Orson Welles narrates this short film about tanks. Most of it is spent on the production line, as the tank is assembled, and then hoisted into the air for some final work. Then it's off to Fort Knox for testing and for crew training. Finally, it's onto a ship to be sent to battle.
It's mostly of interest for Welles' orotund narration of a flamboyantly written script. Even so, it make use of camera techniques that were already forty years old when it was made. Why, I wondered briefly, did they shoot the tank floating through the air on enormous hooks, instead of using a moving crane shot, invented by Billy Bitzer for his series of shorts about the Westinghouse plant in 1904? The answer came instantly to me: an aerial shot pointing down installs an Olympian viewpoint. The shot pointing up at the tank makes it loom menacingly and powerfully.
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