Now You're Talking (1927)

User Rating:

6.5/10   

Director:

Dave Fleischer

Writer:

Max Fleischer (scenario)

Genre:

Animation | Comedy | Short

Plot:

Bell Telephone instructional film shows how - and how not - to treat your upright desk telephone set. Don't wiggle the hook excessively, don't tangle the cord, keep away from water, etc.

Plot Keywords:

Telephone | Doctor | Ambulance | Hospital | Business

Also Known As:

Tale of the Upright Telephone (USA)

Runtime:

9 min (2004 National Film Preservation Foundation print)

Country:

USA

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Sound Mix:

Silent

Certification:

USA:Not Rated

Company:

Inkwell Studios

Trivia:

One of the 50 films in the 3-disk boxed DVD set called "More Treasures from American Film Archives, 1894-1931" (2004), compiled by the National Film Preservation Foundation from 5 American film archives. This film is preserved by the Library of Congress (from the AFI/Donald Nicol and AFI/Ahti Pataja collections), has a running time of 9 minutes and an added piano music score.

Interesting, Amusing, & Certainly Practical in Its Time

This amusing short feature is enjoyable to watch, and it must certainly have been practical in its time. Part animation, part live action, part comedy, part instruction, it is an interesting blend of material that works well. Most of all, perhaps, it is interesting that a feature like this was seen as a necessity, in order to help its viewers make better use of the capabilities of the telephone.

Starting with live action and then switching to animation, the feature uses a sympathetic animated telephone (the old upright kind, without even a rotary dial) to explain the ways that telephones are misused and abused, to the disadvantage of both the equipment and its users. It's a good job of using entertaining material to get its message across. Except for one brief sequence that features a character who now comes across as a dated stereotype, the overall tone is surprisingly contemporary.

Naturally, no one today needs help with a telephone, but there are still many who have similar difficulties both with the mechanics and the etiquette of using more recently invented technological gadgets. A feature like this may seem quaint in one sense, in that it deals with a now-obsolete version of a device whose present form is thoroughly familiar to us. But in a broader sense, it really points out a great constant in society over the years, as each generation sees its own innovations and must learn to assimilate them into daily life. The 'useless attachment' gag, for example, strikes home as clearly now as it did in the 1920s.

Part of the "More Treasures From American Film Archives" set, the little feature "Now You're Talking" is not unworthy of being called a historical treasure, simple though it is in itself.