Field End Telephone Exchange Goes Automatic

This amateur informational piece fervently laments the necessary shift from old-fashioned telephone operation to the automatic system.

A sharp swell of music coupled with a title card introduce this short film like a news story, complete with a formal and well-spoken narration. The narration announces the shift from the old telephone operators towards the new and efficient automatic service. A sequence of the busy manual exchange yields to a now empty room, and the narrator bemoans the bygone age. The piece ends with a brief tour of the new but impersonal technology but time marches on.

This film is from the collection of Headstone Manor Museum, a member of the London's Screen Archives Network.