“The streetcar has all but disappeared. The bus is proving an inept substitute. Commuter rail service deteriorates. Subways get dirtier.”
Are you surprised those words are heard in a film funded by American Motors?
They are spoken by Today newsman Frank Blair, who put his NBC journalism credentials aside to accept a payout from one of the big three automakers to tell his audience “The American Motors wardrobe of cars—a style and type to fit every modern American need—is showing the way.” Not like those cars "gas guzzling dinosaurs" clogging the roads in 1959, when America The Automobile Age was made.
Blair “interviews” the same family from 1902 to the present. Writer Robert C. Bennett tries to add some comic relief children.
No less a studio than MGM was contracted to make the film.
Despite the annoying time code and low resolution, if you’re a fan of aged cars, you may like this. Or that stock footage of trains crashing head-on.
There are some cartoon connections. The music is by Hoyt Curtin; the cue at 19:01, and several with bassoon solos, would not be out of place on The Flintstones. The director is Dave Monahan, a story man for Chuck Jones and Tex Avery at Warners, then at Columbia/Screen Gems after the war before going into live action commercials.
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