Down the Gasoline Trail (1935)

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Cartoon showing what happens to a drop of gasoline from the time it flows into the gas tank to when it is exploded in the engine cylinder. This "fantastic voyage" through a glisteningly clean Chevrolet engine is an excellent example of the soft-sell industrial, where the product that's promoted is hardly ever mentioned by name.

Who cares about the life and death of a drop of gasoline? You will after
you see Down the Gasoline Trail. Mixing smart animation, live-action
photography, and an original musical score, Jam Handy's nameless animation
wizards crafted a delightful film that manages to engage the viewer in the
details of a process we ordinarily take for granted.
Down the Gasoline Trail, the fifteenth of Jam Handy's popular Direct Mass
Selling films, was the first in the series to be animated. Between 1935 and
1941 the company produced 118 films for Chevrolet, all to promote the Chevy
brand name directly to the public. Mass selling was enormously popular in
the thirties, when millions of people went to the movies each week, and the
sound of network radio, a relative youngster among media, was heard in
millions of homes. For national advertisers, sponsored films were a way to
grab moviegoers' attention for a comparatively long time-longer, at any
rate, than the glance generally given to print advertisements or the brief
diversion of sixty-second radio spots. (Sponsored films usually ran ten to
twenty minutes, unlike the Minute Movies of the day, described elsewhere on
this disc.) In an effort not to trigger impatience and resentment among
paying audiences, advertising films emphasized entertainment over sales
pitches. Indeed, films like Gasoline Trail and A Coach for Cinderella are
oddly similar to some of today's public television: both present "new
horizons" in science and technology, underwritten by corporate sponsors and
in complete harmony with the sponsors' views; although both mention the
sponsors' identities, neither includes more than a minimal plug for
products or services. The little gasoline drop is not a trademark for
Chevrolet or an icon representing the company's products, but a sprite
whose "magical" errand is to make us recognize Chevy's sense of humor.


This Video is in the Public Domain.

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Categories: Animation

Tags: car 1935 animation engine comic gasoline automobile movie download the trop free chevrolet full trail auto down tank video

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Gasoline.mkv

73.9 MB

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