Mr. Whitney Had a Notion

Watch Movie

Mr. Whitney Had a Notion

1949

0h 11m

6.3(4 votes)

History

Overview

Historical short showing how Eli Whitney (best known for the invention of the cotton gin) played a significant role in the introduction of mass production techniques to the USA in the late 18th century.

Links & Resources

IMDbView

Social & External

IMDb

Production Companies

The people behind it

Cast & crew

6 featured cast members

Starring

Lloyd Bridges

Eli Whitney

Erville Alderson

Thomas Jefferson

John Nesbitt

Narrator (voice)

Howard Negley

Military Committee Man (as Howard J. Negley)

Harry Hayden

Senatorial Committee Man

Mitchell Lewis

Eli Whitney's Workman

Creative team

Directed by: Gerald Mayer
Written by: John Nesbitt
Produced by: Herbert Moulton

Similar Movies

9.0

1940

American Spoken Here

This MGM John Nesbitt's Passing Parade series short takes a look at the origins of North American slang.

Movie

8.0

1946

Magic on a Stick

This MGM Passing Parade series short recounts how English chemist John Walker invented the wooden friction match during the 1820s.

Movie

7.0

1939

The Story of Alfred Nobel

This John Nesbitt's Passing Parade short tells the story of Alfred Nobel, who invented dynamite, and later established the Nobel Prize.

Movie

6.7

1945

People on Paper

Americans are preoccupied with the news, but need an escape from many of the events reported in the news. These escapes in the past have included dime store novels. The most accessible of these escapes is what are known as the funny papers, the set of serialized comic strips that are included within many newspapers. They appeal to all socio-economic classes, and all ages. Some of the earliest known from the late 19th century include the Yellow Kid, Little Nemo, Happy Hooligan, the Katzenjammer Kids, Mutt & Jeff, and Bringing Up Father. Many cartoonists are seen in action. Some originated their characters, while others have taken over following the passing of the originator. The joy of many comic strips are the absurd and the fantastical, which are limited only by the imagination of the cartoonist. Others are grounded in reality, which add to their poignancy within the public mindset.

Movie

7.0

1939

The Story That Couldn't Be Printed

This John Nesbitt's Passing Parade short tells the story of John Peter Zenger, who in Colonial New York was tried for sedition based on what he printed in his newspaper.

Movie

7.5

1942

The Film That Was Lost

In this John Nesbitt's Passing Parade short, a look is taken at the problems of film preservation efforts in the 1930s and early 1940s.

Movie

7.5

1941

Strange Testament

This MGM Passing Parade series short tells the story of Julian Poydras, whose encounter with a girl at Mardi Gras had a profound effect on his later life.

Movie

7.2

1948

Souvenirs of Death

This MGM John Nesbitt's Passing Parade series short tells the story of how a Mauser pistol used on the battlefield by Germans during WWII makes its way into the hands of an American gangster.

Movie

7.3

1945

The Great American Mug

This John Nesbitt's Passing Parade short takes a look at the typical American barbershop throughout the years.

Movie

4.7

1944

A Lady Fights Back

The saga of the Normandie is recounted from her life as a luxury liner, the horrific fire that nearly destroyed her, and her resuscitation to join in the war effort. A John Nesbitt's Passing Parade short.

Movie

8.0

1940

The Hidden Master

Shows how important luck can be in a person's life.

Movie

7.7

1939

Angel of Mercy

This MGM Passing Parade series short tells the story of Clara Barton, the founder of the Red Cross.

Movie

7.0

1942

Madero of Mexico

This Passing Parade series short chronicles the political life of Francisco Madero, who tried to bring democracy and land reform to Mexico.

Movie

7.3

1943

Forgotten Treasure

This John Nesbitt's Passing Parade series short highlights the film preservation efforts of the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Several scenes from early newsreels are shown.

Movie

8.0

1939

Yankee Doodle Goes to Town

Made just before America would be forced into the Second World War, this short subject is a brief dramatized history of American democracy. It targets a perceived threat to democracy from board room and soapbox fascists who advocated a government based upon contemporaneous European models.

Movie

6.5

1942

We Do It Because

This John Nesbitt's Passing Parade short explores the origins of various customs such as shaking hands, kissing, and why ships are christened.

Movie

6.5

1945

The Seesaw and the Shoes

This short shows how two objects led to important discoveries. Children playing with a seesaw inspire French physician Rene Laennec to invent the stethoscope, and a pair of shoes made of caoutchouc lead Charles Goodyear to discover the process for vulcanizing rubber.

Movie

8.0

1939

One Against the World

This short film presents the story of Dr. Ephraim McDowell, who came under scrutiny for his pioneering of surgical practices.

Movie

7.0

1940

A Way in the Wilderness

This Passing Parade entry tells the story of Dr. Joseph Goldberger (1874-1929), a Hungarian immigrant who devoted his life to finding the cause of pellagra, a disease that killed hundreds of thousands in the southern United States. Although the medical community believed that the condition was caused by a virus, Goldberger proved that a healthy diet was the cure.

Movie

9.0

1945

The Golden Hunch

This entry in John Nesbitt's "Passing Parade" series is about the great moments in the lives of famous men who found found an answer or made a great discovery in the flash of a golden hunch.

Movie

Recommended Movies

6.7

2018

The Current War

Electricity titans Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse compete to create a sustainable system and market it to the American people.

Movie

6.6

2020

Radium Girls

Young women toiling in a factory are exposed to hazardous material which takes a disastrous toll on their health.

Movie

6.8

1988

Eight Men Out

Buck Weaver and Hap Felsch are young idealistic players on the Chicago White Sox, a pennant-winning team owned by Charles Comiskey - a penny-pinching, hands-on manager who underpays his players and treats them with disdain. And when gamblers and hustlers discover that Comiskey's demoralized players are ripe for a money-making scheme, one by one the team members agree to throw the World Series. But when the White Sox are defeated, a couple of sports writers smell a fix and a national scandal explodes, ripping the cover off America's favorite pastime.

Movie

6.5

1943

For Whom the Bell Tolls

Spain in the 1930s is the place to be for a man of action like Robert Jordan. There is a civil war going on and Jordan—who has joined up on the side that appeals most to idealists of that era—has been given a high-risk assignment up in the mountains. He awaits the right time to blow up a crucial bridge in order to halt the enemy's progress.

Movie

6.7

2023

The Last Rifleman

A WWII veteran escapes his care home in Northern Ireland and embarks on an arduous but inspirational journey to France to attend the 75th anniversary of the D-Day landings, finding the courage to face the ghosts of his past.

Movie

6.2

1968

Mayerling

Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria clashes with his father, Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria, over implementing progressive policies for their country. Rudolf soon feels he is a man born at the wrong time in a country that doesn't realize the need for social reform. The Prince of Wales, later to become Britain's King Edward VII, provides comic relief. Rudolf finds refuge from a loveless marriage with Princess Stéphanie by taking a mistress, Baroness Maria Vetsera. Their untimely demise at Mayerling, the imperial family's hunting lodge, is cloaked in mystery.

Movie

5.9

1915

The Birth of a Nation

Two families, abolitionist Northerners the Stonemans and Southern landowners the Camerons, intertwine. When Confederate colonel Ben Cameron is captured in battle, nurse Elsie Stoneman petitions for his pardon. In Reconstruction-era South Carolina, Cameron founds the Ku Klux Klan, battling Elsie's congressman father and his African-American protégé, Silas Lynch.

Movie

7.1

2025

Köln 75

The true story of Vera Brandes, teenage patron saint of the 1970s Cologne music scene, who risked everything to organize the greatest solo concert in music history: Keith Jarrett’s legendary Köln Concert.

Movie

6.5

1977

Julia

At the behest of an old and dear friend, playwright Lillian Hellman undertakes a dangerous mission to smuggle funds into Nazi Germany.

Movie

7.4

2006

Glory Road

In 1966, Texas Western coach Don Haskins led the first all-black starting line-up for a college basketball team to the NCAA national championship.

Movie

6.8

2002

The Importance of Being Earnest

Two young gentlemen living in 1890s England use the same pseudonym ('Ernest') on the sly, which is fine until they both fall in love with women using that name, which leads to a comedy of mistaken identities.

Movie

6.5

2022

The Lost King

An amateur historian defies the academic establishment in her efforts to find King Richard III's remains, which were lost for over 500 years.

Movie

6.6

2021

Where Is Anne Frank

The film follows the journey of Kitty, the imaginary friend to whom Anne Frank dedicated her diary. A fiery teenager, Kitty wakes up in the near future in Anne Frank's house in Amsterdam and embarks on a journey to find Anne, who she believes is still alive, in today's Europe. While the young girl is shocked by the modern world, she also comes across Anne's legacy.

Movie

7.1

1960

The Alamo

The legendary true story of a small band of soldiers who sacrificed their lives in hopeless combat against a massive army in order to prevent a tyrant from smashing the new Republic of Texas.

Movie

6.7

2017

Viceroy's House

In 1947, Lord Mountbatten assumes the post of last Viceroy, charged with handing India back to its people, living upstairs at the house which was the home of British rulers, whilst 500 Hindu, Muslim and Sikh servants lived downstairs.

Movie

7.2

2013

Muscle Shoals

In a tiny Alabama town with the curious name of Muscle Shoals, something miraculous sprang from the mud of the Tennessee River. A group of unassuming, yet incredibly talented, locals came together and spawned some of the greatest music of all time: “Mustang Sally,” “I Never Loved a Man,” “Wild Horses,” and many more. During the most incendiary periods of racial hostility, white folks and black folks came together to create music that would last for generations and gave birth to the incomparable “Muscle Shoals sound.”

Movie

6.8

1984

A Passage to India

Cultural mistrust and false accusations doom a friendship in British colonial India between an Indian doctor, an Englishwoman engaged to marry a city magistrate, and an English educator.

Movie

6.7

2021

The War Below

During World War I, a group of British miners are recruited to tunnel underneath no man's land and set bombs from below the German front in hopes of breaking the deadly stalemate of the Battle of Messines.

Movie

7.3

1966

The Bible: In the Beginning...

Covering only the first 22 chapters of the Book of Genesis, vignettes include: Adam and Eve frolicking in the Garden of Eden until their indulgence in the forbidden fruit sees them driven out; Cain murdering his brother Abel; Noah building an ark to preserve the animals of the world from the coming flood; and Abraham making a covenant with God.

Movie

6.4

1957

Raintree County

In 1859, idealist John Wickliff Shawnessey, a resident of Raintree County, Indiana, is distracted from his high school sweetheart Nell Gaither by Susanna Drake, a rich New Orleans girl. This love triangle is further complicated by the American Civil War, and dark family history.

Movie