Would you believe a silent film boosting Philadelphia?

Posted 4/25/19

by James Smart

A strange glimpse of Philadelphia about 88 years ago turned up the other day in a box of books in the basement. It’s a VHS video tape (remember them?) that I paid to have copied …

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Would you believe a silent film boosting Philadelphia?

Posted

by James Smart

A strange glimpse of Philadelphia about 88 years ago turned up the other day in a box of books in the basement. It’s a VHS video tape (remember them?) that I paid to have copied from a 16 mm movie film (remember them?) about 20 years ago, which I got from another former employee of the old Evening Bulletin newspaper.

The silent black and white 18-minute film was meant to be shown in schools and civic group meetings as a promotion for the newspaper and the city. It was made in 1931, and it showed what the Bulletin’s publishers thought was great about Philly.

The title was “One Day,” related to a promotional book of that name published by the company three years earlier, which contained the entire editorial content of one day of the newspaper, June 4, 1928. It made a 307-page book, demonstrating what readers got every day for two cents. (Circulation then was 550,000.)

The film began by showing the house on Girard Avenue near 34th Street that in 1931 was still inaccurately believed to be William Penn’s house. The date “1682” came on the screen, and an actor played Penn at a desk, studying a plan of his new city.

Then came a portrayal of Ben Franklin, followed by images of the Liberty Bell, Carpenter’s Hall, Valley Forge, Independence Hall, men signing the Declaration of Independence, Betsy Ross House with Betsy busy flag-sewing, and George Washington entering Christ Church and praying.

That got 100 years over with fast. Pictures of an early railroad train represented the entire 19th century without mentioning that we had one, and suddenly “20th Century” appeared on the screen.

Then began historic film scenes, or nostalgia for some in a 1931 audience. There was Teddy Roosevelt in Philadelphia. Local troops parading after serving in World War I. Scenes of the 1926 Sesquicentennial Expo. Queen Marie of Romania at the Sesqui (the biggest European leader they could lure to visit it). Gene Tunney, who beat heavyweight champ Jack Dempsey at the Sesqui, aviator Charles Lindbergh visiting, the Athletics winning the World Series with President Hoover on hand, and a Mummers Parade.

The film leaped ahead to the One Day theme, starting with an alarm clock ringing (a wind-up clock), and then a typical early morning scene: a suit-and-tie dressed milkman with a horse-drawn wagon, delivering glass bottles of milk to a doorstep.

There followed lots of aerial photography, showing the new downtown skyscrapers. (The city that year had seen the rise of the 473-foot Lincoln Liberty building at Broad and Chestnut and the ultra-modern 450-foot PSFS tower at 12th and Market.)

Next came scenes of the Bulletin at work, with reporters (in telephone booths) calling news in to rewrite men (using typewriters), and the process of setting metal type for the giant presses of the day.

There were pictures of workers in the city’s many industries: sharpening saws (probably Disston), making hats (probably Stetson), building ships (Cramps?), building radios (Philco?) and men in the stock exchange (probably the Bourse.)

Nearly all of the men in the Bulletin composing room, and all of the workers in factories photographed, were wearing neckties, and many were in suits, or at least in the vests of their suits.

And finally, repeated in a lot in big floating letters, the assurance, “A Greater Philadelphia is Rising.” The film didn’t say just how.

James Smart is a long-time resident of Mt. Airy, an author of local history books and a former columnist for the Philadelphia Bulletin. He can be reached at jamessmartsphiladelphia.com

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