Bottle of Magic

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.