The Great Love Affair is a 1966 film that features CBS News correspondent Harry Reasoner and documents the impact the automobile has had on American life. The film looks at the impact cars have made on families, the U.S. economy (including the process of purchasing a car), marketing and media, and entertainment during the mid-1960s. The film begins with new cars being transported on railroad transport carriers. An aerial view shows the Santa Monica Freeway packed with cars (01:14). A reporter rides in a helicopter to report on traffic. Drivers sit in their cars, stopped in a traffic jam. A man rents a car at a National Car Rental counter (02:41). A woman watches a television inside of her car. People drive their cars to a drive-in diner, a drive-up bank, and a drive-in theater. The glass doors open up onto a balcony at a California drive-in megachurch. The pastor addresses the drive-in and walk-in parishioners (04:05). Men walk around to the parked cars to collect money. Children play with toy cars in a sandbox (06:25). Men race cars in a soapbox derby. Kids drive bumper cars at a fair (07:17). Men lower an engine into a car (08:05). Viewers see a teenage boy taking his driver’s license test. He parallel parks a station wagon during the test. Scuba divers prepare a 1965 Chevrolet Impala to take out onto a rocky outcrop in the sea for a commercial shoot (10:15). A helicopter picks up the divers from the rock and filmmakers shoot the commercial. Viewers see clips from a number of other automobile commercials, including one for a 1965 Mustang Deluxe, one of a female model walking on a sand dune, one for a 1965 Thunderbird, and another for a 1965 Ford Mustang hardtop. A Ferrari is parked on a city street and people stop by to look at the high-end car (14:36). The film then cuts to an auto show featuring a number of new models (15:22). Women interview various men at the auto show; and female models describe cars’ features (16:35) or pose inside of cars wearing swimsuits. A car pulls away from a Chevrolet dealership (17:15). Inside the dealership’s showroom, a family talks with a salesman. There are several clips of salesmen talking with customers, trying to close deals. A young couple sit in a small office to close on the purchase of a car (19:10). A woman climbs into her newly bought car at a dealership. A car drives down a residential street, showing a number of houses—all of which have a two-car garage. People wash and wax their cars (21:02). Footage shows a car going through an automatic carwash. A woman pushes a shopping cart through a supermarket, and viewers see the automotive section of the store. Cars are moved into a large mechanic garage (22:54). Car owners tell the mechanics what the problem is with their respective cars. Viewers see cars on lifts as mechanics run diagnostics. A man looks at a car at a used car dealership (25:46). A second-hand salesman tries to smooth-talk a customer into buying a car (as the salesman essentially is trying to sell a loan). A “repo man” from a bank hotwires a car and repossesses the vehicle (27:44). Ford Motor Company executives John Nevin and Don Fry ride in the back seat of a car through the company’s Detroit complex discussing sale projections (28:58). Footage shows operations inside a Ford manufacturing plant (30:23). Men assemble Ford Mustangs. Dave Davis, a former car racer, hosts a party with other racecar drivers and writer Tom Wolf, talking about cost of the automobile industry and its impact on America (32:00). On a college campus, men in a fraternity lift and carry a Volkswagen Beetle in a competition (34:55). Young people drag race in California (36:44). A woman wins her race and collects her trophy. In Sebring, FL, drivers run to their cars and then start racing a 12-hour endurance race (37:42). Las Vegas magnate William Harrah drives a 1933 Duesenberg (39:16). He pulls up to a hilltop where a number of old collector cars sit. The film then shows several movie clips that feature cars (40:51): The Great Race, Goldfinger, and It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. A sculptor shows off his latest art exhibit, a model of a car (43:34). Two men try to open a trunk of a car to change a flat tire (44:34). A tow truck arrives to tow a dead car sitting on the side of a road; the driver attempts to start the car, but the engine won’t turn. Viewers then see footage of a demolition derby (46:55), and wrecked cars filling a junkyard. The wrecks are crushed and melted down into cheap steel (48:27).

This film is part of the Periscope Film LLC archive, one of the largest historic military, transportation, and aviation stock footage collections in the USA. Entirely film backed, this material is available for licensing in 24p HD, 2k and 4k. For more information visit http://www.PeriscopeFilm.com