Dial Comes To Town
Dial Comes To Town is a short film from ca. 1940s - 1950s released on 16mm. It is held in the Prelinger Archives collection.
Dial telephones come to a rural community
Excellent sequence of cutover from manual to dial system, showing men in smoked goggles pulling fuses out of switchboard in unison
13:01:03:12 CU black phone without any dial, superimposed shot of another black phone circles around the shot, rotary dial rolls into frame and inserts itself into the phone, number 6974 in center of dial.
13:01:41:02 1950s father approaches teenage daughter doing homework in living room; father asks daughter where the mother is, girls says in the kitchen cooking and that she will help her after she finishes her algebra.
13:01:57:08 MS grandfather, old man, wearing reading glasses reading the newspaper, man looks up frame paper to tell granddaughter what he just read:
You know what it says here, they are going to take out all our phones and put in them kind with dials on em
Teenage girl looks up from her homework, pencil in hand Oh gramp that s yummy, does it say how soon? Grandfather acts upset about the news as soon as a man gets used to one thing, by golly somebody wants to take it away from him. Granddaughter walks over to comfort grandfather you ought to be glad to have modern telephones
Ah shucks you youngins are never satisfied these days grandfather leaves and sits down to make phone call on antique phone Get me 3-4-4-J, thank you kindly ; VS cross-cut two old men having conversation on antique phones; man talks about airplanes to deter eavesdroppers crowding the line, old men talk about the new dial telephones.
13:05:26:01 VS man and woman on auditorium stage in front of American flag; blackboard on stage has giant rotary dial with Bell Systemslogo in center and a telephone mounted on it; shot of audience.
13:07:24:16 Workers installing telephone pole in countryside; truck with huge spool of telephone wire letting out line
13:07:48:05 VS inside factory producing telephone equipment; man removes telephone receiver from molds; men working on telephone assembly line.
13:08:20:21 VS telephone engineers installing equipment for dial service; CU man installing personal telephone line in home.
13:09:15:12 four men standing in front of wall of fuses; MS man wearing a suit and magnifying glass goggles looks at stop watch; man blows whistles and men pull the fuses of the switchboard (this is cutover from manual to dial system)
13:10:46:24 VS 1940s telephone operators; CU disembodied hand patches cable into Washington D.C. input.
13:11:22:10 Woman giving presentation walks up to giant Bell System rotary dial mounted on blackboard, woman lifts up telephone receiver mounted on the blackboard and puts it to her ear; CU telephone receiver held in woman s hand, audio track of dial tone, woman dials 5 on giant rotary dial on blackboard; CU woman dials 5 again on giant dial, column of lights on blackboard counts up to 5; woman dials 6, disembodied arm of woman shows second column of lights on blackboard count up to 6.
13:14:19:26 CU woman lifts thin telephone directory.
13:14:45:08 Woman lifts telephone receiver and dials 4-5-6-7 phone on giant rotary dial.
13:17:14:19 MS elderly man in audience turns around and looks at an old woman and nods, woman gives man a mean look.
13:17:42:18 Woman dials phone on Bell System rotary dial.
13:18:27:16 Woman lifts telephone receiver and dials 3-4-4 on giant Bell System rotary dial.
13:19:42:05 Old man enters hallway and sits down at rotary dial telephone, man looks back through doorway to make sure no one is paying attention; man looks at phone with curiosity, touches the dial; then sits down besides the phone and looks up name in the phone directory; granddaughter peaks around the corner to watch the grandfather tryout the new technology, daughter nods to mother knitting and father reading the newspaper; old man lifts the phone and listen for the dial tone then awkwardly dials the phone 4-1-9-2; man calls his friend Ed Huckster and tells him the new phone isn t hard to work, man smiling says this darn thing is gonna workout pretty good at that.| Dial Comes To Town | |
|---|---|
Release date | ca. 1940s - 1950s |
Running time | 2 reels |
| Language | English |
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