Summary

Excerpt from film entitled "Power Behind the Nation." It opens showing glimpse of two men on a park bench, discussing a newspaper article, followed by views of men at work in a radio broadcasting studio. Next is shown a Western theme set being constructed for a motion picture, at a Hollywood film studio back lot. Closeup of Director and crew filming an actor on horseback as he rides up to a wooden building displaying a Dance Hall sign. Next, a director and film crew are seen working on an elaborate set with a chorus of women in white gowns. Scene shifts to film makers watching a finished production dealing with colonial era America (ostensibly an educational film). Another film is seen being made at a set resembling a European town. Next, views of American farms are shown with various crops under cultivation, including fruit orchards.Farm machinery is seen in use, including Tractors, harvesters, and combines. Grain is shown being harvested and processed in the field, and cotton being picked. Closeup of cotton bolls on the plants. Men are shown collecting sap from sugar maple trees in the northeast U.S. for making syrup. In the U.S. Northwest, a flock of sheep is seen grazing in a field. A herd of cattle are shown in the Southwest, U.S. A field of grain is shown and then a section of crops irrigated by small ditches. Then a large man-made irrigation canal is seen. View of a ramshackle building and yard in a desert. Women harvesting vegetables from irrigated plants. Apples being sorted by machine. A pair of steam locomotives pulling a train and a diesel locomotive pulling freight cars, all ostensibly carrying fresh produce to market. Several shots of railroad freight trains in different settings. A truck moving along a country road. A tugboat working beside a large ocean-going cargo ship on a river in the U.S. More shots of ships and inland canals. A ship passing under the Golden Gate Bridge in California. An aircraft under construction. Passengers deplaning from a continental Airlines DC-3 parked on a ramp. A prototype U.S. Navy Lockheed XR6O-1 Constitution aircraft taking off. (Only two R6V aircraft were made, Bureau Numbers 85163 and 85164.) A Sikorsky helicopter in flight. Closeup of Captain in cockpit of a TWA Boeing Stratoliner airplane as it taxis out of parking place. Industrial buildings close to a river with water flowing below a dam. The Grand Coulee Dam on the Columbia River in the U.S. state of Washington. Location: United States USA. Date: 1947.