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Cult Review
Senior Film Conservator
If you have ten minutes to spare and want to feel like you’ve traveled back to a time when people were easily impressed by big tires and fast hands, this is for you. It is basically the 1930s version of a YouTube 'oddly satisfying' compilation. You should watch it if you like old-timey trivia or just want to see how people dressed to break eggs. You will probably hate it if you need things like character arcs or a point to what you're watching.
It starts off with a guy catching fish with his bare hands. I mean, he just reaches into the water and pulls them out like it’s nothing. It’s gross and impressive at the same time. The water looks cold. He doesn't seem to care. I wonder if his hands ever smelled normal again after that day.
Then the movie just blips over to the Boulder Dam. Or Hoover Dam, depending on who you ask. We see this massive motor-driven switch. It is the biggest in the world, apparently. The narrator, Jimmy Wallington, sounds like he’s announcing the end of a war, but he’s just talking about a piece of electrical equipment. It’s very 1930s energy. Everything is the biggest or the best.
The pacing is honestly kind of breathless. It doesn't give you time to think. One second you're looking at a dam, the next you're looking at a chinning champ. This guy just does pull-ups. He’s good at it. That’s the whole segment. It’s shorter than some commercials I’ve seen.
My favorite part was easily the acrobats who are also accountants. This feels like a joke that never quite lands. Why are they both? Do they do backflips while calculating interest? The movie shows them doing some stunts, and they look like they’re having a great time, but I have so many questions about their office life. It’s way more interesting than the stuff in The Life of an Office Worker, that’s for sure.
Then we get balloon tires on big trucks. The truck drives over a guy’s legs. Or at least it looks like it does. He doesn't die. The tires are just that soft. It’s the kind of stunt that feels like it belongs in Maid in Morocco or some other old comedy short. It’s just there to make you go "huh."
I found the segment about vitamins from food juice a bit dry. It felt like a proto-infomercial. They talk about lightning experiments too. There’s a lot of sparks and buzzing sounds. It looks like a set from a Frankenstein movie. But then it’s over before you even understand what the experiment was supposed to prove.
The whole thing is very uneven. Some parts linger a bit too long on the machinery, while the actually cool stuff, like the acrobats, is gone in a flash. It’s not a masterpiece of cinema. It’s a curiosity. It feels more honest than something like Elinor Norton because it isn't trying to be high art. It just wants to show you a big tire.
"It’s the kind of movie where you forget the first half by the time the second half starts, but you don't really mind."
There is a segment on "hand catching of fish" that I can't stop thinking about. The way the guy moves his fingers under the water is almost like he's tickling them. It’s weirdly intimate and totally bizarre. I’ve seen a lot of fishing footage in things like The Law of the North, but nothing this specific. 🐟
The music is just... there. It’s that generic, slightly tinny orchestral stuff that played over every newsreel in the 30s. It never stops. It doesn't care if the scene is about eggs or lightning. It just keeps chugging along at the same tempo. It’s kind of exhausting if you focus on it too much.
Is it a good movie? Not really. Is it worth 8 minutes of your life? Yeah, probably. It’s a nice break from reality. It doesn't demand anything from you. It’s just a list of things that existed in 1934. Sometimes that’s enough. It’s definitely more lively than Beside the Seaside, even if it has less of a 'vibe'.
Final thought: I want to know more about those accountants. I really do. Someone should make a movie just about them. Until then, this little snippet is all we get. 📉🤸♂️
IMDb —
1930
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