES Jam Handy Organization for Chevrolet, 1949. 9 films, 16mm. 1949's version of Chevrolet's theatrical ads, which were released from the Thirties through the mid-Fifties. ROADS TO ROMANCE Jam Handy Organization for Chevrolet, 1951. 2 titles, Technicolor, 35mm. Two of many mini-travelogues released to theaters by Chevrolet; these show New Mexico and Coral Gables, Florida. LUCKY STRIKE MINUTE MOVIES MARCHING CIGARETTES and BARN DANCE, produced by Jam Handy Organization, 1948. 35mm. Two legendary theatrical and TV commercials using stop- motion animation. THE ORIENTATION OF PRIVATE BOTTLE Jam Handy for Coca-Cola Company, 1954. 1 min, Technicolor, 35mm. Probably made for military audiences, this early recycling reminder also uses stop-motion animation to catch the eye. AUTO-LITE ON PARADE Jam Handy for Electric Auto-Lite Co., 1940. 4 min. excerpt, 35mm. An excerpt from the end of a much longer industrial film, Auto-Lite contains some of Jam Handy's best stop-motion animation. For more, see Precisely So on the TO NEW HORIZONS laserdisc. .