“The Thread of Life” dates to 1960 and was part of the Bell Science Series of films. The film is about heredity, genetics, DNA and how it works. The screenplay was by Rowland Barber, a writer perhaps best known for the 1960 novel The Night They Raided Minsky’s. Owen Crump directed; Robert McKimson directed the animation. The film begins with the early discoveries in genetic made by Gregor Mendel with pea plants. This is followed by an introduction to the chromosome, with animations of how chromosomes in sperm and egg cells combine to for an embryo. The program features a “studio audience” comprising of different people on monitors, which ask Dr. Baxter questions that he answers.
0:11 “The Thread of Life” by N.W. Ayer and Son Inc., 0:20 produced under supervision of Jack L. Warner, 0:35 produced and directed by Owen Crump, 0:40 the narrator, Dr. Frank C. Baxter, speaks to the camera, 1:11 different people from all over the world, 1:52 a child, a woman, and a couple speaking to Baxter through monitors, 3:17 an amoeba under a microscope reproducing, 4:23 Baxter showing a picture of a cell, an egg, and sperm, 5:01 the fertilized egg dividing to create an embryo, 6:16 Baxter showing different egg cells, 6:50 a man in a monitor speaks to the narrator, 7:17 the monastery of Gregor Mendel, 7:39 pea plants with different attributes, 8:25 animation showing how and what characteristics of parents plants are passed down, 9:14 animation of how dominant and recessive genes for height combine, 10:30 rain falling onto the pea plant, 11:12 Baxter picking up a book and speaking to the camera and people on monitors, 11:52 the inside of a cell under a microscope, 12:14 chromosomes under a microscope, 12:29 corn, grasshoppers, humans, potatoes, gold fish, and crayfish with amount of chromosomes listed, 13:16 chromosomes splitting in a living cell, 13:53 people in monitors speaking to Baxter, 15:19 a scientist on a monitor speaks to the camera and shows a diagram of the chromosomes in a fruit fly, 16:33 Baxter showing a chromosome map for a fruit fly, 17:38 Baxter speaks in front of a diagram with an egg and a sperm, 18:06 diagram of amount of chromosomes in an egg and a sperm, 18:52 animation of how a sperm cell is created to determine which chromosomes will be represented, 20:37 Baxter demonstrating the mathematics of chromosome combinations with numbered chips, 22:23 identical twins, 22:29 animation of how an egg divides for twins, 22:51 man in monitor speaks to Baxter, 23:32 “The Thread of Life End of Part 1”
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