Back to the Old Farm

BACK TO THE OLD FARM. (1912, silent, 1reel, b&w, 35mm) Sponsor: international Harvester Co. production Co.: Essanay Film Mfg. Co. producer: Frank W. Heiskell. Writer: E.L. Barker. Cast: Beverley Bayne, William Bailey, E.H. Calvert, Frank dayton. resources: Copyright not registered; “Back to the Old Farm,” Bus Scrn 1, no. 4 (1938): 16; Arthur Edwin Krows, “Motion pictures —not for theatres,” Ed Scrn 19 (May 1941): 200, 223; John W. Branta, “rural America and the Screen,” Bus Scrn 8, no. 7 (1947): 23–24; Before Video, 49–50. Holdings: AAFF. Film outlining the advantages of modern farm equipment. John Branta pronounced Back to the Old Farm “the first full length reel industrial motion picture made in America.” note: Sometimes referred to as Back to the Farm, the film was reissued in 1940 as a comedy with an added soundtrack. By 1915, International Harvester had established a distribution service providing free film loans to rural communities; see “International Harvester: A Pioneer of 1911 Shows the Way in 1938,” Bus Scrn 1, no. 1 (1938): 14.