| Design for Dreaming | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Victor D. Solow |
| Written by | Joseph March |
| Produced by | Victor D. Solow |
| Starring |
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| Cinematography |
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| Edited by | Reva Schlesinger |
| Music by | Sol Kaplan |
Production company | MPO Productions |
| Distributed by | General Motors |
Release date |
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| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
Design for Dreaming is a 1956 industrial short or sponsored film produced to accompany the General Motors Motorama show that year. A ballet with voiceover dialogue, it features a woman (danced by Tad Tadlock and voiced by Marjorie Gordon) who dreams about a masked man (danced by Marc Breaux and sung by Joseph Lautner) taking her to the Motorama at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel and to Frigidaire's "Kitchen of the Future".
The film begins in the woman's bedroom, with the masked man suddenly appearing. He then takes her to the Motorama. After looking at several cars including Buick, Chevrolet Corvette, Oldsmobile, and Cadillacs, she is taken to the "kitchen of the future", where she bakes a cake. She then goes back to the Motorama and dances the "dance of tomorrow". After looking at more cars, she and her masked man (who unmasks himself) travel on the "road of tomorrow" in the "Firebird II."
In the late 20th century the film emerged as a cult classic, appreciated as an epitome of mid-century corporate futurism. [1]
The film was produced and directed by Victor Solow for MPO Productions, stars Tad Tadlock and Marc Breaux, and features the voice of Thurl Ravenscroft. The original music was by Sol Kaplan. It was shot in 16mm Anscocolor. GM sponsored a sequel, A Touch of Magic , for the last Motorama in 1961. [2]
The short was included in a fifth-season episode of the television series Mystery Science Theater 3000 . [3] In a related comedy sketch, the unnamed female lead is given the name "Nuveena, the Woman of the Future", and portrayed by Bridget Jones Nelson, who reprised the role in a handful of sketches in subsequent episodes.
The BBC documentary series Pandora's Box by Adam Curtis made extensive use of clips from Design for Dreaming, especially in the title sequence. [1]
Excerpts from this public domain [4] film also were featured in Michael Moore's Capitalism: A Love Story . Part of the film, with dialogue, is played during the opening titles for The Hills Have Eyes . Some snippets (without dialogue) are played in the video watched by Michael Douglas during his physical in The Game and in the opening titles for The Stepford Wives (2004). [1]
Some footage was also used in the music video for Peter Gabriel's 1987 single "In Your Eyes", [1] Rush's 1989 music video for "Superconductor", [1] a 1989 commercial for the Nintendo Game Boy game Super Mario Land , [1] a 1994 commercial for Power Macintosh, [1] and during Nine Inch Nails concert performances. [1]
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The General Motors Motorama was an auto show staged by GM from 1949 to 1961. These automobile extravaganzas were designed to whet public appetite and boost automobile sales with displays of fancy concept cars and other special or halo models. Motorama grew out of Alfred P. Sloan's yearly industrial luncheons at New York City's Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, beginning in 1931. They were almost invariably held in conjunction with the New York Auto Show, that for many years was held traditionally in the first week of January.
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The General Motors Firebird comprises a quartet of prototype cars that General Motors (GM) engineered for the 1953, 1956, and 1959 Motorama auto shows. The cars' designers, headed by Harley Earl, took Earl's inspiration from the innovations in fighter aircraft design at the time. General Motors never intended the cars for production, but rather to showcase the extremes in technology and design that the company was able to achieve.
The home of the future, similar to the office of the future, is a concept that has been popular to explore since the early 20th century, or perhaps earlier. There have been many exhibits, such as at World's Fairs and theme parks, purporting to show how future homes will look and work, as well as standalone model "homes of the future" sponsored by builders, developers or technology companies. After a few years, each successive version of such an exhibit will start to look dated and old-fashioned, with some of its "futuristic" things becoming commonplace and others never catching on at all.
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Audrey Wood Breaux, better known as Dee Dee Wood, was an American choreographer. She was best known for her work on musical films of the 1960s and 1970s, especially for The Sound of Music, one of the highest-grossing musicals of all time.
The Stepford Children is a 1987 American made-for-television horror science fiction thriller film inspired by the Ira Levin novel The Stepford Wives. It was directed by Alan J. Levi with a screenplay by Bill Bleich and starring Barbara Eden, Don Murray, Tammy Lauren, Randall Batinkoff and Pat Corley. It is the second in a series of sequels inspired by the 1972 novel and the original 1975 film The Stepford Wives.
The Oldsmobile Golden Rocket was a two-seater show car built by Oldsmobile for the 1956 General Motors Motorama. The radically styled fiberglass concept, designed to resemble a rocket on wheels, was revised several times and displayed at various other auto shows, most notably at the 1957 Paris Motor Show where it generated much fanfare, 18 months after it was first revealed. The car was featured in the promotional short film Design for Dreaming along with the rest of the 1956 General Motors lineup.
Thelma "Tad" Tadlock was an American dancer and choreographer known for her work in television, Broadway theater, and movies, including starring in the General Motors sponsored-film shorts "Design for Dreaming" (1956) a film which contributed scenes for Peter Gabriel's 1986 music video "In Your Eyes" and "A Touch of Magic" (1961).
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