Sponsored Films

Jerry Pulls the Strings (1938)
Sponsor: American Can Co. Production Co.: Caravel Films Inc. Transfer Note: Scanned from a 16mm print held by the Library of Congress. Running Time: 31 minutes.

Advertisement for vacuum-packed canned coffee that was produced primarily for screening at the 1939–40 New York World’s Fair. In the narrative a young puppeteer proves to his prospective father-in-law, a coffee packer, that puppeteering is a viable occupation by using marionettes to tell the story of coffee. The young man uses 80 string puppets and deep, dimensional sets to explain how coffee is grown, harvested, roasted, and packed in vacuum cans to retain flavor.

Note: Written and supervised by National Tie-Ins Inc. For more about Caravel Films, see “Opening of Production Center Marks Caravel’s 37th Year,” Business Screen 18, no. 6 (1957): 20.

Resources
“Jerry Pulls the Strings,” Business Screen 1, no. 3 (1938): 22; Educational Film Catalog, comps. Dorothy E. Cook and Eva Rahbek-Smith (New York: H.W. Wilson Co., 1939), 199.