NFR Project: 'Master Hands' (1936)

 

NFR Project: ‘Master Hands’

Dir: Henry Jamison ‘Jam’ Handy

Scr: N/A

Pho: Gordon Avil

Ed: Vincent Herman

Premiere: June 23, 1936

33 min.

The corporate promotional documentary film, known as an industrial, has a much longer history than one might imagine. Earlier efforts in the National Registry such as Westinghouse Works 1904 show us manufacturing processes, with men scrambling around amid huge pieces of machinery.

Director ‘Jam’ Handy created this film to promote the car manufacturer Chevrolet. In Master Hands, the emphasis is again on workers and process, although this narration-less documentary leans in to get close-ups shots of hands at work, turning out auto parts and assembling cars until they, complete, at last roll out of the factory and onto the road. Throughout, there is a score underpinning the film, one that leans heavily on snippings from Wagner.

Ironically, it was these workers who would famously go on a sit-down strike against General Motors in 1936. The picture Handy creates the impression of a smooth, purposeful, logical process at work, it’s one that doesn’t include the faces or voices of the men that made the process possible.

The NFR is one writer’s attempt to review all the films listed in the National Film Registry in chronological order. Next time: Modern Times.