DOCUMENTARY about COMMUNICATIONS SMOKE SIGNALS to TELEGRAPH & TELEPHONE 47354 (1947)

Synopsis

Communications: The Story of Communications” is a 1947 20th Century Fox black-and-white production explaining the importance of communication to mankind. Narrated by radio and television announcer Nelson Case, the film opens with scenes of street celebrations at mark 00:50 as residents celebrate news of an unidentified event (though likely the end of World War II). Printing presses run off newspaper copies as newsboys rush into the streets, “shouting a story that everyone knows already.” Scenes of wireless radio sending the news around the world follows at mark 1:50, and even in the deepest jungles, “centuries are bridged as the story carried by radio is picked up by the sound of ancient drums.” Drums, were are told, were some of mankind’s earliest forms of communication as their sound carried news long distances. Written languages (shown in the form of hieroglyphics) follows at mark 02:52, as are handwritten Greek scrolls and Roman tablets, until Johannes Gutenberg’s invention of the movable-type printing press in the 15th century. The film continues to trace the history of communication, including a nod to the use of carrier pigeons at mark 03:45, cannon shots, and smoke signals. By the early 19th century the telegraph pole was part of the American landscape, stretching from the Eastern seacoast to California. That changed in 1876 with the patenting of the telephone by Alexander Graham Bell as we see a room of switchboard operators at mark 06:28 and the stretching of…

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Details

Running time

14 minutes

Language

English

Collection

Ephemeral Films

Subjects on the Internet Archive

• Stock Footage