Originally released in 1951, “American Harvest” was designed to promote Chevrolet’s corporate citizenship rather than any specific model of automobile. The film shows how important auto manufacturing and use are to the American economy while simultaneously showing the effects of the automobile upon the American landscape. John Forsythe’s narration is accompanied by images of automobile manufacturing, the extraction and processing of raw materials including oil from the earth, and mid-1950s consumerism.
This story is the life story of America production. Somewhere with someone on the job everything we have is started. Somewhere a farmer is ploughing the land and although he ploughs alone, he’s not alone. His life is tied with many others, everyone depends on him and he also depends on all of us as seen at mark1:20. At mark1:40, he is herding his cattle. Somewhere, someone sets off a blast to reach up to metals of rocks and set people off to smelting and blast furnace in mills and factories as seen at mark 2:00. From this many interdependent people come to fashion a product of human inventiveness from the bounty of nature. At mark 2:27, a farmer is seen with his wheat plantation. At mark 2:54 is a sugar farmer. He is seen with his sugarcane plantation. At mark 3:18, cotton is seen. It is a raw material for fabrics and plastics in the Alabama and throughout the whole south, also in Texas and California. At mark 4:12, cottons are also derived from goats. At mark 4:40, herds of cattle are seen here. They possess thick hard hides. A turpentine barrel in Florida and Georgia is seen at mark 5:52 which conveys wine to all. An oil field is seen at mark 6:15. The Oil refinery is seen at mark 6:50 where all the oil is been processed with help of different personnel. At mark 7:12, copper is been exploited for. Copper for batteries, for radiators and electrical systems form Colorado and New Mexico and also other exploitation of gold. At mark 8:04, a rusty powdery earth called iron ore or ferric oxide is seen. At mark 8:22, steel has its beginning. Here at mark 8:36 from the rusty earth comes the ores that have the beginning of irons and from these comes steels of many kinds. Here The different minerals are seen at mark 9:30. Here iron, chromium, tungsten, pure lead, gold are seen with their uses. At mark 10:17, all these metals are smelt.
At mark 11:00, a lumberjack is seen cutting down trees. The trees fell are later processed as seen at mark 11:30. At mark 12:01 are highways for basic supplies of steel, gravels and concrete as seen at mark 12:04, and these products are flown for processing as seen at mark 12:16. At mark 12:20, is a Texto mills of Pennsylvania. Here, fabrics are processed. Corn is seen at mark 12:55. at mark 13:20, corn is been processed.
Sand and flame make glass as seen at mark 14:50. It takes skilled men to grind and polish as seen at mark 15:14. The finished product is seen at mark 15:30. The processing of fine ores into finer steels is seen at mark 15:40. This requires great range of facilities. There are many jobs to be done along the line. The polishing, cutting and so on as seen at mark 16:40. The different steels from various countries are smelt here and then transported after been produced. At mark 18:00, is a phenomenal chain of transport. At mark 18:40, men with skillful and productive minds are seen here. At mark 20:00, the factories are seen.
At mark 21:13, a life story of ten thousand engineers is seen with hundreds of supporting equipment and thousands of hundreds of supply. That is the story of production as the equipment dance to the mystery of the workers’ hands. Each parts as seen at mark 23:15 are finished and they fits because someone built it that way. Hence automobile designs are made. At mark 24:40 is a great assembly of the end products. After this, the automobiles are inspected as seen at mark 25:00.
At mark 25:50, the automobiles are transported. Life in America has been made easy for all so we can live where we want to. At mark 26:20, there are new businesses which have developed due to automobiles production. At mark 27:10, it has helped in education and has helped to create more work and money as seen at mark 27:33.
Credits: Photographic direction: Gordon Avil, Pierre Mols and Robert Tavernier. Music: Samuel Benavie. Narrator: John Forsythe.
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 and 2k. For more information visit http://www.PeriscopeFilm.com
