The Plow That Broke the Plains (1936). US Resettlement Administration. Held by the Internet Archive; public domain.
The Plow That Broke the Plains
The first film the United States government made for commercial cinemas: the ploughing of the southern plains, the drought, and the migration out.
- Year
- 1936
- Made by
- US Resettlement Administration
- Directed by
- Pare Lorentz
- Free to use because
- A work of the United States government — no copyright, anywhere
The note
Lorentz was a film critic with no production experience and a government budget of six thousand dollars. What he produced is the beginning of the American documentary as an art form, and it is above all a piece of sound — Thomson's score, built on cowboy songs and hymns, and a narration written in verse cadence and spoken by Thomas Chalmers. Commercial distributors resisted it; audiences did not. Federal work, no copyright.
The Plow That Broke the Plains, 1936. US Resettlement Administration. Directed by Pare Lorentz. This is the film’s soundtrack: narration, score and location sound, streamed from the Internet Archive’s master. No picture — the audio is the work. A work of the United States government, and therefore free of copyright anywhere it is used.
The soundtrack