From the Ground Up : Unknown : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive (original) (raw)

Promotional film for "Nutrilite," a 1950s-vintage food supplement.

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Reviewer: infobola88 -favoritefavoritefavoritefavoritefavorite - July 9, 2018
Subject: Thank you for these

Reviewer: Oldielocks -favoritefavoritefavoritefavoritefavorite - September 20, 2017
Subject: VitaMeataVegaMin

Does this product remind anyone else of Lucy Ricardo's television commercial debut?

Reviewer: JayKay49 -favoritefavoritefavoritefavorite - May 28, 2015
Subject: Nutri-what?

Never heard of it. All that work must've costed a bundle. Yet everybody drives to work in a old jalopy. The parking lots look like something in Cuba. So like, do those folks make like 15 cents an hour?
That Hemet scene. Just over those mountains is a desert with < 5" of precipitation/year (namely, Palm Springs). Wonder how many of those employees (wholesome as they look) visited the "keyed resorts" on their days off.
Amway, huh?
Gets a B+ .

Reviewer: brewster -favoritefavoritefavoritefavorite - December 25, 2012
Subject: Industrial propaganda at its ...

The review after this one is a must-read.
A couple of add-ons: the opening scene has a left hand pressing the doorbell, but then is the right hand of the guy in the next shot. disconcerting.
and Nutrilite, by Amway (the sell-stuff-to-your-friends company), is still out there:
http://www.nutrilite.com/en-us/Nature/WhyNutrilite/our-history.aspx

Reviewer: compoundeye -favoritefavoritefavoritefavoritefavorite - June 5, 2011
Subject: Altogether now "...added crystiline vitamins and vitamin concentrates"

Note these words well, because by the time you've finished watching you'll know this mantra by heart. I have to say FTGU is one of my all-time favourites. Right up there in my 'Top 5' with the likes of This is Hormel...
FTGU is a lovely little film and well worth every one of the 18 and a half minutes of it's running time, even the detailed footage and descriptions of compost [pronounced 'com-poe-st'] preparation using sort sort of weird daddy-long-legs muckspreader for lack of a technical name for it.
Initially I was a touch sceptical that a sales film about dietry suppliment quackery could rock my World, but once Mr Smarmy Community Drug Peddler fades to black it's all superb production footage with a very graphic emphasis on the 'how' and not the 'why [you should buy it]'... so sit back and marvel at huge industrial mixers and rows of white clad ladies filling capsules with machines that look like ammo-loaders for machine-gun drum magazines all set to very jaunty cartoon-like saxaphone music. The pill production line is just as much fun to watch, though i suspect not to actually work on... - one lady sits there with a little vacuum air-line waiting to snort up mishapen or broken pills from the conveyor all day!
Whoever made this film was a genuis of tracking & shot composition - the tracks & pans along production & packing lines are superb, and the brisk, enthusiastic pacing of the process and the narration carries you along to the point where the film is effortless to watch and time just flies, leaving you wanting to rewind the best bits and re-watch.
Whenever I have 20mins before turning in at night, and nothing on the TV worth a damn, this is precisely the sort of quirky little offering I pop in the DVD player to relax with.

Reviewer: Dodsworth the Cat - November 8, 2010
Subject: Your Uncredited Narrator

is Marvin Miller.

Reviewer: 2muchtv -favoritefavoritefavoritefavoritefavorite - May 3, 2004 (edited)
Subject: What you might not know...

Is that Nutrilite was the precursor to a little company called... Amway!
From:

http://www.mlmwatch.org/01General/mlmstart.html<br< a=""> />"Carl Rehnborg's food supplement business, which began as the California Vitamin Corporation, changed its name to Nutrilite Products in 1939 when it moved to larger quarters." "According to Federal District Court records, significant out-of-state distribution of Nutrilite supplements began in 1945 when a company operated by Lee S. Mytinger and William S. Casselberry became exclusive national distributor. Rehnborg acted as 'scientific advisor' in the distributional scheme." All three of these men actually appear in this film - incredible! "After Mytinger and Casselberry, Inc., was asked by the Government to show cause why a criminal proceeding for misbranding should not be started, the booklet was revised." "Amway's founders Rich DeVos and Jay Van Andel were friends who became Nutrilite distributors after high school graduation. They were extremely successful and built a sales organization with over 2,000 distributors." "Fearing that Nutrilite Products might collapse, they formed a new company, the American Way Association, later renamed Amway." This well produced film is a priceless treasure for it's historical value alone! </br<>

Reviewer: Spuzz -favoritefavoritefavoritefavoritefavorite - June 22, 2003
Subject: Very interesting film, and it's good for you too!

While I was a bit leery of watching this, thinking I'd be bored silly of the constant vegan talk going on (which it does normally), this provided a fascinating account of the production of 'Nutralite" an additive supposedly made only with Alfafa, and other herbs and vitamins and lord only knows what else. But the production of Alfafa is featured here, it's grown, chopped, composted, dried and beaten into a pulp until it's mixed with other ingredients. (The exact combination is secret of course, as the narrator SHOWS where this is done, but we never go inside) soon, the stuff is mixed with minerals and then either put into pills or pulverized into a tablet format. Very interesting production shots shown here. Of course, what Nutralite is good for, is never really explained. Guess I'll have to talk to my Nutralite rep about it (after all, he is a member of my community!) Highly reccomended!