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U.S. Bureau of Reclamation in collaboration with Six Companies, Inc. and The Babcock & Wilcox CompanyBoulder Dam (Part I) (1931)

Shows the beginning of construction on the Hoover Dam (later called Boulder Dam) project in southern Nevada. With excellent footage of Boulder City, the model housing community built to provide residences for project workers.


This movie is part of the collection: Prelinger Archives

Producer: U.S. Bureau of Reclamation in collaboration with Six Companies, Inc. and The Babcock & Wilcox Company
Sponsor: U.S. Department of the Interior
Audio/Visual: Si, B&W
Keywords: Infrastructure: Dams; Boulder Dam; Nevada

Creative Commons license: Public Domain

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Reviewer: Spuzz - - May 11, 2005
Subject: Dam you!!! Dam you all to hell!!!
This dam movie is split up into 3 completely different movies, the first part tells of the preparations of building the dam, and the city that sprung up because of all the people required to build it. It all of a sudden turns into a 'It Happened in Mayfair' type of building, when we see the shops, the churches, heck, even the school kids start dancing up a storm.
The 2nd part is the actual construction of the dam, and as can be imagined, not the more exciting of the two. Still, if you like this sort of thing, you know man and concrete and man building stuff against Mother nature, then this is the type of film for you.. BILLIONS of feet of concrete is poured, men hang from mountains to hook things up! Cranes take carloads of people to work! Weee! We never actually get to see the damn dam finished, which is sort of a blessing on my part, because I was starting to get dam bored.

Reviewer: Steve Nordby - - November 20, 2003
Subject: Give a dam
Part I of this silent film is a self congratulatory wank for the US Dept of Interior. It begins with poorly chosen shots, bad editing, and "man conquers nature" title cards that made me cringe. Don't bother with this.. skip to Parts III and IV (where's II?) when you actually see this awesome project being built.

Shotlist

Early Hoover Dam - views of Boulder City, Government houses, roads, city and dam Colorado.