Dial Comes to Town (1946)

★★★★★ · Great old film · The-Wolff-Gallery · 2023-10-11

I always liked watching this film, it's almost like watching one of the half hour scripted and acted TV shows with a plot like Lassie etc.! The film was apparently made in 1946 not 1940, but close enough. It was interesting to see the central office equipment and how they did the actual changeover. Miss White was very enjoyable in her demonstration presentation. Some of use antique phone enthusiasts/collectors have one or more of these rotary dial phones working perfectly fine on modern phone systems, I have a fully restored desk phone from this era and it operates fully functional for calls…

★★★★★ · Dialing for Dummies · Christine Hennig · 2006-02-02

If youre watching ephemeral films in order to laugh at dorky innocent people from the past, then this is your film. Gramps is all up in arms because theres talk that theyre gonna install them there phones with dials on em! Fortunately, the rest of the family is a little more on the early adapter side, so they take him to a long meeting about dial phones, where they explain way more than you want to know about how they installed them. Then you get to the meat of the film, where a pretty lady laboriously shows us how to make a call on a dial phone, using enough repetition that even the…

★★★★★ · J is For... · Dodsworth the Cat · 2025-05-08

Gramps is a crotchety guy with a crotchety voice who hates "progress." You just know what that means. He'll be championing new-fangled dial phones at the end of this short. Poor guy never lived to complain "about them selfies" I imagine. Gramps asks the operator for a number that ends with 'J', meaning he's on a party-line. He shoos off the others listening in on the line with trickery. Such a scamp. Alas, he and the other actors are not credited. He's great. The learn-to-dial part is dull and obvious, though I'll bet some people today don't know how to use a dial phone. Pshaw to them!

★★★★★ · Must Be A Small Town · JSBejma · 2011-12-23

I don't know what year this was made but in cities I never heard of them giving this big old inservice on how to dial a number - despite many immigrants who didn't talk english (like my grandmother and many of her friends). Our city had two letters and 4 numbers...increased to 5 numbers shortly after the war. In those days of "rotisserie phones" I liked listening to somebody dialing a number and by estimating how long it took for the dial to return I'd guess who was getting called. Our neighbor's WAlnut 9-0012 was very distinctive (took forever to dial). The Bell System had its hands full in…

★★★★ · Gol-darned new-fangled technology · dynayellow · 2003-09-09

I highly recommend watching this film, if only for the definitive "old people hate new things" performance by the grandfather, who can't understand why we need to replace our old phones. Strangely, the film presents no reason why the new dial phones are better. In the opening bit, Gramps complains of the poor reception when people are listening in, and I thought we would learn that the new electronically connected phones would solve this. Nothing doing. You'll still have crummy reception if the busybodies don't get off the line. In the end, even Gramps learns how to use the phone, but…

★★★★ · "It sounds like THIS you MORON!" · Spuzz · 2003-09-06

Similar to 'How To Use The Dial Phone' but made for stupider people, this film details a town's acceptance of the newfangled device. Gramps reads all about the dial phones in the paper. He exclaims something (I think it's a swear word) then phones his friend (who's in dire need of acting lessons) to tell him about it. Dad then tells Gramps they're going to a meeting to have people tell all about it. At the meeting, the two gentlemen talkers are fine, but 'Miss White' wins the award for speaking down to the morons with her speech by repeating everything twice, reminding us like 5 times what…