The Seesaw and the Shoes

The Seesaw and the Shoes (1945)

*** (out of 4)

Another nice entry in MGM's Passing Parade series with this one taking a look at two simple items that led to major discoveries. The first deals with a doctor who sees two kids playing on a seesaw and this leads to him discovering the stethoscope. The second deals with shoes and how a man finally discovered the way to make rubber after many failed attempts and even a turn in jail. To be honest with you I don't think either story is the greatest out there and that's probably why they were turned into just one film instead of being made into two. That's not to say these are weak stories but I don't think either one carried enough drama to warrant their own movie. With that said, their still interesting enough to warrant four-minutes each and as usual the filmmakers do a nice job at telling the story and John Nesbitt's narration is wonderful as usual. I think the best of the two stories has to belong to the seesaw as it does contain a nice little twist as to how the discovery was made.

This is John Nesbitt's Passing Parade series. This tells the story of two ordinary objects. A children's seesaw inspires French doctor Rene Laennec to invent the stethoscope. A pair of shoes leads Connecticut amateur inventor Charles Goodyear to discover the process for vulcanizing rubber. I don't know about the accuracy of this short but it feels right. It's not claiming to be anything outrageous other than a surface account of the invention process narrated by an old style authoritative voice. It's good enough to be compelling.

This episode of John Nesbitt's THE PASSING PARADE concerns two things we took for granted in the modern era of 1945, and certainly today: the invention of the stethoscope, and the story of how Goodyear learned to vulcanize rubber. Both hew pretty much to the historical legends concerning these inventions -- although he gets the date of the stethoscope's invention wrong, claiming it was in 1819 instead of 1816. Well, some things can't be dated that accurately.

Nesbitt's series liked to celebrate the things we take for granted. It's a good thing to do occasionally.