Bell Science: Our Mister Sun on AllMovie

The first of several Bell Telephone Science Series specials, the one-hour "Our Mr. Sun" was written and co-directed by no less than Frank Capra, as were several subsequent entries in the anthology. Eminent Shakespearean scholar Dr. Frank Baxter appears as "Dr. Research", with Eddie Albert as "The Fiction Writer." The premise: The network has insisted that Dr. Research and the Writer assemble a program about the importance of the sun. The solution: Let "Mr. Sun" speak for himself, with the help of "Father Time"--not to mention a talented team of animation artists. During the action that follows, the live actors and the cartoon characters demonstrate that without Mr. Sun, there would be no food, no air, no life, no nothin', and what might have been a pedantic schoolroom lesson is vibrantly entertaining and hilarious funny at times. According to the CBS publicity department, this film was four years in the making; indeed, by the time it first aired in 1956, Lionel Barrymore, who provided the voice of Father Time, had been dead for nearly two years. Rebroadcast several times throughout the late 1950s, "Our Mr. Sun" ultimately became a fixture of classroom audio-visual presentations, due in no small part to its vibrant color photography.