Flight to the Future ...to the World of Plastics

YouTube is a strange and wonderful place for old films. Many great old movies and B-movies are there as well as comedy shorts...and much more. But one of the stranger old films I saw is this industrial film financed by Union Carbide and the Carbide Corporation.

The film shows that the folks who financed the picture were willing to spend money to get real actors. While many today won't recognize the cast, lots of B-list actors are in the film, such as Noel Neill (Lois Lane from "The Adventures of Superman"), Lyle Talbot and John Eldredge.

The film is set on an old DC-3 airliner. Oddly, there's only one passenger and he turns out to have a major obsession with plastics. So, he spends the flight talking about the joy of plastics a he and the stewardess spend the time discussing all the many things made of the material...such as parts on the plane.

The delivery and dialog are terrible...but for an industrial training film, that's mostly what you expect. It makes the point....but I also wonder how many salesmen saw this and rolled their eyes as they watched! Overall, a difficult to enjoy oddity that probably never was meant to be seen by the average American.

Interesting as a curio with Noel Neill of Lois Lane fame as the lead character in the story-ad. It has some interesting info in it. A 2022 follow-up ad today on the plastics industry would be worthwhile. Of course, we now know about some of the environmental problems caused by plastics. The full 39 minute film is available on YouTube.