A Ship Is Born

This Vitaphone 'Technicolor Special' (production number 8001) portrays the behind-the-scenes story of the building and manning, during World War Two, of the USA supply line to Victory against the Axis powers, the United States Merchant Marine service.

This might have made for a better silent film. A musical accompaniment to these astonishing feats of engineering and teamwork rather than the relentlessly effusive and almost triumphalist commentary from Knox Manning. Of course, in 1942 this did have a propaganda function illustrating not just how crucial the shipbuilding programme was, but also at just how widespread the input to this massive construction project was - not just the ship building, but the constituent parts and people coming from all over the nation. Back to Manning again, though, and boy does he like a list. Nobody can be left out as he mentions the mother with her kitchen pot and the father from Minnesota doing his bit too - a state by state and job by job monologue. The imagery works. One ship is launched and immediately thereafter another keel starts being laid down and ir delivers at times a fascinating look at the labour-intense processes that get these things onto the water and then to the selection of the erstwhile land-lubbers who now join up to serve at sea. People from all walks of life who turn up for training in theory, on land and at sea. Essentially, this is an American merchant marine recruitment video that does it's job but doesn't really feature too much about just how ships are designed or built.