Sponsored Films

Symphony in F (1940)
Sponsor: Ford Motor Co. Production Co.: Audio Productions Inc.Music: Edwin E. Ludig. Transfer Note: Scanned from a 35mm print held by the Library of Congress. Running Time: 16 minutes.

Film inspired by Ford’s “Cycle of Production” exhibit at the 1939–40 New York World’s Fair. “From the earth come materials to be transformed by Ford men, management, and machines,” begins the narrator as animated purchase orders stream from the corporate headquarters. Puppets transport raw materials to Ford’s Rouge plant, where the fantasy switches to live action. The company’s 28-millionth car is built to Edwin Ludig’s Symphony in F, with “F” standing for Ford.

Note: Released in Technicolor. Also distributed in 16mm. For more information on the Cycle of Production exhibit, see Roland Marchand, Creating the Corporate Soul: The Rise of Public Relations and Corporate Imagery in American Big Business (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1998), 298–301.

Resources
“Camera-Eye: Producing Symphony in F,” Business Screen 2, no. 6 (1940): 7; “Ford Technicolor Film Shows New Techniques,” Business Screen 2, no. 8 (1940): 14; Educational Film Catalog, comps. Dorothy E. Cook and Eva Rahbek-Smith (New York: H.W. Wilson Co., 1940–41), 106; William L. Bird Jr., “Better Living”: Advertising, Media, and the New Vocabulary of Business Leadership, 1935–1955 (Evanston, IL: North­western University Press, 1999), 127–29, 273