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 “Power for the Parkinsons,” a
57-minute historical documentary produced, directed and written by Dr.
Ephraim K. Smith, a professor emeritus of history at California State
University, Fresno, is up for three regional Emmy Awards.
The documentary is nominated in the Michigan Chapter of the National
Academy of Television, Arts & Sciences 2009 awards program’s Historical
Documentary, Editing for a Nonnews Program and Writing categories. The
winners will be announced June 6.
Smith co-edited the film with Emmy-winner Donald M. Thompson at Detroit
Public Television. It is narrated by broadcast-news icon Walter
Cronkite.
Smith, who made the film through his Heritage Productions Inc., has
taught courses on American film history and on making historical
documentaries during a tenure at Fresno State that began in 1966 and
continued for 42 years. One of his favorite films is “Power and the
Land,” and he wondered what had happened to the Parkinson farm and
family.
He also was curious about his own abilities. “I don’t think I ever
revealed to any of my students or even to other faculty members that
deep down inside I wanted to make a PBS-quality documentary,” he said.
“Quite simply, I wanted to know if I could do more than just talk about
films.”
He added: “So I am thus deeply appreciative for the honor of these Emmy
nominations.”
“Power for the Parkinsons” tells about making the classic film “Power
and the Land” in 1939-1940, produced by the Rural Electrification
Administration (REA), a New Deal program created during the Depression.
At that time, fully 90 percent of the nation’s farms were without
electricity, including the one near the Ohio-West Virginia border
operated by Bill and Hazel Parkinson, the original film’s central
characters.
“While cities were bright with light, farm families were using kerosene
lanterns,” Smith said. “People in the towns and cities could use the
latest electrical appliances, but farm women on wash day pumped water by
hand and heated it over a coal stove or an outside fire. They then
pounded their clothes on a scrub board, rinsed them in fresh water and
hung them out to dry.”
There was no power to pump water to feed livestock, chill milk, fill the
tub Saturday night for bathing or operate a modern indoor bathroom.
To help persuade farmers to join rural electrical cooperatives, the REA
asked Pare Lorentz, a renowned documentarian and head of the United
States Film Service, to create a movie. He hired Dutch filmmaker Joris
Ivens, who wanted to depict the Parkinsons during a typical day on the
farm with and without electricity.
Poet Steven Vincent Benét (“John Brown’s Body,” “The Devil and Daniel
Webster”) wrote the script, and the music was the work of Douglas Moore,
a Pulitzer Prize-winning composer (“The Devil and Daniel Webster,”
“Giants in the Earth”).
“Power for the Parkinsons” premiered on Detroit Public Television in
2008 and has since been broadcast or scheduled by 11 other PBS
affiliates.
It took eight years for Smith’s idea to air. In summer 2000, Smith made
his first trip to the St. Clairsville, Ohio, area, and he initially was
disappointed that the Parkinson farm was gone and all family members in
“Power and the Land” were dead.
However, he met Parkinson grandchildren, a nephew and some childhood
friends of the family, “who shared their memories of the family,
photographs and stories they had been told about the film,” Smith said.
He secured partial funding from The New York Community Trust, Ohio
Humanities Council and the National Rural Electric Cooperative
Association. The California State University, Fresno Foundation,
Independent Pictures of Cleveland and Heritage Productions administered
the grants, which were matched by Smith.
Heritage Productions also produced a sequel, “The Parkinsons,” edited by
Smith and narrated by Cronkite, that focuses on what happened to
Parkinson family members after the premiere of “Power and the Land” in
St. Clairsville during August 1940. Included is information about two
short films made by the “Power and the Land” crew – “Bip Goes to Town”
and “Worst of Farm Disasters” – that were “lost” until Smith’s research.
Previews of Smith’s documentaries are available on his Web site,
www.powerforparkinsons.com,
which also includes outtakes and scholarly articles on rural
electrification and “Power and the Land.” The new documentaries and the
three original films are available for purchase at the site.
For more information, contact Smith by mail at Heritage Productions, PO
Box 5897, Fresno, CA 93755, by phone at 559.224.1698 or via e-mail at
Ephraims@onemain.com.
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