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Poster for Death to Weeds (1947)

Death to Weeds (1947)

1947 · Ephemeral film · 22 min

  • Documentary

Synopsis

An educational film produced by by the Jam Handy Organization in 1947 for Dow Chemical Corporation. New pesticides, incorporating 2-4-D Dioxin are shown. Crop-dusting. Before-and-after scenes of crops and fields. "death sentence" to weeds at start. Time-lapse shot of weed withering in pot.

Synopsis from OMDb

Details

Studio
Jam Handy Organization (JHO)
Released
1947-07-10
Running time
22 minutes

Reviews on the Internet Archive

★★★★★ · Wonderful · Seto-Kaiba_Is_Stupid · 2009-04-02

Rick Prelinger is a great guy for preserving this priceless history. Very recommended.

★★★★ · The Final Solution to the Weed Problem · Christine Hennig · 2006-01-05

Thats right, death to weeds! Kill em all!! Theyre EVIL!! Thats the attitude of this Dow Chemical film from the 50s. Certain plants are labeled weeds by human beings and are thus deserving of death by chemical means. And the film shows us how effectively Dow insecticides blast them off this mortal coil for good. Granted, some of the plants shown are genuinely problematic, but the strident note of this film gets to you after awhile. Like some of the fly control films made at the same time, you start to feel a sense that the bright, clean 50s world could only exist through diligent efforts to…

★ · Before and after.. · Spuzz · 2003-04-16

The whole line of Dow's new weed killers are shown in 'Death To Weeds', a boring infomercial designed to wow farmers on how 'safe' the chemicals, such as d-44, were to your plant and animals. It pretty much follows this standard.. A state is shown, an overgrown field is shown, then the spraying, and the effect after it's done. Fairly numbing.

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