Field Guide to Sponsored Films - National Film Preservation ...

Brink of Disaster
towers. Much of the “ground-level” footage was shot by Ken Allen of Hills Bros. Coffee, which
had its headquarters near the San Francisco anchorage. NOTE: Also released in 16mm. A 17minute
version is viewable online at Internet Archive, www.archive.org/details/Bridging1937.
64. BRINK OF DISASTER (1972, sound, 27 min, color, 16mm)
SPONSOR: National Education Program, Harding College. PRODUCTION CO.: Jerry Fairbanks Productions.
DIRECTOR: John Florea. WRITER: Leo S. Rosencrans. CAMERA: Emil Oster. ART DIRECTOR: Jim Schoppe.
EDITOR: William R. Lieb. CAST: Ed Nelson, Gary Crabbe. RESOURCES: Copyright not registered. HOLDINGS:
LC/Prelinger, UCLA.
Conservative drama bemoaning the national “breakdown of moral, religious, and ethical
principles.” In a college library attacked by protesters, current-day student John Smith is visited
by his forebear, the John Smith of 1776, who laments that America is threatened with
destruction by “young hooligans.” The two John Smiths debate radicalism, drugs, sexuality,
freedom of speech, and pornography. As protesters break into the library, the film concludes
in a freeze-frame title: “WILL YOU LET THIS BE THE END?” NOTE: A sequel was titled Tragedy or
Hope. Viewable online at Internet Archive, www.archive.org/details/BrinkofD1972.
65. BROTHERHOOD OF MAN (1947, sound, 11 min, color, 16mm)
SPONSOR: United Auto Workers. PRODUCTION CO.: United Productions of America. DIRECTOR: Robert Cannon.
WRITERS: Ring Lardner Jr., Maurice Rapf, Phil Eastman. MUSIC: Paul Smith. ANIMATION: John Hubley.
RESOURCES: Copyright 18Jun47 MP2709; Bosley Crowther, “McBoing Boing, Magoo and Bosustow,” NYT,
Dec. 21, 1952, SM14; “Broyhill Calls Disputed Films Red Propaganda,” Wash Post, May 3, 1963, C6; Film
Forum Review staff, “Brotherhood of Man,” in Ideas, 216. HOLDINGS: AAFF, LC/Prelinger, UGA.
Animated film speaking out for racial tolerance. Using small green demons to caricature
racial prejudice, the cartoon argues that the only real difference among the races is skin color
and that underneath, all people are the same. Bosley Crowther wrote that the UAW, seeking
to widen labor support in the auto industry, sponsored the film “to counteract a critical
race-relations problem among the workers in Detroit.” NOTE: Based on the pamphlet Races
of Mankind by Ruth Benedict and Gene Weltfish, Brotherhood of Man premiered at the
Museum of Modern Art. Anticommunists attacked the film because of the involvement of
known leftists, such as Ring Lardner Jr., one of the “Hollywood Ten,” and Maurice Rapf, a
blacklisted screenwriter who helped organize the Screen Writers Guild. For more on similar
labor-sponsored films of the period, see “The UAW-CIO Pioneers Use of Films among
Labor Unions,” Bus Scrn 6, no. 4 (1945): 46; and Selling, 125.
66. BUY AT HOME CAMPAIGN (1937, sound, 13 min, b&w, 35mm)
SPONSOR: Unknown. PRODUCTION CO.: Blaché Screen Service. DIRECTOR/PRODUCER: Michael Blaché. RESOURCES:
Copyright not registered. HOLDINGS: Wallowa.
Film apparently sponsored by local merchants that urges consumers to “buy at home” and
support the community. Made in Enterprise, Oregon, by a San Francisco–based producer,
the film shows local shops, proprietors and staff, civil servants, and Civilian Conservation
Corps workers. As an intertitle reminds, “United we stand, and united we succeed…. Ladies
and gentlemen, support wholeheartedly your local merchant.” NOTE: The Library of Congress
reports holding a similar film made for Burlingame, California.
67. CALHOUN SCHOOL, THE WAY TO A BETTER FUTURE (1940, silent, 1 reel, b&w, 16mm)
SPONSOR/PRODUCTION CO.: Harmon Foundation. CAMERA: Kenneth F. Space. RESOURCES: Copyright not registered;
EFC (1939), 81–82; Negro Year, 455. HOLDINGS: NARA.
Portrait of Calhoun School, founded in 1892, and its vocational work among rural African
Americans of Lowndes County, Alabama. The film shows the living conditions of the poor
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