Our Old Car

Nesbitt tells of his father's courtship of his mother in his first car (she was terrified, but didn't show it, so he proposed on the spot). He tells of all the cars, from the Stanley Steamer through the Model T and his own jalopies from his high school days.

This John Nesbitt documentary for the PASSING PARADE series is a warm-hearted look at America's love for the family automobile.

It begins with the dad of the family purchasing the first car in 1900, a horseless carriage his wife was afraid to step into--a Columbus Roadmaster he bought for $850.

The years pass quickly--a 1905 Holzman, a family car called the Mitchell for a next-door neighbor, in 1910 the Stanley Steamer attracts the neighborhood kids, and then the 1913 Model T Ford.

By the 1930s dad's kid has a jalopy he bought for $45, the ice wagon is now the ice truck and the neighborhood has become the typical busy modern looking residential street lined with autos.

Nice performances from ARTHUR SPACE and JACQUELINE WHITE as ma and pa with BILLY GRAY as a little boy, with graceful narration by John Nesbitt. Well done short is a slice of Americana.

An MGM JOHN NESBITT'S PASSING PARADE Short Subject

Many of our most cherished recollections center around OUR OLD CAR.

This backward glance at the various automobiles owned by a typical American family and their neighborhood friends during the first forty-six years of the 20th Century is pure nostalgic delight. The gentle humor and traditional values which underlay the narrative reflect a time now gone forever.

Often overlooked or neglected today, the one and two-reel short subjects were useful to the Studios as important training grounds for new or burgeoning talents, both in front & behind the camera. The dynamics for creating a successful short subject was completely different from that of a feature length film, something akin to writing a topnotch short story rather than a novel. Economical to produce in terms of both budget & schedule and capable of portraying a wide range of material, short subjects were the perfect complement to the Studios' feature films.

Our Old Car (1946)

*** (out of 4)

Nostalgia trip is the key to this John Nesbitt entry in his Passing Parade series. This time out Nesbitt talks about all the automobiles that have been in his family from his father's first, to his first and up to current times. This series has always been great at taking a look at previous times and making one fond those times. This time out the subject is automobiles and this leads to some wonderfully funny moments including the scene where his mother is too afraid to get into a car for the first time. Another funny sequence is John's first car, which was junk, but he made it up to look like a circus car. The narration is spot on from start to finish and really adds a great touch to the story. Well worth checking out when it comes up on Turner Classic Movies.

John Nesbitt's "The Passing Parade" considers the parade of automobiles in a family on a quiet residential street, over about 45 years, with the cop on the beat replaced by his own son.

It's a sentimental short -- all of the series are, when it comes to that -- which celebrates America's love affair with the automobile. It also appeals to the post-war audience; production of automobiles for civilian use was in abeyance 'for the duration', and Americans had to make do with pre-War models and go easy on the tires (rubber was rationed and you better not own more than four tires) and mileage (Is this trip necessary? With an A sticker, you could buy four gallons of gas a week, and if you got 10 MPG, you were doing well). With cars going back into production, with wartime rationing vanishing, and no need to buy those war bonds.... well, perhaps it was time to think fondly about the old horseless carriage!