Henry Ford: The Most Influential Innovator of the 20th Century is a documentary film which premiered on US television (PBS) in 2013.
It is an episode of the long-running program American Experience.
Here is some basic information about it:
** Written, produced and directed by Sarah Colt
** Narrated by Oliver Platt
** Language: English
** Subtitles: English
** Run time: 115 minutes
Nine persons are interviewed in the film.
Here are their names of the participants.
Listed in the order of appearance.
** Steven Watts – a historian, University of Missouri
** Douglas Brinkley – a historian, Rice University
** John Staudenmaier – a historian, University of Detroit Mercy
** Nancy F. Koehn – a historian, Harvard Business School
** Greg Grandin – a historian, New York University
** Robert “Bob” Casey - curator, the Henry Ford Museum
** Hasia R. Diner – a historian, New York University
** Beverly Gage – a historian, Yale University
** Nelson Lichtenstein – a historian, University of California, Santa Barbara
Archive footage is used between the talking heads. Old photos are also used.
Archive footage is used to support and supplement the statements made by the talking heads.
Archive footage is used while the narrator is speaking.
The topic of this film is the life and career of Henry Ford (1863-1947).
It covers the early history of the Ford Motor Company, which he founded in 1903 and managed for several decades.
It also covers the life and career of his son Edsel Ford (1863-1943), who died before he was fifty, four years before his father died.
We hear some positive things about Henry Ford. Most of them are connected with the first half of his career.
We also hear some negative things about him. Most of them are connected with the second half of his career.
In the first half of his career, he was an innovator, a man who cared about his workers; and a man who was not afraid to get down on the floor and get dirty if it was necessary to fix a problem.
In the second half of his career, he was a different person: a man who blamed the Jews for every problem; a man who resisted change; and a man who fought as hard and as long as he could against the auto workers union.
As a young man, he was looking forward; as an old man, he was looking backwards. It was a great beginning and a sad ending.
This film seems to be what I call an ABC product:
** Accurate,
** Balanced, and
** Comprehensive.
But one small detail is missing, even though it could and should have been mentioned: the medal from Nazi Germany.
In July 1938, Henry Ford was awarded Nazi-Germany’s Grand Cross of the German Eagle, the highest honour the German government could offer a foreigner.
Ford did not travel to Germany to receive the medal. In 1938, he was 75. Perhaps he was too old to make the journey? On the other hand, he did not refuse it.
Two representatives of the German government brought it to him in the US, and he accepted it.
Perhaps he did not really understand the implications of what he did when he accepted this medal?
Why is the story of this German medal not mentioned in the film? It is a small but significant detail. The film runs for almost two hours. The director must know all about it. She cannot claim it was impossible to include it. Her decision to exclude this event from the film was unfortunate.
While the story of the controversial German medal is not mentioned in the film, it is mentioned on the American Experience website about the film (in an interview with Hasia R. Diner).
I mention this flaw, because it deserves to be mentioned, for the record, but I have decided to regard it as a minor flaw in a film which is otherwise an informative and interesting product.
What do reviewers say about it?
Here are some results:
On IMDb it has a rating of 77 per cent
On Amazon there are at the moment 349 ratings of this product, including 172 with reviews.
The average rating is 4.7 stars, which corresponds to a rating of 94 percent.
If you ask me, the rating on IMDb is too low, while the rating on Amazon is more appropriate.
I want to go all the way to the top with this product. I think it deserves a rating of five stars (100 percent).
REFERENCES
# 1. The Ford Motor Company
Wheels for the World:
Henry Ford, his Company and a Century of Progress
By Douglas Brinkley
(2003)
The People’s Tycoon:
Henry Ford and the American Century
By Steven Watts
(2005)
The Model T - A Centennial History
By Robert “Bob” Casey
(2008)
Fordlandia:
The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford’s Forgotten Jungle City
By Greg Grandin
(2009)
# 2. The Ford Motor Company and Nazi Germany
Working for the Enemy: Ford, General Motors and Forced Labor during the Second World War
By Reinhold Billstein, Karola Fings, Anita Kugler, and Nicholas Levis
(2000 = hardcover)
(2004 = paperback)
# 3. Henry Ford and Thomas Edison
Edison and Ford in Florida
By Mike Cosden, Brent Newman, and Chris Pendleton
(2015)
The Vagabonds: The Story of Henry Ford and Thomas Edison’s Ten-Year Road Trip
By Jeff Guinn
(2019 = hardcover)
(2020 = paperback)
American Journey: On the Road with Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, and John Burroughs
By Wes Davis
(2023 = hardcover)
(2024 = paperback)
# 4. An autobiography
My Life & Work
By Henry Ford
(First published in 1922)
(2020 = hardcover)
(2023 = paperback)
# 5. Items available online
Michael Dobbs,
“Ford and GM scrutinized for alleged Nazi collaboration,”
Washington Post
30 November 1998
Simon Reich
“The Ford Motor Company and the Third Reich,”
Anti-Defamation League
01 January 2000
Simon English,
“Ford ‘used slave labour’ in Nazi German plants,”
The Telegraph
03 November 2003
Rich Tenorio
“Henry Ford’s ‘ghost’ opens up about his infamous antisemitism in new art documentary,”
The Times of Israel
29 July 2022
*****
My Life & Work
An Autobiography
by Henry Ford
(first published in 1922)
(Hardcover 2020)
Paperback 2023)
*****
Henry Ford and Thomas Edison
Two old friends
On a road trip
*****
The medal from Nazi Germany:
Two German diplomats present
an award to Henry Ford
(1938)
*****
On this blog:
My review of
Edison: The Father of Invention
American Experience
(2015)
*****
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