This early WWII film from the Better Vision Institute, “Vision for Victory”, covers the importance of optical science for daily life and for the war effort. It is narrated by Lowell Thomas. The film explains how eyes function, with demonstrations and animations of a cross section of the eye. It then shows how glasses are made from the lenses to the frames, and shows how they are adjusted to fit patients. It ends with a message about the importance of protecting your eyes to preempt the need for glasses, showing footage of a little girl that is made to assume a proper reading posture by her mother. The Better Vision Institute which made the film is an arm of the Vision Council, which remains in operation today. It was originally formed as The Optical Manufacturers Association (OMA), which was comprised of manufacturers of ophthalmic frames, lenses, cases and optical machinery. It was formed to help stimulate growth and influence the eye care industry.

0:10 Title “Better Vision Institute Presents: Vision for Victory: Narrated by Lowell Thomas”, 0:29 Title with Credits and Producers, 0:41 Soldiers with U.S. flags marching in front of Capitol Hill, 0:53 Different scenes of American street life, 1:06 Different men with different skills shown in succession to demonstrate all efforts are needed, 1:18 Demonstrations of the importance of eyesight with footage of artillery, bombers flying, tanks driving, machine gunners shooting, and workers inspecting the weapon, 2:16 Man being investigated by an optician with different shots of the human eye, 3:31 Animation of a cross section of an eye as well as its different parts, 3:55 Demonstration of how the pupil adjusts when you shine a flashlight on it, 4:50 Demonstration of a Photoelectric meter not being able to register light that the human eye can, 5:18 Different scenes of the “beauty” that can be interpreted by the human eye including soldiers marching, a baseball game, and different nature shots, 6:20 Text intermission warning of the human eye doing different things than what it is designed for, 6:36 Men working hard in a factory with close up shots of equipment, 7:20 Man doing an eye test with demonstration of what that man would see if he had different types of astigmatism, 8:06 Several shots of men working in different factories, 8:29 Text intermission with statistics on sight, 8:43 Men working in an optical glass factory shown, 9:02 Man using machines to create glasses frames, 9:34 Woman carefully shaping the frame into a shape where it can hold a lens, 10:00 machine takes the molten glass out of the oven and pours it onto surface where it gets rolled over and flattened, 10:47 Man does quality control tests on the glass squares, 11:18 Blanks are being grinded down to make sure that the lenses are the perfect thickness, 11:41 Woman checks each blank lens individually for thickness and curves, 11:55 Demonstration of the opticians lens making workshop to fit each lens to individual requirements, 12:26 Lenses are combined with frames, 12:43 Scientists sitting in front of a blackboard, 12:50 a little girl reading a book on the couch and her mom turning on the lights so that she has better light while reading and making her change posture, 13:41 an optician fits a pair of glasses on a woman, 13:53 Demonstration of the benefits of lenses and optical scientists with footage of and through microscopes, telescopes, battleship rangefinders and prisms, 14:53 Footage of a battleship on the high seas and firing its guns, 15:02 American flag flies in the wing, 15:08 Title “The End”

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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