AllMovie

These 30 Years is an entertaining 62-minute slice of propaganda on behalf of the Ford Motor Company. Conceived by the McCann-Erickson advertising agency, the film traces the "rise of the automobile industry" -- or, more specifically, the rise of Henry Ford, here playing "himself." Getting off to a melodramatic start (an ailing farmer dies because he's forced to rely on a horse-drawn wagon instead of a horseless carriage), the storyline recalls how Ford started with next-to-nothing in the town of Dearborn, Michigan, then through grit and tenacity built up a multi-million-dollar operation -- not to mention one of the first large-scale assembly lines in American industrial history. The film closes with a sappy romantic subplot involving a Ford-dealer's son, whose problems are solved when Ford Motors comes out with its newest model. Not unexpectedly, These 30 Years reflects many of Henry Ford's deep-set convictions and prejudices, though fortunately his well-publicized anti-Semitism is nowhere to be found.