Video URL


13171_17229_telephone_system12
Subjects

1950s
Color

Phone company advertising superiority because of the backing of AT&T, Western Electric, and Bell Laboratory; often overdone to comic affect. CU sign “Murray Hill Laboratory: Bell Telephone Laboratory” in lawn by Bell Laboratories. Shot laboratory buildings. Male scientists do work under microscopes at table. VO that uniquely suited for both civilian and military communications. Well dressed young man adjusts large machine, looking at it critically (comically exaggerated). Shot over man’s shoulder as he works on plans with telephone structure in front of him. CU man with model-measuring tool. CU man with circular dark eyeglasses watching molten material in glass container. CU container, which has copper (?) wire wound around it and a circular mixer. One black and one (South) Asian man look at a white telephone under a large spinning half-dome and nod at each other. Three men pick of receiver of telephone and talk, very seriously, and dial. Two men in broadcasting room talk seriously. One woman and two men operate switchboard with the ‘revolutionary transistor,’ evidently winner of a Nobel Prize. CU gloved hands using transistor on switchboard. Variety of appliances on rotating plate that VO says all use the transistor.