That’s what Jerry Fairbanks Productions did in the A.T. & T. industrial film A Manner of Speaking (1959).
You’ll recognise Clark and his anger instantly as the advertising agency boss who loses a client because of sloppy phone manners. Naturally, a Bell representative gives advice (for the viewing audience to take into account) and we’re left to presume all’s right at the end.
You may not need credits to pick out other cast members. Richard Erdman is a copywriter who wastes time on the company phone settling a dispute with his friends. Dan Tobin is the underling who won’t place his own calls. Barbara Eiler is in here, too. She played Dennis Day’s girl-friend on one of his “two shows” on radio.
You may recognise the music as being from the Capitol Hi-Q library. The Yogi Bear cartoon cue TC-436 SHINING DAY by Bill Loose at 24:57. Other cues include:
2:03 – C-51 MECHANICAL INDUSTRIAL UNDERSCORE by Bill Loose.
2:41 – C-35 LIGHT MECHANICAL by Bill Loose.
10:12 – SF-83 MYSTERIOSO (aka ATOMIC SKY) by Louis De Francesco.
13:10 – TC-203 WISTFUL COMEDY by Bill Loose and John Seely.
And the director’s name may be familiar. We’ll let you look up John Rich on your own.
While watching, I was racking my brain as to why this seemed so familiar--Turns out it has similar themes to another Fairbanks epic from back in January, Invisible Diplomats with its frazzled switchboard operators, lengthy rounds of "phone tag", and apoplectic muckety-mucks.
ReplyDeleteOnly cast-member besides Fred Clark I recognized was Eleanor Audley--Like Clark, she was a Paul Henning repertory player. Quite a contrast from her other film role that year, Maleficent from Sleeping Beauty.
I was watching an older Bell film the other day. Same theme, same advice. In fact, we'll have another telephone short next Sunday.
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