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Old
Bell Videos
Sometimes appreciating where your industry is requires
appreciating where your industry has come from.
To help foster some of that needed appreciation we've
published some old Bell Phone company videos here. Enjoy!
If you have show content that should be posted here please email it
to Dan Baldwin at
Dan@TelecomAssociation.com or call 951-245-6877.
 Touch-a-Matic
12 (1970s)
Touch-Matic 12 focuses on the brand new technology that will make your
dialing a breeze with a rectangular thing that you can easily store your
most important numbers on! Years before one touch dialing ever came to
fruition, people relied on phone directories to look up numbers. Now, with
a push of a button, all your troubles are over! Yippie-yai-yay!
Narrated blandly by someone who looks she just finished hosting The Romper
Room, this spot actually is designed for store managers to introduce them
to this newfangled technology. All of this would be somewhat boring except
for the fact that we get to see a DYNAMITE display of circa 70s phone
products! Yes! Mickey Mouse Phones and wild shape phones! Groovy! Or. in
the words of our narrator, "It is good".
Click here
or the image to watch the video.
 Bell TV
Commercials (1970)
Three TV commercials; one set in St. Louis, Missouri,
another on Mount Washington, New Hampshire, and a quick review of
telephone history.
Click here or the image to watch the video.
 Invisible
Diplomats (1960s)
Great little time relic of switchboard operators bemoaning
that their bosses don't respond promptly when taking calls, and ask
secretaries to make calls for them then leave the desk! Audrey Meadows and
Ruta Lee (!!) are "roommates" in the largest apartment I've seen anyone
making secretary's wages ever get. One has a boss that has poor telephone
manners, the other has been trained on the Bell Phone Manners Course.
Guess which one gets the account from Pierre Perrente from Caracas?
This one is another gem from the Jerry Fairbanks studio
which, by a long shot, are now my favorite industrial film producer.
Recognizable stars. a somewhat Drag Queen costuming/hair and make up
vision, and a GREAT twist ending all make for this HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
viewing!
Click here or the image to watch the video.
 Century 21 Calling (1964)
Romp through the futuristic landscape of the Seattle
World's Fair, centered in the Bell System pavilion.
Interesting to see that some of
the innovations making their debut
in '64 actually did happen - but not for close to a full generation
after... For example, domestic "call waiting" and auto-dialing did not
come into use in the home until the 1980's. Before the cell phone was
ubiquitous, I remember using a small beeper/tone to check my phone
messages at home [from a remote location like a telephone booth!] on the
answering machine in 1984 - and this was supposedly rather revolutionary.
Certainly a number
of options were available for corporate use earlier on, but very expensive
and out of reach for the domestic consumer. Sad how things can take such a
long time for general acceptance. Nevertheless - I always enjoy the
cheerful "wonder of it all" optimism of these films. It seems now, we're
all just so jaded with our "done that/been there" attitude. Do they even
have a World's Fair anymore? Or is that an impossibility now - that
everything is obsolete within a month or two, so an exhibit of the future
would end up being in the past?
Click here or the image to watch the video.
 Once
Upon a Honeymoon (1956)
Delightful musical made to promote color telephones as a
decorator accessory in the home. Charming and Delightful film which uses
the soft-sell. Who knows if it sold many telephones, But today this film
has "Retro" appeal. Nice footage of the then-latest in home designs. I
must admit I liked the old living room more, But the kitchen certainly
needed changing. I'm surprised this is a Telephone add, since it's very
subtle.
Click here or the image to watch the video.
 What
Mr. Bell Had In Mind (1954)
Produced by the Chevrolet division of General Motors. Don Ameche stars as Alexander Graham Bell in this short
overview of how the telephone impacts our daily life. From the local town
gossips, to the salespeople and the regular joe schmos, everyone uses one!
This is a pretty simple film, it tells of instances when and when not to
use the phone, and as well gives brief tips on caller etiquette.
It's two main points: 1) use the phone to identify prospects, not to
sell, and 2) try to come across as a normal person, not an overbearing
salesman.
Click here or the image to watch the video.
 The Town and the
Telephone (late 1950's)
Telephone company employee orientation film for explaining
structure and corporate values of the Bell System. With excellent footage
of communications workers and everyday life, in Technicolor.
Click here or the image to watch the video.
 Speeding Speech (1950s)
This film explains how long distance calls
were handled when the first toll dial switching systems were introduced,
and contrasts it with earlier
methods where the connections were made totally by operators.
Part
of the explanation about how the new technology worked includes a
demonstration with sound of the then new "multi-frequency" or MF tone
senders.
Different and more pleasant sounding than the "touch-tones" used by our
phones today, MF tones were used internally by the switching network.
Though they're now nearly extinct, MF tones were considered by phone
phreaks to be among the most beautiful sounds heard on the old network.
The
film also has some great shots of toll operators processing calls and of
the original Western Electric #4 Crossbar switches being built and
installed.
The
climax of the film comes after the old, manual method of calling long
distance is compared with the new operator toll dialing when the narrator
proclaims: "As soon as the operator presses the proper keys, it happens!
Just like that!".
Click here or the image to watch the video.
 The
World At Your Call (1950s)
Fun exploration into the world of long distance calling. There is some
travelogue here as well. So when a Mountain explorer thinks about his
sweetie back in New Orleans.. BOOM! Off to New Orleans we go! (accompanied
by annoying harp music). This cycle is repeated a couple of times, and
some of the situations are quite loony! The mountain man looks to have his
belt buckle in the middle of his shirt, the letter the guy gets about the
anniversary sounds almost as if the wife is pleading for his husband to
come home for it (until the end word is revealed) and the long distance
conversation between New York and London is predictably ended with the
English fellow saying "cheerio!" but not so predictably when a visit there
is thought to be a "capital idea!". Somewhat strange, I liked this film!
This film is capital by me!
Click here or the image to watch the video.
 The
Nation at Your Fingertips (1951)
How direct long distance dialing made the U.S. a smaller place, and how
instantaneous direct communication between Americans without operator
assistance became possible.
A pretty interesting overview of the advances that phone technology was
making, especially when it came to long distance services. We see what is
available now, mainly just operators routing calls. But they were just
starting to introduce operator-free technology that would route your call
through wires, and use this new fangled thing called the 'area code' to
help route it.
Click here or the image to watch the video.
Just Imagine (1947)
 Animated
character "Tommy Telephone" produces a telephone by assembling 433
separate parts.
Highly reminiscent of A Case of Spring Fever in its use of a pint-sized
animated character who suddenly materializes before a middle-aged man's
eyes, Just Imagine introduces viewers to Tommy Telephone, a plucky fellow
who assembles a rotary phone through the use of an enigmatic crank powered
machine. The movement of the telephone components synchronize extremely
well with the wonderful music.
Click here or the image to watch the video.
 You
Can Tell by the Teller (1945)
Instructional film for telephone business office cashiers (tellers) who
interact with the public, with a heavy dose of period sexism.
Click here or the image to watch the video.
 Spot
News (1937)
Dramatization of how photographs are transmitted by
wire, an exciting new technology in the 1930s.
This is a fun overview of the (then) new science of
transmitting photographs over wire. The film begins in a newsroom, where
they're taking calls that I'm sure happen every day, stories about
non-behaving cats etc. Suddenly, a call comes in about a car equipped with
a plane! And that plane was going to take off while the car was moving!
Why that's crazy! Send someone out there! They all react like this was
front page news. So someone goes out there, and takes a picture, and
because of newfangled technology, they can send it over wires! This is
then explained to us, but thankfully, since Jam Handy knows his stuff,
this is all explained to us quite simply, and although it's really too
over-simplified, we can walk away saying, "Oh, I know how this works!".
Really quite fun.
Click here or the image to watch the video.
 Far Speaking (1935)
History of telephone development from 1877 to 1935.
Charming Western Electric film about the history of
long-distance telephone service up
to 1935, and the technological innovations that made it possible. The film
is framed by a silly scenes of a couple in 1877 who get their first
telephone the wife expresses skepticism that it will ever catch on
followed by an ending scene of the same couple, elderly in 1935, getting a
call from their granddaughter in Japan (this time the wife insists that it
was the husband who was originally skeptical). Between this are technical
explanations of how long distance developed. These are kept lively by
showing interesting graphics and animations of the devices involved, as
well as a well-done down-through-the-years montage sequence. It all comes
off as charming and fun, which seems to be typical of films made by the
old Ma Bell.
Click here or the image to watch the video.
 How to Use the Telephone (1927)
Silent instructional film on use of the dial telephone, produced
for showing in the Fresno, California market.
Click here or the image to watch the video.
If you have show content that should be posted or added here please
email it to Dan Baldwin at
Dan@TelecomAssociation.com or call 951-245-6877. |
