Beef Rings the Bell (Part I) (1960)

★★★★ · Oh! The IRONY! The IRONY! · Spuzz · 2003-01-10

This is, of course a salute to beef. The film starts out with a dreadful animation of a cow ringing a bell indicating dinner. (GET it? BEEF rings the BELL?) After that comes a wonderful plateau of cows roaming the open range, chewing grass, being herded, chewing grass, being branded. "The cows, soon, go in one direction" the narrator says, and yes thats right.. "To Market". Soon, you're just DREADING where this film is heading. The film slowly builds on that (The narrator seems to know this as well lol) and takes us through the cows being loaded on (Union Pacific!) railcars, being auctioned…

★★★★ · A Film About Rich, Red Meat · Christine Hennig · 2003-12-01

This is a film about meat. About big honkin slabs of red meat. Beef, in particular. The first half is all about cattle raising, selling, and feeding. It has footage of the Omaha stockyards in their heydey, when they used to be the biggest in the world. Being from Omaha, this had some nostalgic value for me, as those stockyards no longer exist. The footage of a cattle auction is also mildly interesting. But its not until the second half of the movie that it really gets going. Then it becomes the most meat-intensive film you ever saw, featuring extensive, detailed footage of meat cutting, long…