Prelinger Archives

[foraloysius]

I'm a big fan of the Prelinger Archives, a collection of "ephemeral" films as it says on the website. Part of it has been digitalized and online available to the public for free. There are real gems among those movies, some about appliances. Some of the films are from the 50's and 60's and give a real good insight in that time. I've downloaded quite a few of those movies and enjoy watching them.

I already posted a link to the movie about the Youngstown kitchen Automatic Dishwasher in the Imperial Forum, but I'd like to share a few more with the people who are interested in them. My favourite one is the movie called "Word to the wives" that paints a good picture of the Consumerism era together with the modernizing of the American kitchen. And the still classic roll of the housewife...

 

[michaelman2]

Foraloysius, the Archives are really a wonderful collection of films...there are several on there that literally make you roll in the floor with laughter. I found the old Ironrite films on that site and enjoyed watching them as well..

 

[Brneyedgrl80]

I think I found my dream kitchen in the video called "Step-Saving Kitchen"!

 

[foraloysius]

Michael,

Yes, there are lots of funny movies, but also more serious ones, both all very interesting. This site is really a document of a part of the American history. And a source for 50's and 60's fans because there are quite a few movies about design.

Brneyedgrl,

Although that movie is from the 40's it's still a good help to design a kitchen. That kitchen is very practical, I don't think people nowadays think only about what a kitchen should look like, not about what goes where. Here's the link for those who don't know that movie.

http://www.archive.org/details/StepSavi1949

 

[jetcone]

I am downloading like mad Louis

I love that site, now if Robert will get back to me on how to burn dvd's I'll be up and running on the TV in no time.

jon

 

[Unimatic1140]

You can burn those files from the Prelinger Archives onto DVD, I do it all the time, but you need DVD burning software. You can also convert them into VCD format and copy them onto a CD-ROM to be played on DVD players (made after 2003) without having to burn them. But you still need software to convert them from MPEG to VCD format.

 

[Unimatic1140]

Oh and one more thing to ADD to my post above is I belive you can only play MPEG2 files on DVD players, not MPEG4 but I'm not sure about that. Someone else here might know???

 

[foraloysius]

I copied some of the movies to a DVD as data files because I also have the problems with NTSC vs PAL. In that way I can watch them on my computer. I can't play them on my DVD player however. I downloaded the MPEG2 files, they give the best quality but ofcourse are also the biggest files to download.

 

[DADoES]

A couple of the downloads I did from there a long while ago wouldn't play. Corrupt or something.

 

[bpetersxx]

One of the washers I fell in love with is in the film from Whirlpool called The wonderful World of Wash And Wear.

Imperial Mark XII

 

[foraloysius]

Ah yes, The Wonderful World of Wash And Wear introducing the RCA Whirlpool Imperial Mk XII and the matching dryer, both with fabric guide. The Whirlpool Combo also appears in this movie. Here's a (small) picture from the archives and the link to the movie.

 

[foraloysius]

Hmmm, it looks like there is not much interest in these wonderful movies. It really is part of American histories.

Well, just to make this thread at least complete with the washer movies that I found there I'm going to post the links to the two parts of "Mother takes a Holiday", a movie from 1952 introducing the Whirlpool fully automatic washer & dryer set. It's not only about how two husbands are tricked into buying a washer & dryer set, but also how this set was designed by the Whirlpool company.

No go there and have a look at it. It really is interesting! Really! LOL

 

[foraloysius]

Link to part 2

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