Encyclopædia Britannica Films (also named EB Films for short) was an American Film distributor of educational 16 mm films and later VHS videocassettes for schools and libraries from 1943 until 1995. Prior to 1943, the company operated under the name of Electrical Research Products Inc. (ERPI) Classroom Films.
History
Early years as ERPI Classroom Films
In November 1928, John Otterson of Electrical Research Products Inc. decided to make use of the latest sound technology in 35mm motion pictures and apply it to the 16mm format that was gradually being adopted by colleges and schools with easier-to-use projectors. The company had already been involved with many Hollywood studios including Warner Bros. and boasted an operating business of $20 million leasing equipment to theaters. The headquarter offices were shared with its parent company AT&T in New York City, with the Bell Labs as the research staff and Western Electric as its manufacturer.As covered by Kenneth Kaye, Chapter 1, II: https://www.kaye.com/miscellany/EBFhx.htmGeoff Alexander, Academic Films for the Classroom: A History, p. 16
At first, there was much skepticism of the value of motion pictures as an educational tool in public schools, despite mogul William Fox's willingness to spend $9 million in putting projectors into the nation's classrooms. As lampooned in The New Yorker (November 9, 1929): "We doubt if any director could photograph Bunker Hill for the kiddies without stopping the fighting at least once for Major Pitcairn to sing 'Sonny Boy'. We doubt if any director could photograph a major operation without interrupting it for a mandolin solo by one of the surgeons. Also, we are troubled by the haunting dread of living in a completely canned civilization where everyone will look like Clara Bow and talk like Eddie Leonard. Without doubting Mr. Fox's honorable intention, we are nonetheless anxious to know whether the talkies are going to approach science and education the way they have approached life. We want to know whether they intend to give truth a happy ending!"As covered by Kenneth Kaye, Chapter 1, X: https://www.kaye.com/miscellany/EBFhx.htm
During its first year of operation, Otterson appointed "Colonel" Frederick L. Devereux as company head, along with Varney Clyde Arnspiger, a former superintendent of schools. Under Arnspiger, a special team of experts was assembled, among them researchers Howard Gay, Max Brunstetter and Miss Laura Kreiger, along with Dr. Melvin Brodshaug from Columbia University who would stay with the company for over two decades. Among others involved, Howard Stokes and Arthur Edwin Krows (famous for an earlier Yale Chronicles of America educational series) became leading production supervisors.Kenneth Kaye, chapter 1, XII
In its early years, ERPI had competition with both the Pathé Exchange, which entered the educational market in conjunction with Harvard University, and Eastman Teaching Films, an offspring of Eastman Kodak that had invented the 16mm format along with DuPont in 1923. The latter company had made an estimated 300 silent (with title cards) films by the 1930s (with eventually 270 silent and later sound films officially registered for copyright between 1927 and 1943). An often repeated story involved Arnsiger getting invited to an alley fist fight with an Eastman representative who feared losing a fortune with their silent films already in circulation. (Later, in the 1940s, Eastman's film library would be sold to them.)
Newark, New Jersey, was among the first public school systems to incorporate sound movie projectors in their classrooms in 1930. During the early years, projectors were often sold with films initially, until the national total reached a thousand by 1936.Academic Films, p. 21 Until many technical problems were fixed (the best 16mm projectors were manufactured after 1933), ERPI sold both 16mm and 35mm formats.Kenneth Kaye, chapter 1, XIV
James Brill, an artist, unofficially became narrator on the majority of ERPI films (and later many early EB films through the mid-fifties). His stentorian style made science and geography topics easy to understand for children. In 1930, he also helped supervise the company's first major series, profiling the musical instruments of an orchestra (i.e. The Brass Choir, The String Choir, The Woodwind Choir, The Percussion Group). These were all successfully reissued in later years before being redone in color in 1956.Three editions (2nd in 1938) per Motion Pictures 1912–1939 Catalog of Copyright Entries and Motion Pictures 1950–1959 Catalog of Copyright Entries (see links below in references)Maurice Mitchell discusses remaking films in color, with scenes from one film, in The Unique Contribution: https://archive.org/details/unique_contribution
Among the first films to be sold with text brochures to aid teachers were nature documentaries focusing on the time-lapse photography of plants and close-up footage of animals. These were credited to (George) Clyde Fisher of the American Museum of Natural History, borrowing much footage from earlier British Instructional Films. Other early films of importance included a Yale University backed Arnold Gesell covering early child development and a slow motion study of football techniques with popular coaches like Biff Jones of West Point and Harry von Kersburg of Harvard. Dr. Carey Croneis supervised some geology subjects and also worked on the science pavilion at the Century of Progress fair of 1933–34, which (in turn) inspired another newcomer, Edward Shumaker, to join the company and fine-tune the title logos. A renewed slogan read "ERPI Films bring the world to the classroom".
In the spring of 1937, ERPI scored a surprise "blockbuster" with Adventures of Bunny Rabbit. Its widespread appeal was partly due to narrator James Brill ending with a question directed towards the kindergarten and first grade students watching, one that was repeated by their teachers: "And now Bunny is once more with his mother. What do YOU think he is telling Mother Gray Rabbit – and what do YOU think Mother Rabbit is telling Bunny?" Animal pictures were among ERPI's (and later Britannica's) best sellers with popular late 1930s and 1940s titles as Three Little Kittens, Snapping Turtle and a post-war dramatization of Aesop's The Hare and the Tortoise (later redone in animation).
Geography was covered with a series called "Children of Many Lands", which compared the similarities and differences of daily life outside of the United States. A typical title like Children of Japan made sure children were seen in a classroom not unlike one at home. More exotic was Attilio Gatti's filming of the "Dark Continent" in Pygmies of Africa and Amos Burg's portrait of People of Western China shortly before the Japanese invasion. However, World War II curtailed international travel and the films of this type for a while.
John Walker got his start with 1938's Navajo Indians and remained a prolific producer through the early 1970s, with a particular emphasis in his later decades with animal subjects and a late 1960 "Problems of Conservation" series.
Back in 1932, heads Devereaux and Arnspiger had established a very close relationship with Beardsley Ruml and Robert Maynard Hutchins of the University of Chicago, providing the films the extra prestige of scholarly credits. A promotional book The Educational Talking Picture was published by Devereaux through the University in 1933, followed four years later by Max Brunstetter's How to Use the Educational Sound Film. The close relationship between ERPI and the university tightened considerably more after John Otterson had left the company to work for Paramount Pictures in 1935.
When Hutchins appointed William B. Benton as the university's vice president, his involvement with the films was much like that of a production head. By this time, the Federal Communications Commission had started pressuring the parent company AT&T to divest its highly profitable subsidiary. After an attempt to get the Rockefeller Foundation to purchase ERPI, Benton made another unsuccessful effort with Henry Luce of Life (although the magazine giant initially saw little future in educational films, Time-Life would belatedly enter the market in the 1960s).
Merging with Encyclopædia Britannica
William Benton and Robert Hutchins had established a successful relationship with chairman Colonel Robert E. Wood of the Sears, Roebuck and Company. Over a lunch meeting held December 9, 1941, Benton managed to persuade Wood to donate Sears' profitable, but aging, subsidiary Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. to the University of Chicago outright as a tax write-off. The process of this transaction took more than a year to complete, culminating on February 1, 1943. Benton also acquired the services of EB editor Walter Yust. (His son Larry would later become a top filmmaker for the company.)
In a second move, Walter Page of AT&T and Kennedy Stevenson of Western Electric sold their interests in ERPI Classroom Films to Benton for $1 million, to be paid over the next decade. The University itself did not own the company outright, but had the option to acquire half of Benton's stock (and soon decided not to).
Benton changed the name over to Encyclopædia Britannica Films because he had once heard a school child call the films "burpy" on account of the rhyming. The first titles to sport the new name were released in November 1943. Later on, titles sported a simplified "EB Films" logo. After expanding the facilities with $1.5 million invested, William Benton temporarily left to become Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs under President Harry Truman, then as a senator and arch adversary of Joseph McCarthy before returning in 1952. With Beardsley Ruml mostly in charge, a prestigious board of directors was set up. Operating as president for a time was the future Ford Fund for Adult Education head Cyril Scott Fletcher.
Although production was curtailed during the war (with only two brand-new titles registered for copyright in the year 1945), profits increased dramatically as 150,000 16mm projectors were in operation by 1946. During this mid-decade period, a great many previously released titles were given new soundtracks in Spanish, French, Portuguese, Italian and other languages for foreign export.
Milan Herzog began a long association with EB in 1946 with The Mailman and other portraits of common occupations. He eventually became one of the most prolific producers. Popular titles later in the 1950s and 1960s include Tobacco and the Human Body and The Passenger Train (2nd edition), along with a series on the Soviet Union co-directed by Arnold Michaelis.
In an effort to keep the films in line with their educational goals, music scores were rarely used prior to the late 1940s and then only selectively used with a greater focus on narration. While this occasionally made them seem a bit static and lecture-like, it also prevented them from aging fast on account of changing musical tastes (a problem with rival educational films of the period).
Curiously the company was slow to make the transition to color, despite the Kodachrome 16mm process being popular with rival companies like Bailey Films and Coronet Films (starting before the war). The first color EB films were not made until 1946–47, covering painting lectures by Eliot O'Hara and scenic portraits of farm life (i.e. Spring on the Farm and Winter on the Farm). As quoted in the silver jubilee anniversary title Making Films That Teach, "Color is pretty but sometimes expensive for the teaching value you might get from it."video: https://archive.org/details/MakingFi1954 Nonetheless, color soon became quite mainstream in the middle fifties, as EB was soon updating popular early titles with all-color remakes such as The Woodwind Choir and Spiders.