Land+Living: The American Look (1958)

The American Look (1958)

Designers — October 18, 2006 Posted by James

In Appreciation of the Stylists of America

"A Tribute to the Men and Women, Who Design" from 1958. Awesome.

9 comments

Comments (9)

a35mmlife — October 19, 2006
wow.

this is amazing...thank you x10.

Michael — October 19, 2006
Yep

Cool video! (Though I already saw it several days ago on the "Malls of America" blog) Can you get this on DVD? Anyone know if it's available? Love to be able to watch it on my TV.

Yule Heibel — October 21, 2006
Fantastic.

Thanks for posting this, it's a great find. Amazing to see this low-rise, low-density, elegantly sprawling conception of design and style, brought forward with what amounts to religious fervour (with the car as holy grail!). Makes me appreciate even more what Jane Jacobs did when she championed density and cities. In 1958 *that* must have been truly weird!

Robert — November 1, 2006
"American Look", and others on Archive.org

Free and high-quality downloads of "American Look" (parts 1-3), "The definitive Populuxe film on 1950s automotive, industrial, interior and architectural design." http://www.archive.org/details/American1958 Also there, is the equally interesting "American Engineer" (again parts 1-3)... http://www.archive.org/details/American1956

Austin — December 16, 2006
A Mashed version of this film

A shortened version of this original film was subtly overlaid with graphical elements to give a quite sinister American 'alternative' by Edouard Salier in an award-winning short film 'Empire'. There's a quicktime version on www.edouardsalier.com, if you rummage around you'll find it under 'shorts'. Fascinating to see the original though! Interesting to see that the film itself belongs as much to that era in terms of editing, pacing and narration as does the objects it portrays - likewise Salier's version is as firmly rooted in the early 21st centaury.

Philie — December 17, 2006
Impressed!

It's a such fascinating movie! and quite interessting, it's the debut of "the aesthetism"

Mitchell Dakelman — May 23, 2007
American Look

I first saw the film in 1973. I have a 16mm Technicolor print. Anyone who would like a DVD contact me at dakelmanm.com. There were actually several films in this series made by Jam Handy Company for Chevrolet. They were loaned to schools on 16mm film free of charge until 1972 when they were withdrawn. Then, they gave the film copies away. I still have mine.

Mitchell Dakelman — May 23, 2007
correction email address

My email is dakelmanm@aol.com for the American Look

David Titus — July 10, 2007
DVDs of American Look

http://www.filmsatthesedgwick.com/AmericanLook.html I originally posted American Look on Google Video and have seen tremendous interest in it being on DVD. I hope this helps!