Assignment: Venezuela

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Assignment: Venezuela
Title card for Assignment: Venezuela
Directed byJack Tobin
Produced byCreole Petroleum Corporation
Release date
  • 1956 (1956)
Running time
24 minutes
CountriesUnited States
Venezuela

Assignment: Venezuela is a 1956 American short propaganda film. It is a fictional travelogue designed to promote working in the oil industry in Venezuela. It was directed by John H. "Jack" Tobin and is part of the Prelinger Archives, available in the public domain. It was made into a Mystery Science Theater 3000 spoof in the 1990s.

Synopsis

The complete 1956 film

Jim is a middle-level oil engineer who is being relocated to Lake Maracaibo, Venezuela, with his family: wife Ann and two sons. He initially tries to use a Spanish pocket phrase book unsuccessfully, but is quickly greeted at Grano de Oro Airport by a company rep.[1] Jim is taken on a tour of Maracaibo, Caracas, and Lagunillas to familiarize him with the new country; Venezuela is depicted in a positive fashion. In Maracaibo, Jim drives across the waterfront in an imported American car, and in Caracas he explores the newly built University City of Caracas, and studies Spanish intensively.[2]:97–98 He writes letters to Ann telling her how great Venezuela is before his family joins him a few weeks later, all having learnt Spanish beforehand.[3]:158

Production

Assignment: Venezuela was produced by Sound Masters, Inc. for the

Arriflex camera.[6] The film is in color and 24 minutes in length, and is part of the Prelinger Archives. It is available in the public domain.[7]

Analysis

Still frame of "Jim" visiting the Modernist Plaza Cubierta at Central University of Venezuela

The film was produced in the context of the

American way of life transpires clearly" in the film.[2]
:97

Scholar

Venezuelan culture that generally perturbed the employees — enough for stories of expatriates calling the practice "indoctrination" to arise. Tinker also suggests that anything learnt from the lessons and film were quickly forgotten, with American oil workers still retaining their opinion of cultural dominance.[8]
:147–148

In examining the MST3K spoof,

Invasion USA", writing that Assignment: Venezuela "attempts to sanitize" many of the racial and environmental issues relating to US-Venezuelan oil ventures. She notes that "some" treat the film as an accurate historical record of 1950s Venezuela.[9]
:150

Mystery Science Theater 3000 version

In the 1990s, the satire television series

Sci Fi Channel, and when CD-ROM sponsors Voyager began failing financially. It was later released on the home videos "Assignment Venezuela and Other Shorts" in 2001 and "The Mystery Science Theater 3000 Collection, Volume 7" in 2005. Like many MST3K spoofs, it is a film from the 1950s, which were easier to acquire the rights to; Giannini also notes how this generally benefits the spoofs as it provides prime material to mock quaint 1950s American ideals in line with more contemporary social and political issues, which she believes Assignment: Venezuela shows very clearly.[9]:149 It also lacks the internal structure and scheduled framing narrative of many other MST3K shorts.[9]
:150

Chris Morgan, author of The Comic Galaxy of Mystery Science Theater 3000: Twelve Classic Episodes and the Movies They Lampoon, writes in the book that the MST3K version of the film is long for an MST3K short, noting that the intended format gave the producers a chance to "stretch their legs" and keep close to the original running length. He thought that the short itself was dull and lacking in comedic potential, and that keeping the original premise of oil-boom relocation to Venezuela ages the piece significantly, though he observed that "Mike and the 'bots do their best with it" and the running joke made about the width of the lake was funny.[3]:158–159

In an article examining some MST3K shorts, Giannini selects the version of Assignment: Venezuela as a good example of where MST3K makes good film selections to spoof with suitable commentary, and as showing how this practice appears in their shorts as well as feature films.[9]:147 Giannini argues that the short's lack of public distribution gave the MST3K writers more leeway in their commentary,[9]:149 although the writers did not directly address the colonialism present in the film. The commentary does show an awareness of it, however, including interjections calling the protagonist "white devil" and a sarcastic reference to the United States as "the best country ever". Other reactions are more critical of the oil industry, dubbing the placement pattern of offshore oil wells a "pentacle to Satan" and spoofing the over-exuberant joy at Venezuelan oil success by saying that "oil is a loving god".[9]:150

See also

References

  1. ^ "Assignment: Venezuela – 1956". Weirdo Video. 17 June 2017. Retrieved 16 June 2019.
  2. ^
    ISBN 9780822982364
    .
  3. ^
    ISBN 9781476618838
    .
  4. OCLC 1037378813. Retrieved 20 June 2019. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help
    )
  5. ^ "16mm Assignment Venezuela Kodachrome 1950's 800'". eBay. Retrieved 20 June 2019.
  6. ^ "American Cinematographer (1959)". 40. Los Angeles: The A.S.C. Agency, Inc. 1959. Retrieved 20 June 2019. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  7. ^ "Assignment: Venezuela (1956)". Prelinger Archives. 16 July 2002. Retrieved 16 June 2019.
  8. ISBN 9780822392231
    .
  9. ^
    ISBN 9780786485727
    .

External links
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Assignment:_Venezuela&oldid=1171407478"