The Glass Case, 1939. A dramatic film about the auto glass industry.

The automotive glass industry was one of the most competitive industries in America in 1939. Automobile makers were very slow to adopt the much more expensive and higher acuity of newly patented Safety Plate Glass for automobiles. The older, although safe, Safety Sheet Glass had rather large acuity issues and could vastly distort the side view of the driver and passengers.
The licensee holders and manufacturers of Safety Plate Glass were trying to motivate the public and thereby automobile manufactures through a unique viral method:
Create a short dramatic movie about a mis-identity in a murder case and give it to movie houses for free.
It worked, this movie ran for 16 years and by the mid 1940s Safety Plate Glass was being used by most automobile companies in part because of this film.
Corporate propaganda or a creative viral marketing system, this film worked. It was never fully disclosed in the movie who funded the production and many assumed it was the an optometrist group funded it. The glass industry did not want to rise the ire of the automotive industry they did business with.
History may have forgot about this point in time but this type of marketing and social influence defined the late 20th and early 21st century.
This was one of the antecedents.
Story and Direction: Owen Murphy.
Photography: Don Malkames,
A.S.C. Cast: James Rennie (Robert Williams); Philip Ober (Walter Drummond); Wendell Phillips (Johnny Scalza); Fernanda Eliscu (Mrs. Scalza); Richard Gordon (Doctor Winthrop); Robert Shayne (District Attorney); Lulu Mae Hubbard (Mrs. Drummond); Wyrley Birch (The Judge); Lawrence Robinson (Junior Drummond).

[@caeliallard120]

Brian, HEY-good stuff. Keep posting content. I’m fascinated. I appreciate your work and your creative mind. Sending prayers and protection from above and within.

[@wertiaaudit5746]

You still post?

[@buddyclem7328]

He could have just bought new windows, but a new car will work too. Maybe he could spring for that newfangled air conditioning.