Bottle of Magic

Duration: 800 ft.

Year Published: 1948

Creator: AT&T

Complete Record: operators, radio show reenactment, map of US telephone lines, reenactment of scientist DeForrest testing the electron tube that makes telephone communication possible, diagram of how tube works, CU of actual electron tube, engineer at work, animation of how telephone signals travel across the US through phone lines, women building electron tubes, engineer checking out the readings of several tubes, examples of different kinds of tubes, their importance during the war in helping guns fire more accurately, reenactment of man using the ANTRC6, a radio telephone system used during WWII to relay several messages from station to station, the importance of the electron tube and radio in modern communication To show the development, manufacture and present-day uses of the electron tube. Tracing the development of the electron tube from the pioneering efforts of such scientists as Lee de Forest, Thomas Edison and John Fleming during the early part of the twentieth century, this film demonstrates the role the tube plays in our society. The picture shows how, in the hands of Bell System scientists, the first three-element electron tube was fashioned into a tool for amplifying long distance tele phone voice currents. As the story progresses, we see the electron tube applied first to the trans-continental telephone in 1915, through to trans-oceanic radiotelephony, public address systems, cormercial broadcasting and tele- vision, radar and radio relay. Climaxing these historical sequences, the film takes its audience behind the scenes of Western Electric’s elec tronics shops where precision workmarship endows each item of manufacture with maximum efficiency and durability to meet Bell System standards of serrlce.