Alki-therm
Alki-therm
ON PREVIEW TAPE 991537 AA Sales/docmentary on manufacure and use of O'Brien Paint Corp's Alki-Therm paint. 5 min 16mm sound color film fade in on the O'Brien logo and main titles. Dissolve from paint labels to crystals. Dissolve to mixing paint, uses of paint-- trailers, homes, cars, airplanes, huge storage tank. Dissolve to O'Brien truck pulling up to the front of the O'Brein plant and pan the plant exterior. Tilt up a high chimney. Down to rail tank car and the back of a truck. Front door of the plant. A scientist checks paint in a laboratory with a montage of testing equipment. Football touchdown; men study papers. Old fashioned paint label, 1906. 1920, titanium vial is added.Cassein paints. 1933, thermolyzation process. 1941, rubberized paint is added. 1954, Alkyd is added. Pan bottles of Alkyds. Cut to Herb True, the narrator, surrounded by colored flasks. Cut to a crystal of alkyd, as Herb shows them. Cut to a technician adjusting equipment in a laboratory. Cut to a Veriac transformer being adjusted. Cut to glassware in the lab as chemicals burn and bubble in them. Pipette. A handful of dirt is spilled, becomes the atom bomb, and back to the crystals of alkyds. O'Brein perfect wall paint label. Lab experiments with beakers, flasks, colors changing, men studying the results, rejecting attempts until-- time passes as the calendar pages shift-- dealer shakes his head, more rejections, cut to red paint rollers as colors are ground, lab tests of fineness, vats of paint, mixing of green, blue, gray, more rejections... more lab test equipment; more calendars, more rejections, book closed... reopened for study. Try thermolyzation, cut to the unti and art of tanks, showing the coils heated and cooled, in animated sequence. Cartoon character pints the way. Back to the thermolyzation tanks, reopneing the notebooks and back to the lab. Final "approved" stampon the last test. Alki-Therm label. Paint can stop motion to front. Tiltes describe the paint. Dissolve to room interior, a bedroom, with a woman fixing her hair at a mirror. Dissolve to professional painter with a brush, then a roller. Viscosity test in a lab. Lab stirring. Painter covering dark wall with light paint. Pan the "hiding charts" to show how well paint covers the black background. Woman paints but the phone rings so she stops painting, resuming after the call has ended. White spotting panel with two surfaces, porous and non-porous, and the paint covers the two surfaces smoothly. Painter in office finishes his work and leaves while the office workers continue to work with windows closed and no paint fumes. Lab with chemist adjusting glassware. Cut to a baby in crib putting jam on wallpaper; her mother wipes it off with a sponge. Standard laboratory scrubbing machine shows how paint holds up to scrubbing. Woman puts nail into a wall to hang a picture up. No problem! Scientist bends a piece of metal to show the cracking of paints. Cut to display of colors against the wall as a color stylist talks to a customer. The intermixes are shown. Cut to home furnishings magazines, samples od carpets and fabrics and paint swatches. CU of the stylist. In the plant, drawers of different color pigments are opened. Scientist at eyepiece matches colors. FI on plant interior and exterior of three plants. Adjustment of lab equipment. Mixing paints in the plant. Various valves and tanks, pan as the operator adjusts a flow of chemicals. Drum rollers. Color changes on mixing rollers. Colored paint flows into can, finished cans of paint come down the conveyor belt. Warehouse stacks of paint for shipment and back to the O'Brien truck. Dissolve to store front with O'Brien neon sign. Display of magazine ads, dealer displays, color cards, film projector, newspaper ads and paint labels. Summary montage repeats earlier scenes briefly... cut to President J.J. Crowley, speaking into camera. Paint can, O'Brien logo, mixing paint colors in vats. The End. (EDIT NOTE FROM FRINK: THIS IS ONE OF THE FIRST INDUSTRIAL FILMS I MADE AND IN MANY WAYS IT IS TYPICAL OF THE INDUSTRIAL FILM OF THAT ERA ALTHOUGH I DID MANAGE TO AVOID THE POINTLESS DANCING GIRL SEQUENCE THAT WAS MANDATORY IN MANY FILMS OF THAT PERIOD. "ALKI-THERM" IS A BIT OVERBLOWN. THE WORLD DOES NOT REALLY REVOLVE AROUND HOUSE-PAINT, AS IN THE POMPOUS OPENING NARRATOR WOULD LIKE US TO BELIEVE, AND IN THOSE DAYS IT WAS IMPERATIVE FOR THE OFFICERS OF THE COMPANY TO BE ON SCREEN, WHETHER THEY WERE CONVINCING ACTORS OR NOT. ON THE OTHER HAND THERE ARE SOME INTERESTING SEQUENCES HERE ON THE MANUFACTURE AND TESTING OF PAINT IN THE INDUSTRIAL AMERICA OF THAT ERA.