5/5 The Companion to "The Worst Hard Times"
  by Elspath Evans
If you have read "The Worst Hard Times" you MUST get this video. It is referenced in the book and gives you a visual experience of the awful dust storms that started in the early '30's when the vast expanses of land in Oklahoma, Texas, Colorado and Kansas were unfortunately stripped and planted. Hard to believe what the video reveals and what you read in the book, but the video gives the sad 'spin' that was promoted at the time. This is a wonderful companion to the book.


4/5 Among the first ecology films
  by Jean E. Pouliot (Newburyport, MA United States)
I recently read "The Worst Hard Time," a books about the Dust Bowl years that mentioned this Depression-era, government-funded movie. One of the book's recurring characters, Bam White, also appeared in the film -- playing himself, a farmer trying to coax life from a parched, dusty earth. The film is pedantic by today's standards, as it tells the story of the cattlemen and farmers who made a living from the Great Plains. It takes us from the boom years of the First World War, when high wheat prices encouraged settlers to populate the plains, to the post-war years when overfarming caused the soil to blow off the farms. That makes "Plow" fascinating, in that it did not shy from showing the plain truth that individuals can be affected by government policies and world events that are beyond their control.

"The River" tells a similar story about the deforestation and flood control along the Mississippi. The lumber industry in Minnesota and other northern states stripped the land of its water-holding power, which resulted in loss of topsoil and increased flooding downriver. The last part of the film is a paean to New Deal efforts to correct the damage, including efforts by the CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps) to replant denuded acres, and by the Tennessee Valley Authority to tame the river's precarious nature and generate electricity.

Great period films with a somewhat heavy handed message, but great first-hand photography about an important era in American history. The film's video and audio have been restored, and won't detract from the experience of those with modern audio-visual expectations.

5/5 The Day After
  by R. Philley
I got this cd because there was no soundtrack available for the 1983 movie "The Day After". The score from the 1937 documentary "The River" is the same music.

5/5 The Plow That Broke the Plains & The River
  by F. S. Tanner (Sutherland Ne.)
This complemented "The worst of hard Times Book" which helped me under stand how I was raised In Nebraska,
the reason for Social Security and the Path Our country has followed. Our parents and ancestors had it rough but perseved.

4/5 Apocalypse Then
  by David H. Vonseggern
These stark and dark films are accounts of the land misuse which led to two of the nation's greatest environmental disasters. I found "The Plow That Broke the Plains" especially riveting. The black and white presentation further lends barrenness to these accounts and focuses the viewer more closely on the mechanized devastation. The films demonstrate to what extent the federal government involved itself in national environmental crises in the 1930's, an involvement which may not be possible to repeat today in spite of a much higher environmental awareness across the population. Conservationists, environmentalists, and political historians should enjoy and learn from these documentary films.