658 This film, which details how film is made, starts out with an amazingly boring chemistry lesson, slowly becomes slightly interesting to the end. First starting off with flimsy opening credits (The American Chemical Society badly needs a new logo) the film credits Shirley Burden, curiously, as doing most of thje pghotography. Most? As the narration starts, it sounds like it's done though an echo chamber and sounds hopelessly snooty. Oh they seem to know their way around a chemistry lab though, as 15 minutes go by discussing film emulsion chemistry. Most of it is very convuluted. Try to follow the 8 step chart to how a film is developed. If you think that's bad, the remaining 10 minutes are worse. It's very puzzling to figure out WHO this film was made for, as it seems to glamorize hollywood and film processes, yet totally bogs it down with scientific mumbo-jumbo. The second part picks up a bit though, with actual demonstrations. Best line "If the film is not ready yet, dunk dunk it goes". The narration in the 2nd part is what increases the film from a 1 star rating to a 2 star. The narrator, still in the echo chamber, is OBVIOUSLY reading from a script.. why? You can heard him turning the pages! As well, he fumbles some words, and yet they just keep going! At one point, the Narrator says "For the purposes of this film, we will not talk about sound". Which says it all. Fascinatingly Cheap Spuzz 2002-12-17 00:00:00 2002-12-17 00:00:00 2 2872 Hollywood film processors try to show us how exciting their career is by making the most boring film ever. They start by writing a script that tells us in excruciating detail the exact chemical processes of film development. They hire boring narrators to carefully and slowly read the script word-for-word (at one point, you actually hear one of them turning the pages!). They illustrate this science lecture with such exciting visuals as plain title cards with chemical formulas on them, disembodied hands mixing things in beakers, and bored-looking technicians doing their jobs with grim determination. Isn't Hollywood an amazing land of dreams? Ratings: Camp/Humor Value: **. Weirdness: ***. Historical Interest: ****. Overall Rating: **. The Alchemist in Hollywood (Full Film) Christine Hennig 2003-07-02 13:41:40 2003-07-02 13:41:40 2 9498 I actually rather liked it. I assume the target audience of this American Chemical Society production was probably chemistry students, and so maybe as a chemist myself I'm closer to the intended audience. The narration is amazingly bad, and there is a section at the beginning where they seem to have forgotten that this is a *motion* picture, and thus rather than an amazingly overcomplex chart that doesn't change accompanied by somewhat confusing narration, maybe a series of charts would work better. I thought the film developing experiments in the beakers was very good and is still of interest today, since black and white film developing has not changed. I'm sure a modern movie film lab looks rather different from the 1940s version, plus everything is in color now, but it is certainly of historical interest. Speaking of history, they don't use carbon tetrachloride to clean film anymore, that's for sure. How times have changed. maybe chemists like it more Michael Pereckas 2004-02-13 12:19:03 2004-02-13 12:19:03 4 If you have a chemical or film background, this will mean something. If not, it's likely to be a half hour wasted. Since I have one of those backgrounds, I found it interesting and informative. Having said that, the production could have been better, even for 1940. Most importantly, there were some points (such as the AgBr crystal exposure) that had excessive pauses. I'm going to assume that was for the students to take notes. My rating is based on my enjoyment of it. For "general" audiences it would be something close to a 2. Specialized appreciation uniQ 2011-04-17 11:54:06 2011-04-17 11:54:06 4 4 3.00