Holiday for Bill 1951- Ford Tractor Company Produced

Holiday for Bill (Part II)
by Handy (Jam) Organization
Published 1951
Usage Public Domain
Topics Rural America, Music, Gender roles
Cliche-ridden rural/urban improbable romance concocted to promote Ford tractors.
Run time 31:14
Producer Handy (Jam) Organization
Sponsor Dearborn Motors Corporation
Audio/Visual Sd, B&W
The plot takes a little explaining: Bill, a television producer, gets a flat tire 154 miles from the city. Pat, the prototypical farmer's daughter, takes him back to her family's farm, where Bill learns by phone that his boss will fire him if he doesn't find a musical act for his show by Friday. Pat offers the services of a local act, "Carl Schroeder And His Boys," but they won't be around until Friday. "We can hold an audition in the barn," she suggests. Until then, Bill has to be the farm's hired hand. Why? Can't he just fix the tire and go home? What's he doing out in the boondocks in the first place?
Anyway, Pat and Bill quickly develop a love/hate relationship. Pat sabotages the audition, then has a change of heart and appears in a ballroom gown, singing "In Heaven On The RFD." It turns out Pat was a rising young singing star, but she gave it up to go back to the farm "where people are just folks." The film ends at this point, and we assume that Carl and the Boys will get on TV, Bill will give up his career for a life on the farm, and Bill and Pat will have a very frisky sex life. Sandwiched into this plot are plugs for "modern farming methods," which is the reason Ford sponsored this film in the first place.