March 31, 2005
Dial comes to town!
Another how-to-use-the-dial-phone film, this one with sound, from a bit later.
“Do you know what it says here?” Gramps demands in the opening scene, brandishing his newspaper. “They’re going to take out all our phones, and put in them kind with dials on them!”
“As soon as a man gets used to one thing,” he continues, “by golly, somebody wants to take it away from him.”
I know how he feels. So did Edward Abbey.
Anyway, Bell paid for the film, so it ends badly, disappointing after such a cheerfully Luddite beginning: the gentle, patient granddaughter, up-and-coming double-breasted company-man son, and impeccable '50s-mom daughter-in-law - she wears heels to knit in her own living room - take him to the phone company’s indoctrination lecture, where he’s patronized into submission. (“This thing isn’t hard to work!" he finally announces. "No, sir!”)
The most recent commenter at archive.org sees it differently:
Crotchety grandpa complains when the phone company changes the phones to “them kind with dials on them.” Grandpa lives with his son Charlie’s family, who are to be commended for putting up with such a demanding old man. Grandpa even didn’t like it when Charlie’s wife got a new washing machine! Living with Grandpa can’t be easy for this family. And where’s Grandma? Living with Grandpa probably sent her to an early grave.
The family goes to a meeting to learn how to use the new dial phones, which have irritatingly loud dial tones. As the man from the phone company says, “it’s mighty important and mighty exciting!” As the other reviewers here have noted, this telephone company film presumes that their customers are real dimwits. In the end, Grandpa uses the dial phone to call his friend Ed. Charlie and his family are relieved—let Grandpa complain to someone else for a change.
The bellsystemmemorial.com phone history site can’t date it, but thinks 1940s.
Posted by Patrick at March 31, 2005 11:55 PM