The Electric Valley (review)

mystic relationship between tzar and people. The Russian drive for warmwater ports and access to Western trade is a basic traditional interpretation of Russian historical development. In the light ofthe Soviet Union's refusal to support the making of certain Western films such as Reds, its own ongoing film trilogy project on Peter (the first part of which has already been shown across the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe), and the fact that it is unlikely that Peter The Great will be shown in the Soviet Union, its cooperation in the bringing of this mini-series to fruition raises some interesting questions as to Soviet motives for scholars and students alike. The answers have to do with Soviet pride, propaganda, and international relations, Great Russian nationalism, and the acquisition of hard currency for the purchase of sorely needed Western technology, among other matters, all of which are important to the study of Russian-Soviet history. Dennis Reinhartz University of Texas at Arlington Film Review The Electric Valley (color, 90 minutes). Produced, written and, directed by Ross Spears. 16mm rental $150/sale $1250; inquire for videocassette rates. James Agee Film Project Library, Box 315, Franklin Lakes, NJ 07417; 201-926-8637. The Electric Valley is an important film about the history and current policies of the Tennessee Valley Authority, of obvious value for students of history. The film is also troubling in its advocacy when it turns to policies of the 1960s; an urgency and sense of moral indignation replaces the celebratory discussion of TVA's role in thirties America. To me, the brilliance of the film's handling of the 1930s is not matched by its treatment of the more recent past. Teachers might consider showing that part of the film going up to 1941, roughly the first forty minutes; certainly the film could be shown in the classroom in two parts. The TVA was one of Franklin Roosevelt's most controversial agencies, but its program of helping control flooding in the Tennessee Valley, and the plan of bringing electric power to the powerless (in both senses of the word) marked TVA as a conspicuous success. Ross Spears has located persons who as young men appeared in New Deal propaganda films about the TVA. We see them in government films of the 1930s, and as old men the subject of fine on-camera interviews. Excellent archival research results in effective use of historical photographs, and the inspired use of political cartoons . The visionary planning of Antioch College's Arthur Morgan is contrasted with the more practical contribution of David Lilienthal (himself seen in archival footage 19 and a recent on-camera interview). I am in admiration of the effective use of historical materials to convey the social implications of the TVA and the struggle—in part of personalities—that took place between Morgan and Lilienthal. This film would be an excellent way to study New Deal social policy and arguments over government centralization , while at the same time seeing how the New Deal used the techniques of modern propaganda in selling the TVA to America. Surely consultant William Leuchtenburg and Richard Couto, principal researcher, deserve credit for the sensitivity with which the 1930s are shown. I simply cannot say the same for the rest of this film. Spears feels that atomic power is a waste of money; he believes that strip-mining of coal has denuded the landscape; he comes perilously close to suggesting that TVA directors of the 1950s and 1960s were either crooks or knaves, or both; and he makes a point of introducing footage to convey the sense that materialistic America is explained, in the Tennessee Valley, by the selling of needless electrical appliances to gullible country folk. The snail darter is given its due, and the indignation of Spears over the taking of farmland from poor people for rights-of-way in the building of dams (unnecessary dams) is described at length. The film has enormous virtues. One might show it along with Pare Lorentz's The River (1937); one might assign it with parts of David Lilienthal's own books. For the more recent period, Spears relies on Harry Caudill, Night Comes to the Cumberland...