Frontiers of the Future: A Screen Editorial with Lowell Thomas (1937)

★★★★★ · No new patents?!? Oh no! · lumberjackvegetable · 2005-01-19

I can't believe a film like this exists. I have never heard any group of people who are trying so hard to sound smart completely fail. The writing really took off when they brought up oil, which was completely, utterly unless until its use was "founded by American Scientists." Ah, that makes me feel better. Way to go America, great "tasteless waxes for certain kinds of candies." When a big bag of "COKE" is on the screen, I just about lost it... The scenes that follow immediately include "research men" cramming a microscope up their eyehole adjoined by Lowell's words, almost painfully said…

★★★★ · Barrage of Propaganda · longfade · 2010-07-15

So this was one of four shorts that the NAM sponsored and released in 1937/38 to movie theaters, schools, conservation corps camps, and companies. They were clearly trying to gain national support after the sit-down strike in Flint and convince the general public that GM (among others) were not only people's best friend and benefactor, but practically their parents. It's really sickening actually, when you delve even superfially into what NAM's practices really were.

★★★ · American Industry Inc.: It's all about jobs! · paulwl · 2004-04-06

Who else but Lowell Thomas, the voice of Movietone and the one real visual narrator of world events in a still pre-visual culture, to lead us on a whirlwind tour through the world of Research and Development (back then they just called it "Research"), circa 1937. The visuals point up the "antiquated" way of doing things (horse-drawn milk wagon; fat walrus-mustached guy blowing out a candle) and the new products that have replaced them. Leather from cotton, dyes and fragrance from coal, magic multipurpose substances from water plus air plus fire plus capital. A mystery goop used in billiard…

★★★ · New Technology Will Solve All Our Problems · Christine Hennig · 2004-08-18

Lowell Thomas narrates this screen editorial designed to tell Depression-era audiences that even though times are hard now, R & D departments of big companies are inventing new technologies will create lots of new jobs, and its all just around the corner. Gee, I wonder if big business had anything to do with this. Actually, this did happen for the most part, but with prices that were not mentioned in this film. The film does provide a historically-interesting snapshot of futuristic thinking during the Depression. Ratings: Camp/Humor Value: **. Weirdness: ***. Historical Interest: ****.…

★★★ · This plane smells.... · Spuzz · 2003-06-23

Ultra bizarre short featuring everyone's favorite spokesman of the 50's, Lowell Thomas explaining to what new boundaries man has come, and has yet to accomplish. Mr Thomas first says "I'm going to ask you one or 2 questions.." The first question I had is. "Is that your real hair Loweell?" anyways, he goes into a great diatribe of the US Patent office saying years ago that everything that could be invented, has. Ha! Lowell says, why we have vulcanized rubber! Oil! Rubber! Look at all the things we can make out of Petroleum! (What exactly is 'Coke'?) and goes on about the many more progresses…

★★★ · Bang For The Buck · donwert · 2010-03-03

Lowell Thomas takes us on a whilwind tour of industrial R & D, circa 1937. He claims American industry is pending $200 million annually on R & D----that's about the size of the R & D budget of a medium-sized company today....