A 1958 fever dream where 'career girl' meant typing pool with better lighting.
An introduction to the employment picture in Canada in the late 1950s, designed to inform potential immigrants of job opportunities existing for women. The film reviews many fields of work in which women are engaged, ranging from the highly specialized to the unskilled, and shows much of it being performed by women who have come to Canada from many different lands. Placement services and information services established to help newly arrived immigrants are shown in operation. Viewed from a modern perspective, the greater part of the film accepts as normal the waste of women's talents in repetitive or service jobs while elevating this work to the status of a career. Currently distributed only in 13-minute abridged form.
Production
Gloriously staged 'natural' workplace scenes with suspiciously coiffed factory workers
Writing
Narration so earnestly patronizing it transcends into art
Director
Gordon Sparling
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Part of Canada's post-war immigration push, these 'informational' films were screened overseas to lure workers with promises of dignity that rarely materialized.
Director Gordon Sparling spent decades making NFB shorts; this one's unvarnished sexism makes his war propaganda look subtle by comparison.
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