Lines of Communication

Film opens with lines of women standing at machines. Animated opening credits lead to quite study where man with white hair (Alistair Cooke) sets us up for our filmic journey about communication throughout the world. Nice animated illustration of radio waves coming off earth. UN building (EXT, LS). International Communications Union (in Geneva) tries to keep order. Narrator man comes back to show us how communication systems worked in the past. Napoleon and other 1700 illustrations. Samuel Morse invented the telegraph machine. Railway and telegraph run side by side. Wanted a worldwide telegraph system. “With progress came confusion.” MS of Gerald Brooks sitting against long velvet curtain. He talks about how communications can be improved. Telegraph was inefficient. Napoleon III takes over to organize these messages. Book pages show Morse code. Strange shots of old telephones. Old telephone operators put wires into plugs. Reenactment of first telegraph message received by wireless regulations. Radio becomes standard after Titanic sinks. (Dramatic recreation of sinking ship through illustrations). International Communication Union tries to regulate telecommunications. LS of the sky “We use the sky”. Radio waves are everywhere. The many different uses of radar. MS of man speaking Spanish over the phone. Woman types on strange typewriter that is merged with a telephone. Black people in Africa rehearse their radio plays in a studio. Families stare at TV from their places on the couch. Crowds sit silently staring at TV. First conference of Space Communications Committee. Moroccan countryside and market. (LS, EXT) Teaching people how to read as a right of passage. Everyone has to learn how to read. Atlas Mountains where the Nomad lives. Little communication with the outside world. National experiment tries to get everyone to learn how to read.