- 5 months ago
Alan Ladd stars as real-life inventor Charles Martin Hall in this 1940 film, which was his first credited role and first color film.
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Short filmTranscript
02:44Your Majesty.
03:14The Countess asked, what is this strange dinner set?
03:17Do you like it?
03:18Oh, but yes, it is lovely and so unusual.
03:21It is a strange new metal called aluminium by Professor St. Clair de Ville of the École Normale.
03:28Do all the tables have the same?
03:30No, only this one.
03:32After all, even an emperor must remember the egg checker.
03:36The others have to content themselves with ordinary gold and silver.
03:40It is light as a feather.
03:42Yes, and those that suggest anything to you, my dear Count.
03:48What do you mean, sire?
03:49Think it over.
03:50I have summoned this Professor St. Clair de Ville for an audience later.
03:54And I want you to be there because I have a scheme.
04:08I am much intrigued with this new metal you have discovered, monsieur.
04:12I don't see, not I, but the Danish Hans Christian Ørsted and later Friedrich Veiler discovered it some 30 years ago.
04:19I have found a new way to isolate the aluminium.
04:23How much does it cost?
04:24About 10 francs per kilogram.
04:26Arthur, you said this metal could be found most anywhere in great abundance.
04:30In a rough state, yes.
04:32Every clay bank is an aluminium manual.
04:34Then why?
04:35It is so expensive to separate from its compounds.
04:38That is why it remains a precious metal.
04:40That is why it remains a precious metal.
04:43Could you find a cheaper way?
04:45I like to try, sire, but you know the pay of a professor?
04:49This is a service for the estate.
04:51I am prepared to place at your disposal whatever funds you may require.
04:55Only find a cheaper way.
04:57Yes, sire, I am honoured with the commission.
05:02Your Majesty,
05:04Count Walewski.
05:08Interesting, but I still don't see you.
05:11Ordinance, my dear Walewski.
05:13Helmets, breastplates, cartridges.
05:15Think what my uncle, the first Napoleon, could have accomplished in a Russian campaign
05:20with a mobile army of lightweight equipment.
05:23And now we are meeting Russia again in the Crimea.
05:26Exactly.
05:28I'll show my friend Nicolas whether I am Parade Grand General.
05:33With Louis Napoleon footing the bill,
05:35St. Clair de Ville experimented to his heart's content.
05:38Did he get the price down?
05:40And equip the army?
05:41Yes, and no.
05:44For six years he worked like a Trojan,
05:46and he finally got the cost down from $545 a pound to $12 a pound.
05:51But that was still too expensive for Napoleon's army, or any army.
05:55And it began to look as though the cost was always going to stay right there,
05:58$12 a pound, another unfinished rainbow.
06:03Then one day, some 50 years ago, in a college chemistry class, something like this,
06:10a professor at Oberlin was saying,
06:12There are so many things in this world just waiting to be done,
06:17like harnessing the sun, or trying to find out what makes the grass grow green.
06:22Let's bunk them, everything's bunk.
06:24Consider, for instance, this metal aluminum, the most common metal in the world.
06:29Stick a shovel in a clay bank, and you have aluminum in compound.
06:33Yet it costs more than it's worth to get it out.
06:36There, gentlemen, is one of the big needs of the world just crying to be filled.
06:42What are you going to do about it?
06:46Why, if one of you in this class could find a cheap way to produce aluminum,
06:51you would become a benefactor of humanity and make yourself a fortune besides.
06:56You know, I've been thinking about that for a long time, and I'm going after that metal.
07:02That was young Charles Martin Hall, and go after it he did.
07:07For the rest of his college days, he practically lived in a laboratory.
07:11But graduation day finally rolled around, like it has a way of doing,
07:16and young Hall went out with a class of 85, his big dream unrealized.
07:20But he kept right on.
07:23He rigged up a laboratory in his father's woodshed, gasoline stove and homemade batteries,
07:29using fruit jars and jelly tumblers, most any sort of container he could find around the house.
07:34His sister Julia was his chief assistant.
07:40Get anything?
07:41Not yet.
07:43Every last one I could find.
07:45Except mother's cookie jar.
07:46We may have to use that too.
07:48How about breaking up any lumps in the aluminum oxide, will you, Julia,
07:51while I make a final check on these connections?
07:55What's it supposed to do?
07:56Oh, I dissolve the aluminum oxide and the melted cryolite and pass an electric current through it.
08:03If I get current enough, it should separate the aluminum from the oxide.
08:10I think you've got enough current now?
08:13Don't know yet.
08:14We'll soon see.
08:26Well, cross your fingers, Julia.
08:40Don't you see anything?
09:04No aluminum.
09:04Sure.
09:07Well, what do we do now?
09:08We still need more current.
09:15I'll wager silica's coming out of this clay crucible.
09:20We've got to get rid of that.
09:24I know.
09:24I'll use a carbon crucible instead.
09:27And while I'm doing that...
09:27I know.
09:28Get the cookie jar.
09:30Right.
09:30Aye, aye, sir.
09:31And then one memorable day, eight months after his graduation, February 23rd, 1886...
09:50I've done this.
10:13Oh, wow.
10:14Julia, look.
10:20Charles, is that it?
10:22Yes.
10:23At last I've got it.
10:26Aluminum.
10:27Yes, the 22-year-old boy had found in a woodshed,
10:31but world-famous chemists had saw it vainly for years.
10:34Now one would think he was surely on his way.
10:40And he was.
10:41On his way from city to city,
10:45trying to find somebody interested in his new discovery.
10:49After two long years, his search ended in a small Pittsburgh office.
10:53Six men were gathered about a table.
10:56I think that sums it up.
10:58I believe there's a great future in aluminum with this haul process.
11:02How much do you figure it'd cost us to start?
11:05I think we could do it with $20,000.
11:07$20,000?
11:08We couldn't raise that much.
11:09Maybe half that.
11:10Oh, gentlemen, this is no time for halfway measures.
11:13George Clapp and I believe in it enough to mortgage everything we have.
11:16So if you feel the same way, come in with us.
11:19If not...
11:19Captain Hunt, you can count on me.
11:21I'm with you.
11:22And I.
11:22And so was formed the Pittsburgh Reduction Company,
11:26later to become Aluminum Company of America.
11:29Here Charles Hall and another young fellow named Arthur B. Davis,
11:33fresh out of Amherst, went to work in earnest.
11:36And then on the night of November 29th, 1888...
11:41Sam, all ready?
11:42Right here.
11:43Well, there she is.
12:09Charles, our first ingot.
12:11Charles, that's the most beautiful thing I ever saw.
12:15Arthur, I agree with you.
12:17Just think.
12:19Aluminum is bringing $8 a pound.
12:21Look how much cheaper we can sell it than that.
12:23I can hardly believe it.
12:26At last.
12:27You're worn out, Charles.
12:30I'm kind of tired myself.
12:32Let's call it a day for tonight.
12:35All right.
12:37I'll put this in the safe.
12:54Say, Arthur, do you know what day this is?
12:56It's Thursday.
12:57For ten minutes yet, it's almost midnight.
12:59I just remembered.
13:01It's Thanksgiving.
13:03Thanksgiving?
13:04Good grief.
13:05I was invited out for dinner.
13:08Oh, well.
13:10It's too late to telephone now.
13:12Besides, the only telephone around here is the one on the foundry across the street
13:15that's been closed all day.
13:17That's too bad.
13:19Anyway, we can be thankful.
13:20Tomorrow we can tell Captain Hunt he can start a salesman out selling aluminum.
13:23That's right.
13:25And we'll be ready.
13:26Yes, sir.
13:26And just watch the orders come rolling in.
13:30No.
13:32I guess not.
13:34Suppose we make you a special price of $2 a pound on half-ton lots.
13:38Half-ton?
13:40Great guns.
13:41Who could ever use a half-ton of aluminum?
13:43No thanks.
13:44We've got troubles enough now with the metals we're already using.
13:49No use of inviting new ones.
13:51Yes, but aluminum will roll, cast, draw, or alloy better than any of your other metals.
13:55It's bound to be easier to work with.
13:56Yes, maybe so.
13:58But let somebody else do the experimenting.
14:04Well, thanks for your time anyway.
14:07No use doing that.
14:11What?
14:13No use hiding in the safe.
14:15Nobody's going to steal it.
14:17You can't even give it away.
14:19Any luck?
14:21Oh, a few inquiries about sample lots.
14:23Not much more than that.
14:24What are we going to do?
14:26We've got a thousand pounds on hand and turning out more at the rate of 50 pounds a day.
14:30Somebody's got to use it.
14:31But if they won't even try it...
14:32Then we'll have to try it out for them.
14:34What do you mean?
14:35What do you think aluminum's good for?
14:38Lots of things.
14:39Takes a place of iron pots, pans, kettles.
14:44That's an idea.
14:45Who makes kitchen utensils around these parts?
14:47Well, there's a firm in here who makes cast iron ones.
14:50Let's go up and see them.
14:52Huh?
14:52Borrow a pattern or two from them, and we'll cast up something.
14:55When they see how much better it is, why, they'll fall over themselves to buy our aluminum.
15:05Well, Mr. Davis was here before the office opened this morning, Mr. Griswold.
15:14What, Mr. Davis?
15:15From Pittsburgh.
15:16He's been here before.
15:18Oh, yes.
15:18The aluminum chap.
15:20I loaned him one of our molders.
15:22I'll send him in, Miss Moses.
15:23He isn't here right now.
15:24He went across for some breakfast, but he left these on the desk.
15:27Said he'd be back.
15:28Well, I'll be jiggered.
15:31He did make them.
15:33Aluminum tea kettles.
15:35Aren't they wonderful?
15:36You think so?
15:37I think they're the most marvelous kettles I've ever seen.
15:41I'd like to have one.
15:42It's yours.
15:44Here's Mr. Davis now.
15:46Good morning, Mr. Griswold.
15:48How are you?
15:48I'm afraid I got here a little early.
15:50So I see.
15:51Early enough to put one over on me.
15:53Sit down.
15:56I like these.
15:57Glad to hear it.
15:59Did you really mean I could have this?
16:01Yes, ma'am.
16:01Oh, thank you.
16:03Just wait until I show this around.
16:06Well, if all women take to them like that.
16:09They will.
16:10Aluminum's a friendly metal.
16:12You'll do a land office business with those.
16:14Yes, well, anyway, I guess I'll take a chance on them.
16:17Good.
16:18Put me down for 2,000 kettles.
16:20Wait a minute.
16:21We just sell aluminum.
16:22We don't make kettles.
16:24You made these, didn't you?
16:25That was just to sell you the idea.
16:27You lend us the molder, you know.
16:29We don't even have that kind of a factory.
16:30Then get one.
16:31I'm not going to turn my plant upside down.
16:34I'll sell the utensils.
16:35But you've got to take the grief of making them.
16:37But, Mr. Griswold.
16:38That's my proposition.
16:39Take it or leave it.
16:41Hmm.
16:43We'll take it.
16:44We've got to.
16:45Seems as how.
16:46Seems as how.
16:48So that's what we're up against.
16:50What else could I do?
16:51You did just right.
16:52You mean we're actually going to make the kettles?
16:55Kettles and pots and pans and spiders and anything else we can think of.
16:58We still haven't got a foundry.
16:59We will have.
17:00Where do we find the money?
17:01We'll get it.
17:02We'll borrow it or sell stock.
17:04Maybe we can find a banker with vision enough to advance it.
17:07But the point is, if that's the only way we can sell aluminum,
17:10we'll find uses for it.
17:12And by George, we'll use it.
17:14And by George, we'll Kettlesby McLaren.
17:16And by George, Kettlesby McLaren.
17:33Oh, okay.
17:35Mr. Davis is here.
17:58Hello, Mr. Griswell.
17:59I came as soon as I got your word.
18:01Don't tell me that you're all out of kettles again.
18:03More than that.
18:05Listen, Davis, you fellas don't want to monkey with the manufacturing end.
18:09Suppose I just buy the raw material from you and make my own aluminumware.
18:13Must be my ears.
18:15Honestly, sounds just like you said you wanted to make your own aluminumware.
18:18I know that's what you tried to sell me in the beginning.
18:21But I wanted to make sure that all the bugs were out of it.
18:23And I'd rather you'd be the exterminator than me.
18:26I see.
18:27All right.
18:28How much is it going to cost me now?
18:30Not one cent more than in the first place.
18:32The only thing is, we've got a new plant now going full blast.
18:36Trying to keep up with the orders.
18:37It's too late for us to quit now.
18:39What we will do, we'll be glad to sell you the aluminum and ingots.
18:43We'll even help you get started any way we can.
18:45After all, there's enough business for all of us.
18:48Fair enough.
18:48That suits me.
18:50Of course, the pot and pan business didn't happen all in a minute.
18:54All along, there were many other incidents.
18:57Incidents which showed it was as hard for aluminum to make itself a market
19:00as it was for Hall to produce the metal in the first place.
19:04Like the time another aluminum salesman went to California with an idea.
19:19Aluminum wire?
19:20No.
19:21All right, sir.
19:22Let's forget it.
19:24By the way, did I show you these?
19:26What are they?
19:27A pound of copper and a pound of aluminum.
19:29Here are two wires that carry the same current.
19:34This one made out of a pound of copper.
19:36This one, out of a pound of aluminum.
19:39You see, aluminum wire goes twice as far.
19:43Thought we weren't going to say anything more about it.
19:45It's my last word.
19:47And here's mine, Mr. Colby.
19:48We're building a new power line from Blue Lakes to Stockton.
19:51Forty-six miles.
19:52Three-phase line.
19:53That means 138 miles of wire.
19:56Number one gauge.
19:58When can we have it?
19:58Well, as soon as possible, I'll have to let you know.
20:03All right.
20:12But here's a bona fide order for 138 miles of wire.
20:16We have the metal, but no wire mill.
20:18That's why we come to you.
20:19All we want to do is to supply the aluminum and hire you to make the wire.
20:23Not interested.
20:24But you made the sample for us.
20:25Just the same when not making the wire.
20:26Why should we make wire for you to sell in competition to us?
20:30You sold it.
20:34Now you make it.
20:36Well, I guess there's only one answer to that.
20:38We'll have to make it.
20:40And so it happened.
20:41When no one else would make their wire, there was nothing left but to buy their own wire mill and make it themselves.
20:46Later, they stranded aluminum wire around a steel wire core to increase the strength of the conductor.
20:55And there's something that often happens.
20:57Aluminum teams up with another metal to use the best qualities of each and expand the use of both.
21:02Today, more than a million miles of aluminum kibble span America.
21:08Its lightness permits longer stretches between towers and saves hundreds of thousands of dollars in costly erection.
21:16But, Professor.
21:17Yes?
21:17That's all very well for aluminum.
21:19But what about copper?
21:20Aluminum seems to have squeezed copper right out of the wire business.
21:23Not a bit of it.
21:25Cheap aluminum power lines made possible the electrification of rural America.
21:30Think of all the additional homes and farms that had to be wired.
21:35More copper house wiring than ever.
21:37And more electrical fixtures and equipment.
21:40Everybody gets a break.
21:41It's true that the history of aluminum is the story of substitution.
21:45But that substitution always means more use for the other metals as well.
21:49I see.
21:50Finishing more rainbows.
21:51Right.
21:52Then one day, an aluminum representative called on a manufacturer of office furniture.
21:58You're barking up the wrong tree this time, Stevens.
22:01But think how much lighter aluminum would be.
22:03You can weld it.
22:04No joints to work loose.
22:06Maybe so.
22:07But we're not going to do the experimenting.
22:09I happen to know no other furniture company will either.
22:13Well, there's one company that'll do it if it has to.
22:16Who's that?
22:17The aluminum company.
22:19But you've never made any furniture.
22:20It's more than bending a little hollow tubing.
22:24Why, you have to be a specialist in upholstery, in leather, and hair, and paint.
22:30Be careful you don't bite off more than you can chew.
22:33That's why I wish you were doing it.
22:34You already know how.
22:36But if you won't, I guess we'll just have to go ahead and bite.
22:40Well, good luck.
22:50Well, what do you think of the aluminum furniture business by this time?
22:54Oh, we're doing all right.
22:56I'll say you are.
22:57I hear you're selling a million dollars worth a year or more.
23:01More.
23:01Ouch.
23:02Now, listen, Stevens.
23:05I sent for you to find out if you'd still sell us aluminum and let us in on it, too.
23:09Sure.
23:10Why not?
23:11Our main object in life is to make and sell aluminum, not furniture.
23:14And that's how aluminum furniture got started.
23:18Looks like the aluminum people went out every time.
23:20Oh, no, not by a jugful.
23:22More than once, they work on a plan for years, only to have it take a nosedive.
23:26They just learn to take the bitter with the sweet and keep on plugging.
23:30For instance, look what happened in transportation.
23:39Nice-looking cars.
23:41Too bad they're not aluminum.
23:42Yeah, too bad for you.
23:44Too bad for us both.
23:46You know how much it would cost us to build a train of aluminum?
23:50Yes.
23:51Do you know how much you'd save by it?
23:53You'd reduce the debt weight by at least 25% right off the bat.
23:57That means less power for operation.
24:00One engine instead of two on some runs.
24:02Always more payload for the same power.
24:05Faster starts, quicker stops, greater safety.
24:09Less maintenance of cars and less wear and tear on rails and roads.
24:13You don't say.
24:14You'd save the extra cost in power and maintenance of way alone in a few years.
24:19Yeah, but where would we get an 80-foot channel for the center sill?
24:22There's no aluminum channel that size made.
24:24You know that.
24:25No, no mill to make them.
24:26Can you supply them?
24:28Well, I'll see you later.
24:38All right.
24:39But what about the 80-foot channels?
24:41They'll take a whole new mill.
24:42That would run into millions.
24:45And you haven't any assurance we'd get a single order, even if we did build a mill?
24:48We have the assurance that we'll never get an order if we don't.
24:51After the licking we took in automobile bodies, now you want to build railroad cars?
24:56What do you think, Jack?
24:58It's true we lost out on automobile bodies, just at a time when they were a mainstay of our business.
25:04Drawn steel bodies came along and were much cheaper.
25:07But don't forget, that's true in pleasure cars, where low first cost is a big thing.
25:14In the commercial field, like buses and trucks, where they are operated to make money,
25:20where payload and service count, we're in stronger than ever.
25:25Yeah.
25:26The railroad field is our next logical move.
25:28We've studied it from every angle, and we're sure.
25:32Of course it'll cost plenty.
25:34That's true of every forward step in this business.
25:37I say, let's go to the management and fight for it.
25:41And so, without an order for a single foot, without even a market,
25:45they went ahead and built the mill anyway to roll those large aluminum beams.
25:49Only a company with the vision would dare to do a thing like that.
25:54Only a company of willing and able resources could do it.
26:07Before the mill was finished, even before they'd sold a single beam,
26:14they had the grit to start running this full-page ad in national magazines.
26:19One of these days, you will ride on an aluminum train.
26:22Talk about the courage of your convictions.
26:28You really mean that?
26:29We do.
26:31Here are the specifications on our new aluminum channels.
26:34As strong as steel and half the weight.
26:37There's one other ingredient here you haven't mentioned.
26:40What's that?
26:42Nerd.
26:42Yes, we carry that in stock, too.
26:45Yes, they're an adventurous lot, these men of aluminum.
27:02Ready to tackle anything.
27:04From a wire, one-twenty-fifth the thickness of a human hair,
27:07so fine that you couldn't see it without that microscope,
27:10to a steam shovel dipper.
27:13Big enough to scoop up 32 cubic yards at one bite.
27:17That's more than enough to fill six five-ton trucks
27:20and deposit it on top of a six-story building half a block down the street.
27:25And the beauty of it is,
27:27every last worker of the hundreds of thousands
27:30now engaged in the far-flung aluminum industry
27:33is holding down a job that never even existed 50 years ago
27:37and wouldn't exist today were it not for aluminum.
27:40And think of all the things you wouldn't have were it not for aluminum.
27:45So, because one young man met the challenge in his day,
27:49your life and the lives of these men
27:51are all bound together with invisible but inextricable ties,
27:56ties of aluminum.
28:00Now that's what it took to you all,
28:05it took to me here.
28:08Since I was benign.
28:09Now, two young man met me.
28:10If you have body pulling me around,
28:13you figure it out.
28:15Go, go, go, go, go, go.
28:16Get right.
29:17It's fascinating.
29:28I could go on indefinitely.
29:30But I'll take time for only one more story.
29:34By way of contrast, a simple little story of Tony Kumpula, one of the men in the mill.
29:39Oh, no. None of these is it.
29:43But why do they have to look like a piece of old lead?
29:46Because the architect wants them to look as much as possible like the beautiful old lead spandrels he admired so much in Italy.
29:52Oh.
29:52I don't know what else to say, Tony.
29:55I've tried everything and just haven't hit it.
29:58Well, get him yet, boss.
30:01I hope so.
30:01The time's awful short.
30:02Well, get him tomorrow.
30:03I'll bet you.
30:04I hope you're right.
30:05Well, good night.
30:06Good night.
30:07Good night.
30:08Good night.
30:08Shorty.
30:21What's that?
30:22What?
30:24This.
30:25Oh, that's a prison tray.
30:27You know, when you're in the hoose cow, you have to wash the dishes.
30:31Shorty.
30:32That's it.
30:33What's it?
30:34Don't you see the finish?
30:35Just what we want.
30:37Huh?
30:37Come on.
30:45You said it got this way by washing it with dishes, eh?
30:49That's right.
30:50Every day they wash them.
30:52For weeks and months and years.
30:54I know, but we cannot wait that long.
30:58Let's see.
31:00They wash them in soap and water, don't they?
31:02That's right.
31:08They use a cheap soap and a lot of strong washing soda.
31:12Ah, here.
31:15Cut it up.
31:17Enemy soap sauce.
31:19Well, I'll get the washing soda.
31:24You got the dishes, boss?
31:34No.
31:35Take it too long.
31:36Here.
31:38All very.
31:41Work quicker.
31:42We shake good.
31:48The way dishes get put around in a pan.
31:50You mean you got to do all this tonight?
31:53That's a lot of shaking, boss.
31:54No, not you, Shorty.
31:55We just fixed up.
31:58Here we go.
31:59Don't you, Shorty.
32:12Well.
32:16Don't be right.
32:18All right.
32:28hello this is tony tony kapula the plant come on down here i got something
32:46and believe it or not tony had something the next morning the sample was flown to new york
32:55for any day now you can see 19 000 of them between the windows all up the whole 70 stories of rockefeller
33:02center aluminum spandrels of old italian lead finish because one tony campula stayed with it
33:11till he got it finishing his bit of the rainbow back in cleveland ohio contrast if you will the
33:19humble woodshed where the boy hall worked out the beginnings of modern aluminum with this great
33:24research laboratory where a group of trained scientists with the finest equipment obtainable
33:30continue the never-ending task of expanding the benefit till today it's less than 20 cents a pound
33:37take this group for instance in the past 20 years these metallurgists have perfected among other
33:42things alloys that make aluminum strong they're rolling such an alloy out in the mills right now
33:50these men of aluminum they're not merely rolling sheath aluminum they're turning out vital material
33:56for national defense long before the government in washington called on industry to rally to national
34:01defense aluminum had already anticipated the call by directing its energies toward the production of
34:07defense materials aluminum for the air force wings for the eyes of the army and navy
34:12and in addition had voluntarily invested millions of dollars to more than double its capacity
34:17aluminum is determined to be prepared for any national emergency whether in peacetime or wartime
34:24yes young charles martin hall started something in that woodshed some 50 years ago
34:29and because he fell in with the right people in the early days of his invention
34:33he did become a benefactor of humanity and he did make a fortune which he left to colleges and missionary
34:40societies nature made aluminum light he and the men who followed him made it plentiful
34:46strong and chief no one man no one but the everlasting teamwork of every blooming soul from office to lab
34:54and from mine to mill like the breathtaking navy and marine memorial the story of aluminum gives wings
35:01to our imagination lift to our courage an ever shining example to our youth of today
35:11that's what one youth did while others were bemoaning there was nothing left to do
35:17and that same challenge still stands today there are so many things in this world just waiting to be done
35:25and that's what are you going to do about it
35:39you
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