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Handy (Jam) OrganizationAluminum on the March (Part I) (1956)

How aluminum contributes to everyday living and national defense: appliances, packaging, airplanes, etc. With great stop-motion animation.


This movie is part of the collection: Prelinger Archives

Producer: Handy (Jam) Organization
Sponsor: Reynolds Metals Co.
Audio/Visual: Sd, C
Keywords: Metals: Aluminum; Animation: Stop-motion; Design: Industrial

Creative Commons license: Public Domain

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Reviewer: Christine Hennig - - July 12, 2003
Subject: Aluminum on the March (Full Film)
This lush 50s film, sponsored by Reynolds Aluminum, may be the quintessential industrial film. It tells us everything we'd ever and never want to know about aluminum, its production, and its uses. Aluminum bars, ingots, and products of various types march in stop-motion animation at various points in the film, led by a little Reynolds Aluminum guy made from aluminum bars. Lots of very well-shot scenes of aluminum production and manufacturing are shown, which should satisfy factory-tour fans. And the scenes of all the different types of aluminum products are a 50s populuxe-lover's dream, with 50s cars, appliances, household products, an extended scene of a 50s housewife in a bright red dress and a chiffon apron in a 50s kitchen using aluminum foil in many different ways, and another long scene of a whole bunch of 50s brand-name grocery products that used foil in their packaging. This is all shot in glaring 50s color and with a bombastic, triumphant soundtrack. I especially love the stop-motion animation, the Reynolds Aluminum guy, and all the 50s grocery products. This is an essential film for industrial film collectors.
Ratings: Camp/Humor Value: ****. Weirdness: ***. Historical Interest: *****. Overall Rating: *****.

Reviewer: mdxi - - February 17, 2003
Subject: Pope Jam Handy?
This film is already a classic of the Overblown Sense of Product Importance and Overwrought Narration genres, but it does rather drag on.

What makes it worth 5 stars is that it stars in the Talking Heads movie "True Stories" (the Puzzling Evidence sequence). Anyone who has seen that movie and/or is familiar with Subgenius imagery cannot help but adore this film.

Reviewer: Spuzz - - December 21, 2002
Subject: Never Ending March Of Aluminum
(full film) Totally overwrought self tribute to Reynolds gives up everything, and I mean EVERYTHING that Aluminum can be churned into. Bars! Wire! Cars! Aluminum foil! The list goes on and on (and on). The first half of the second part is the best though, as it explores packaging, and some great examples of 60's food products are shown. Also great, it's incorperation into fashion. The stop motion effects are also worth noting, but the rest is just too much. "And this is not the end" will surely bring a groan.

Shotlist

Live location photography, stop-motion and special effects chronicle an industry that contributes to everyday living and national defense. The documentary opens in the mile-high bauxite mines of Jamaica, from which the bauxite ore is conveyed over an aerial tramway to waiting ships, then carried to a factory. At the factory, the ore is digested, settled, washed and "unlocked" from the earth. Emerging as a snow-white powder, the "alumina" is used for soil conditioning, as an abrasive and for conversion to solid sluminum at reduction plants through the electrolytic process. To vivify the versatility and flexibility of the metal, the film employs "marching" ingots, blooms, billets and extruded shapes.
Rapidly, the film pictures aluminum applications in car styling, home appliances, packaging, "Reynolds Wrap" for cooking and preserving, as a "do-it-yourself" material, and as the key metal in jet airplanes, Diesel engines, buses and heavy industries. The ease with which aluminum can be handled is demonstrated in a sequence showing a farmer using it for siding and insulation and to irrigate a field. The piping in this scene is shown to be highly portable, being moved in sections by one person.
In a "pageant of packaging" the film presents row on row of familiar brands parading in step to stirring martial music, against a background of brilliant colors. ALUMINUM ON THE MARCH concludes that more products will join the parade, that this definitely is not "The End." [Business Screen 17:8, 1956]

Quite beautiful film propagandizing on behalf of aluminum.



Ken Smith notes: This is a beautiful industrial, complete with outstanding photography, lighting, and a great score. Sprinkled throughout are animated sequences that show an aluminum man and his metallic minions lurching across the screen in military parade fashion as "aluminium marches forth." We witness every step of this "breathtaking journey," as primitive aluminum ingots are transformed into "modern, smart-looking delivery trucks" and plain-Jane aluminum foil adds "the gleam of glamour to milady's gown." Truly, bauxite never looked so good. Sponsored by the Reynolds Metals Company, of course. (KS)
Stock shots:
stop-motion animation of aluminum ingot etc.;
bauxite mine in Arkansas and explosion; use of foil in packaging;

excellent shot of supermarket shelves;
wonderful Video Quick frozen TV dinner package;

PRODUCTS BUSES BUILDINGS HOMES INDUSTRY ASSEMBLY LINES LEISURE MARCHING CARIBBEAN MINING BAUXITE ORE MACHINES HOUSEWORK FANTASY Aluminum Industrial films Stop-motion animation Animation Surrealism Metals Manufacturing Barbecues Foil (Aluminum) Kitchens Refrigerators Appliances Women Kitchens Housewives Packaging Food Fireworks Offices Popcorn Jiffy Pop Jamaica Bauxite Mining Workers (Foundries) Workers (Women) Trailers (House) Cooking Explosions Metallurgy Supermarkets Consumerism TV dinners Television dinners Children Pots and Pans Cooking utensils
Voiceover:
"In order to ensure a constant and uninterrupted supply of this raw material [bauxite], Reynolds some years ago pioneered the development of aluminum ore deposits in Haiti"

"This never ending march of aluminum continues, an ever growing parade supplying the thousands of parts which form the products of today and the better products of tomorrow."