Phil Hall’s 25 Most Important Corporate-Sponsored Films
At Film Threat: Phil Hall has posted an excerpt from his book The History of Independent Cinema, listing the 25 most important corporate-sponsored films of all time.
Among those listed are:
The Yanks Are Coming (1918). "The Dayton-Wright Airplane Co. produced this feature-length film about its de Haviland DH-4 aircraft, which was used by the U.S. Army Air Service in World War I. … [A government agency later tried to have the film withdrawn from circulation,] marking the first time the federal government tried to get a film banned."
Goodbye, Mr. Germ (1940). "The National Tuberculosis Association produced this two-reeler that mixed animation and actors in a fanciful tale of a doctor who cures a child of TB." Directed by Edgar G. Ulmer, better known for his B classics Bluebeard, Detour, and Ruthless.
Louisiana Story (1948). "Arguably the greatest sponsored film ever made, this feature was directed by Robert Flaherty, who pioneered documentary filmmaking with Nanook of the North (1922). What many people don’t realize is that Louisiana Story was produced by Standard Oil to play up the pro-development aspects of oil exploration in the Louisiana Bayou."
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I find Louisiana Story great to look at, but the pro-oil drilling message is as appalling as it is subtle. So appallingly subtle, in fact, that enough Academy members voted to give this shameless piece of corporate propaganda an Oscar nomination for best motion picture story. (The director co-wrote it with his wife, Frances H. Flaherty.)
Among other corporate-sponsored goodies found in Phil’s list are Hemp for Victory (1942), The Story of Menstruation (1946), Breast Self-Examination (1950), The Secret of Selling the Negro Market (1954), and Fred Zinnemann’s Benjy (1951), in which Henry Fonda narrates the tale of a scoliosis-suffering boy rejected by his parents.
Though relying on actors to tell its story, Benjy won an Oscar for best documentary short subject. Something that says a whole lot about both director Zinnemann’s talents as a "documentarian" and the ignorance of (at least) a section of Academy voting members.
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Tags: Benjy, Classic Movies, Documentaries, Film Threat, Fred Zinnemann, Goodbye Mr. Germ, Louisiana Story, Phil Hall, Shorts, The History of Independent Cinema, The Yanks Are Coming
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