On Impact

On Impact An MCI Production by Sturgis-Grant for American Medical Association / Ford Motor Co. Pre-title sequence - car driving too fast at night - headlights towards camera, traffic light changing, car heard screeching to a halt & crashing. Titles w/ dramatic music over shots of car accident scene - casualties loaded into ambulance - VO “what you just heard were two accidents. The first was a car crashing into an object; the second was the car’s occupants being thrown against parts of the car’s interior...it’s this accident inside an accident that causes human injuries...” Ambulance en route to hospital. 04:54:25 CU telephone ringing - doctor out of house & into car. INT operating theatre / theater scene w/ superimposed statistics of US car accidents - 38,000 Fatalities; 1,250,000 Injuries. 04:55:13 Dr. Russell Harris outside house loading car; drives thru tree-lined residential street & to AMA Annual Convention - road sign ‘Chicago - Speed Limit 35mph’. 04:55:38 EXT convention venue - CI sign ‘American Medical Association’. INT doctor into convention hall - looks at exhibit re car accidents & attends lecture. Doctor Harris taken round convention floor by John O’Moore, Director of Crash Injury Research at Cornell University Medical College - - meet Army lieutenant who tells them impact of motor vehicle accidents on personnel levels - Indiana State Police Sergeant explains crash injury reports - CU diagram of human body used for report. O’Moore shows Dr Harris graph & diagram. 04:59:08 EXT Crash test dummy loaded into car. INT laboratory tests of new steering wheel design & padded instrument panel. EXT CU two crash test dummies secured in front seats, only one w/ seatbelt; car along test track, crashes into another car - seen again in slow-motion & from inside car. Crash test into barrier. Technicians & press climb over barriers to examine wreckage. 05:00:55 Cut back to convention hall - sergeant shows Dr Harris new safety measures for inside cars. Harris meets Dr Fletcher Woodward, Chairman of AMA’s committee on reduction of car accidents - wall charts re nervous & cardiovascular systems, drugs & special senses. Medical symposium in lecture theatre - list of 11 papers presented on rolling title. 05:03:55 Sign ‘Passenger Car Safety - Ford Motor Company, Dearborn, Mich.’ - industry display. Extract of Henry Ford II making speech - “...all of the pioneer safety features developed by Ford Motor Company...are to be made available to any automobile company that wants them”. Moore to camera re reduction in severe injuries as a result of safety features - “if we could suddenly equip all of the 50 million vehicles with these five devices...we could expect to reduce by one third the crash injuries we see...”. 05:06:32 Traveling shot from open-top convertible car along road. Driver pulls up outside suburban house, two young kids run out to greet him. Automobile Safety; Road Safety; Automobile Industry; Car Crashes - Death; ca 1957; 1950s; NOTE: One continuous minute sold at per reel rate.