Let's Go to the Movies (1948)

[Music] this is the first of a series of motion pictures about Motion Pictures how they began how they are made and the people who make and show them it all started less than 60 years ago when their prospects were so poor that Thomas Edison would not spend $150 to protect the foreign rights of his [Music] kinetoscope the movies like the automobile grew up in the 20th century but where the automobile is tangible and real the movies are light and [Music] Shadow People first saw them in a penny arcade where they appeared as a series of cards flipped in Rapid succession to simulate motion [Music] then a continuous projection machine was made and the Nickelodeon was born people could now Gather in groups to view drama and the great events of History [Music] early research imprisoned a man's voice on a cylinder of wax further research in the field of electronics transmitted sound into audible impulses and then in 1927 pictures found their voice my hearts are Tangled [Music] around M I'm coming I hope I didn't make you wait mmy I'm coming oh God I hope I'm not late M don't you know me little baby I walk from you young [Music] but that which Grieves my heart and wet my cheek with artificial tear and frame my facei through all occasions can I do this and cannot get a crown C were it further up I PL it down [Music] today 20 years later the movies are played in more than 880,000 theaters throughout the world people say it in 150 different languages and dialects but it all means the same thing let's go to the movies the greatest medium for entertainment the world has ever known to most people the movies in their theaters mean Hollywood Hollywood California USA the city that is not a city only a post office branch of Los Angeles where 30,000 Specialists working in 272 separate arts and crafts Sciences And Trades make the movies working as a team to put their ideas into pictures [Music] [Music] the end product of their labor is a continuous piece of film about an inch and 1/2 wide and almost 2 m [Music] long containing approximately 150,000 Ste pictures or [Music] frames the reason these pictures seem to move is because of the fact that they can be fled on the screen at the rate of 90 ft per minute like [Music] this film is silver coated cellulose cellulose is a byproduct of cotton and there wouldn't be any movies if millions of bales of cotton weren't grown each and every year in our southern states that cotton is shipped all over the country in order to go through a process like this from cotton to cellulose to a thin sheet of Celluloid then silver is used to sensitize the film the film industry uses more silver from our Western States each year than is needed to plate all of the knives and forks and spoons that are used in this country but cotton and silver are only the beginning it takes a lot of other things to make the movie It Takes Lumber [Music] and [Music] plaster it takes paint electric power and all of the varied product of the gigantic Factory that is American it takes science a lot of American knowhow constant tinkering in the Laboratories in Rochester sken and Wilmington experimenting with the mysteries of electronics continual research people constantly working to improve the qualities of Photography and the reproduction of sound it takes a lot of people most of whom have never even seen Hollywood people working in publicity advertising and exploitation in distribution arranging dates and schedules inspecting repairing and servicing film in exchange changes from where it is shipped to thousands of theaters most of which are independently owned these people are working For Your Entertainment making it possible for you to say let's go to the [Music] movie there are so many interesting facets to its artart and craft and Sciences that each one takes a separate film to tell part of the story in succeeding films we will tell you about the exhibit the distributor the screenwriter the producer the art director the director the cameraman the actor the soundman the music director the film editor and all the other people who work in the motion picture industry making it possible for you to say let's go to the movies [Music]