Retro Retail Video - American Thrift

American Thrift (1962)

Yet another groovy old Jam Handy educational/industrial public domain film I found over at the The Internet Archive years ago. I present it here now, for your handy enjoyment.

The synopsis on this one said: "Expansive tribute to the 'Woman American', her thrifty purchasing habits, and the American system of mass production."

And while the film meanders a lot, there are some great shots peppered throughout, of not only vintage Suburbia, but also some nice shopping center and grocery store interiors too (the scene I screengrabbed at left actually looks like Lenox Square to me).

This video is 26 minutes long, so grab a cup of coffee and settle in. One reviewer summed this video up by saying:

"This film is a wonderful slice of idealized early '60s middle-class life, complete with spotless homes, perfect families, people dressing up for church, women and girls wearing little white gloves when they go shopping."

Note: the quality is decidedly low-fi here, because I had to really crunch the file down (I don't like two-parters) to bring it in line with the typical 100mb size limit Google (and all the video hosting sites) enforce, so please bear that in mind.