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Westbrook Van Voorhis

Acting

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Postwar Farms (MARCH OF TIME) will interest not only farmers but also those numerous urbanites who wonder wistfully how they might make out on five acres and a prayer. General answer: there is a chance for small farmers, through rural electrification and cooperatives, but not too gay or sure a one. Few or none of the returning soldiers who look forward to farming can be absorbed on the land; and the small farmer at best is threatened by the expanding immensity of 20th-century big-business farming. Most impressive—and to many, most depressing—shots in the film show the implacable march of incredibly proficient machines across vast acreages of California and New Jersey, with human beings assuming a relationship to the soil almost as impersonal as work in great factories, or in the bull pens of great companies.

The March of Time: Post-War Farms

1944Movie
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Where’s the Meat tells in considerable detail where it is, where it isn’t and why it won’t be. There are glimpses of black markets and worried men in Washington, of sharp practices in stores and on the range, and of the small local butcheries which have crammed quick-freeze lockers with millions of pounds of meat, much of it bought point-free, on the hoof. The obvious conclusion: with the demand for meat almost twice the visible supply—despite the slaughter of cattle not fully grown—the best that can be done is not going to be good enough, for some time to come. The film’s approach to the problem, accordingly, is humorous as well as instructive. Best bits of humor: glaring samples of the sycophantic treatment accorded that “pampered citizen,” the local meat-retailer; almost lascivious shots of steaks and chops in all their old-fashioned glory, which might well be forbidden on grounds of mental cruelty to carnivorous America.

The March of Time: Where's the Meat?

1945Movie