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Here's the short I ran at CineFest a couple of years ago:

Astonishing. As it started, I was wondering why so much talent (at least I think they were almost all known at that time) were in a short. I still didn't catch on when it paused to show the coffee-maker. I thought it was just an awkward pause, not showing the "product." LOL.

Thanks for sharing this.

Rick

Rick Lanham wrote:Astonishing. As it started, I was wondering why so much talent (at least I think they were almost all known at that time) were in a short. I still didn't catch on when it paused to show the coffee-maker. I thought it was just an awkward pause, not showing the "product."

Rick

Most astonishing. Can't decide whether I'm most astonished by that incredible (for 1933) dishwasher, or by Bette's enthusiasm in hawking all those marvelous GE products, "paying for themselves" in household savings. Or, by use of the music of 42nd Street; was this produced, I wonder, to be shown after presentations of 42nd Street?

My guess is that the lingering shot of the percolator WAS intended to reinforce the idea of the "wonder of electricity." There was another long pause on a machine I couldn't identify--an electric washing machine?

But how, in this star-studded cast, did GE's most celebrated spokesperson get left out?

He was just a babe in togs.

Anyway, here's an ad for a showing of the day:

This was supposed to be included by Warners as an extra on one of their "Gangsters" DVD sets a few years back but for some reason never made it on. Thanks for sharing.

entredeuxguerres wrote: There was another long pause on a machine I couldn't identify--an electric washing machine?

Yep. Starting at 11:31, first we have the GE 2-tub washer, then pan to their flatplate ironer.

LouieD wrote:This was supposed to be included by Warners as an extra on one of their "Gangsters" DVD sets a few years back but for some reason never made it on. Thanks for sharing.

This was shown at Cinecon...year before last, I think? Bette Davis gushing over her household appliances may well have been the funniest thing shown that year.

Yes - last year. My print.

Ray Faiola wrote:Yes - last year. My print.

Thank you VERY much.

Fascinating short. I wonder what was that washing powder Bette put into the dishwasher composed of? To do as it claimed it will do, it must have been some very nasty stuff.

Thanks so much for sharing!

A friendly shout-out to the legal folks at 20th Century-Fox. Yesterday Fox had this short subject taken down from my YouTube account. I emailed the contact in the Law Department at Fox and explained that this was not the 1938 Fox feature but a 1933 short produced by General Electric. They immediately recognized the error and issued a restoration of the video to YouTube. Correspondence on both sides was friendly and professional. Thanks much to the legal eagles at Fox.

Yes, the same 20th Century Fox (TCF) that is spending a fortune on legal fees to squash anyone potentially violating their intellectual property rights but, in the 1970s, the studio trashed its Technicolor negatives of movies like "The Black Swan." Even restored, TCF's DVD and Blu-ray of "The Black Swan" is not the real Technicolor movie it would have been if TCF had given that movie's negative to UCLA for safekeeping and not to a carting company for disposal as trash. Fox's legal department did not even bother to look at your YouTube video before issuing a DMCA takedown notice. I wonder if Fox's legal department in 1974 was the source of the complaint to the FBI that got Roddy McDowell in legal trouble for possessing 35mm prints of studio movies. That would be something, a movie studio complaining about someone having prints of its movies at the same time the studio is trashing its archival negatives.