Time Flickers out: Notes on the Passing of the "March of Time"

Abstract

IN THE SPRING of 1935, a brilliantly conceived informational film series burst upon the American motion-picture scene, startling journalists and political observers and shattering the complacent calm of Hollywood's film colony. Entitled the March of Time, the series was designed to explore the contemporary American and international scene. Many people believed that it was also deliberately designed to provoke controversy. Certainly few film critics, friendly or not, expected it to survive more than a few months.