American Women: Partners in Research (1960)

★★★★★ · American Women: Partners in Research · Christine Hennig · 2003-08-28

This 50s film, sponsored by Corning Glass, is purportedly about market research in consumer products, but it's really one long, oppressive collection of gender-role stereotypes. It starts with a campy sequence of head shots of housewives expressing their preferences, though for what, we don't know. Then our manly host Chet Huntley appears and over scenes of women shopping and drinking coffee in a kitchen says, "These women are doing research." Chet then tells us all about how companies like Corning are using the opinions of women to design household products, in a tone similar to one an…

★★★★★ · Man, does this ever take me back · Mr. Cullet · 2003-08-14

I bet there aren't many reviewers who actually see people they know from their childhoods in these things (and I don't mean Chet), but having grown up in Corning, a lot of this film looks disturbingly familiar. There is some great 1960 writing in the script, "You can't argue logically with your wife" is among the best. Wow.

★★★★ · Remember: Grasp the Tip of the Cone Gently but Firmly with your Right Hand, Forming a Ring with Thumb and Forefinger. · BraddS · 2005-05-29

Smugly condescending film about how one company "solved the problem of developing products - That Women Want!". (I didn't realize it was a problem.) Starts off with a great exterior shot of the classic modernist 50's visitor center (note the glass, steel and decorative stone materials, as well as the curtained glass window-walls). Beautiful and varied array of late 50's dress on the women entering the building (2-piece suits, large handbags, tiny hats, white gloves, little girls wearing dresses, white sweaters, hair ribbons and little hats), followed by frightening closeups of women saying…

★★★★ · Chet Hutley tells it like it is about Percolators · Spuzz · 2002-12-26

What DO women want? An exploration of that hard hitting topic is explored in this fascinating film about the 'new' science, Market Research, circa 1960. The film opens with Chet Hutley sitting beside a steel cone on a desk. He starts talking, and pretty soon, you're wondering.. 'what's with that thing on the desk?' Soon Hutley explains that the material used for the cone, is being used for supersonic rocket travel (which explains the picture of the rocket taking off behind him) AND of normal kitchen items... like percolators! Chet says that 2/3 of women use percolators, and to drive the point…

★★★★ · Men do the clever stuff, women exercise their whims. What a load of rubbish! · Fireyfox · 2003-09-10

Hilarious sexist view of production of goods in 1960. Well now, here we have these new materials which only men can understand (like this rocket nose cone he's fondling). But, and he condescends not, the girls make all the choices. Don't argue logically with the wife. She doesn't comprehend advanced ceramics, but she knows what colour goes with the kitchen; the whole film is laughable in the extreme. Classic quotes abound. "Women pour like this because they're not too strong. Oh yes, look how clever they are to do it like that." Well, I'm a guy and I pour like that so I can see where I'm…

★★★ · Seen in Context... · techguy · 2006-12-19

Obviously this film is itself a marketing effort, intended to promote Corning while making a salient and fairly educational presentation of the concept of market research. The ceramic nosecone positions Corning as a cutting-edge, modern concern. The prosaic appeal of a simple, but well-made and -designed home appliance positions Corning as a benign institution of everyday life. The high-tech nosecone is far less "phallic" than the thrusts of some reviewers here. The implicit sexism of the film is no part of its message and would have raised nary an eyebrow in its day; such was life in the…