Mike Schneider (910 Bingham Street, H, Pittsburgh, PA 15203)
Introduction: The movie opens with a brief statement by Congressman James E. Van Zandt (1898–1986) from Altoona, who served in the U.S. Congress from 1939-1943 and again from 1947-1963. A Republican, Van Zandt supported the Civil Rights Acts of 1957 and 1960 and the 24th Amendment, which prohibits “poll tax.” From 1943-46, after he resigned from Congress, he served as a U.S. Naval officer in the North Atlantic, involved in convoy support, and later in the Pacific. He was re-elected to Congress in 1947, where he served a total of 11 terms.
Military bearing marks Van Zandt’s demeanor in this statement, which perhaps can be appreciated, like “Water for Millheim” in general, as culturally representative of the early 1950s. The USA was less affected by mass media, especially TV (still very new), less extroverted, more rural, less urban, less diverse, more conservative stylistically than it has become over the past 70 years. Not least, it may be noted that this was pre-Elvis, pre-rock ‘n roll.
Congressman Van Zandt’s statement:
This is Congressman James E. Van Zandt presenting for your entertainment a motion picture entitled “Water for Millheim” as produced and distributed by the United States Information Agency. This film, which was prepared especially for showing to the German people, was filmed in Millheim, Pennsylvania in my congressional district.
It was made in answer to a need frequently expressed by our political and public-affairs experts in Germany, so that the citizens of that country could be encouraged to take a more direct personal interest in their local government. The broad overall objectives of the film are:
• first, to convey the spirit of community government in America by dramatizing it in a living situation,
• secondly, to show that our community governments are well organized but at the same time are personal and flexible with no class distinction between those who govern and are governed,
• and thirdly to show that effective community government must depend upon the initiative and responsibility of the citizens as individuals.
The Borough of Millheim was chosen as a suitable location for the shooting of this film upon the recommendation of the authorities of the Pennsylvania State College. It was selected principally because it is an average-sized borough which has been particularly lively in initiating and developing civic projects. In cooperation with the United States Information Agency, it is a pleasure to present “Water for Millheim”.
Cold War Context: The writing (uncredited) sketches broad principles of effective American local government, and yet isn’t a model of style, being almost entirely passive voice. It’s enlivened, nevertheless, by Van Zandt’s clear, forceful enunciation.
Van Zandt doesn’t mention anyone involved in the project — in part a feature of passive voice, which effaces agency. He mentions only the United States Information Agency, Penn State and Millheim Borough, three abstract entities. As much as we can gather from Van Zandt, the project was thought-up, funded and carried-out by anonymous “authorities” and “experts.”
Ideologically, Van Zandt’s statement walks a line between the two dominant European 20th-century ideologies: socialism and fascism. He’s asserting an idea of democracy as neither of those, but something in between, a form of government in which individuals have an important say, but within a community order that’s not imposed from the top down.
It’s perhaps displeasing to our sense of ourselves as Americans to acknowledge, but “Water for Millheim” exemplifies U.S. cold war propaganda. Through the United States Information Agency (USIA), we produced an enormous amount of public information at great cost — aimed at politically influencing Europeans, and it was undoubtedly a factor in the breakdown of Soviet communism.
USIA operated from 1953 to 1999 and was, wrote former USIA director Alvin Snyder (quoted in Wikipedia):
the biggest branch of the U.S. government’s full-service public relations organization, the largest in the world, about the size of the twenty biggest U.S. commercial PR firms combined. Its full-time professional staff of more than 10,000, spread out among 150 countries, burnished America’s image and trashed the Soviet Union 2,500 hours a week with a ‘tower of babble’ comprised of more than 70 languages, to the tune of over $2 billion per year.
Opening segment:
[1:30] The film per se starts with a blast of solo harmonica (which comes back prominently later on). This leads into a screen that credits the “United States Information Service,” essentially interchangeable with the “United States Information Agency (USIA),” as Van Zandt termed it. After the harmonica cuts out and this screen wipes to black, a title screen projects Water for Millheim with typeface that, somewhat oddly, looks like a version of medieval manuscript calligraphy, perhaps chosen in relation to the film’s intended audiences in Germany.
This title overlays a static-camera shot of a small stream, presumably Elk Creek, trickling over a rock. The rippling water sound and image wipe to black, leading to music of a plucked guitar, moderate tempo, somewhat plaintive — a melody that might be German lieder, or maybe a hymn. This pastoral guitar continues over opening credits — producer, Robert F. Davis; photography, Leonard Stark; and director, Henwar Rodakiewicz — that display over a wheat field waving in a breeze, what looks like a Brush Valley farm.
[2:05] While the pastoral guitar continues, the camera pans left to a two-horse (white and black) uncovered Amish wagon, traveling on what could be Brush Valley Road, suggesting that the calligraphic script may have been meant to resonate with the wagon as an image of pre-industrial, European rural life. Amish origins are Swiss and Alsatian, and the film-maker, Henwar Rodakiewicz, himself of European background (Austrian), no doubt knew of central Pennsylvania’s Deutsch heritage and seems to have aimed for the film to indicate that association.
From the Amish wagon, the film jumpcuts to fields rushing by outside a car window (with the viewer inside the car). Simultaneously, the music switches to ragtime piano. This shift emphasizes the suddenness of technological change — from horse-drawn to internal combustion vehicles. The jump also suggests a leap from pre-modern, rural Europe to mid-twentieth century America.
The point-of-view flips to outside the car — showing an early 1950s car (Chevy?) zooming eastward on Route 45. Then the viewer is back in the car’s front seat as it passes Fairview Cemetery — to continuing ragtime accompaniment — and cruises past the Millheim signpost, with a quick pause, almost long enough to make out that Millheim is German for “Home of the Mill.”
Some of this moving-car footage is out-of-sequence with Millheim reality, as the car goes by a resident sitting on a front porch before it passes the cemetery. This matters not at all when considering that the intended audience is Germans.
[2:55] We’re still inside the car — enjoying ragtime piano — as it cruises down the West Main hill into downtown. Then the traffic light changes, and the car screeches to a stop. For a moment, we can see the water fountain (no longer there) on the corner to the left (in front of what was then Murphy’s Five & Dime and D. J. Nieman’s (clothing and shoe store). Elmer Benner, prominent in the movie as the President of Borough Council, worked at Nieman’s (where I remember him measuring my feet for my first dress shoes).
With the camera looking ahead down Main Street, the steeple of the old church on East Main is prominent, an Odd Fellows Hall (I.O.O.F) when I was growing up (where I took my first lessons on trombone). This was for the Penns Valley marching band that played in local summer parades and, on one occasion, in Atlantic City. The old Elk Creek bridge is visible straight ahead.
[3:00] We hear a dog barking (poor sound quality), and the film jumps forward in space to momentarily focus on the bridge. The camera pans left to the dam and we hear the flowing water. Then the movie gathers moments from a normal (or so it seems) Millheim day. We hear TV soap-opera music from inside a house, see kids playing in a front yard, a man mowing his lawn (rotary mower) while a woman tends flowers, hear a church bell tolling, and see kids playing ball and riding bike at the Millheim ballfield.
[3:30] Then comes the climactic moment: A young boy (about five) approaches the town-square drinking fountain — from what was Cooner’s storefront across North Street — in a hurry to get a drink. Wearing a fresh crew-cut and a “Millheim” sweatshirt, he bends his head to enjoy a gulp of water and is ready for another, when a narrator speaks. “On this fine Spring morning in the Borough of Millheim, the water just stopped running through the pipes.”
Accordingly, water stops spouting from the fountain. The boy casts a puzzled downward glance. No acting award acknowledged this budding child star, but he did his best to follow the director’s instructions. There were a number of takes, maybe 10 or more, and it had begun to feel tiresome (to say the least) to the boy when, finally, the director, a perfectionist — probably realizing that you can’t get blood from a turnip — said, basically, enough is enough. Many years later, the boy — a man in his 70s (me) — has the satisfaction of seeing that he made the final cut.
Narration accompanies the film from here on:
On this fine Spring morning in the Borough of Millheim, the water just stopped running through the pipes.
[3:45] Scenes from around Millheim show water-flow stopping: These include women ironing in a factory setting (appears to be what, when I was growing up, we called “The Brassiere Factory” on Penn Street), Mary Neff and a helper doing laundry in a tub and hanging it out to dry, water-flow stopping from the faucets in Mary Neff’s kitchen, from a fire-hose as men are washing a fire-truck at the Millheim Fire Company, and in a shower where a man is shampooing his hair.
Now when something goes wrong in Millheim, we usually hunt up Elmer Brenner (sic). Elmer’s the president of the Millheim Borough Council. I guess one reason we elected him president is we generally know where to find him when we need him.
[5:19] Footage shows Phyllis Bierly on a balcony talking to a woman on the street. Many women come to what is apparently Mary Neff’s house. My grandmother (Nona Wagner Detwiler) is walking and holding hands with me and my brother Pat.
Elmer’s a plumber by trade. You see our borough council isn’t a fulltime sort of government. Since the councilmen serve without pay, well, they have to work for a living just like everybody else. That morning Elmer was over at the Catherman’s [?] place working on a job.
[5:43] Elmer Benner is on his back working on someone’s kitchen drain pipe. Blues harmonica and guitar accompany the scene, as it does through much of the rest of the movie. The women are confronting and questioning Elmer about the water problem.
When Elmer first heard the news, he didn’t put much stock in it. What did women know about plumbing anyway? But he had to admit they knew what they were talking about. Poor Elmer, he was getting it from all sides.
[6:20] The man with shampoo in his hair is on the phone with Elmer.
As soon as the phone was clear, Elmer tried to round up the other four borough councilman.
First of all he called Moran [? — Lester] Hosterman at his farm. It looked like there was a break again in the main pipeline leading into town.
Betty [?] is shown on the phone with Elmer. An oil portrait on the wall beside Elmer on the phone, looks like it could be Martin Luther.
Could Betty get her father in a hurry? There was nothing Betty could do. Her father was working in the furthest field.
[6:51] Man driving a tractor in a field.
Whitey Musser, another councilman — well, he was in a pasture ten miles away, doing his job. Whitey’s a foreman with the power company.
[7:00] Whitey Musser doing telephone work with a crew at a telephone pole.
And Randall Miller, a used car dealer — he was out where even his wife couldn’t reach him.
[7:16] Randall Miller is fishing in a creek.
One councilman was available though: Harry Detwiler. Harry’s a retired school teacher.
[7:29] Harry is on a porch stoop pulling on boots, sitting beside Elmer Benner. It’s a bit odd to identify Harry as a “retired school teacher.” Although true, he hadn’t taught school by then since about 1938, when called up from Army Reserves to active duty, with the rank of major, to train in armored-warfare tactics and then to serve overseas in North Africa, Sicily and Italy.
And then there was Drew Kolb. Drew isn’t a councilman, but he’s a mighty useful fellow to have around. Elmer also got in touch with Doc Gramley, our health officer. Naturally a pipeline break can be a pretty serious health hazard.
[7:48] Men are discussing the situation on what’s apparently Drew Kolb’s porch.
But enough of that. There was a job to do. Find the leak and get it fixed.
[8:03] The men, except Doc Gramley, walk off with toolbox in hand. Two young boys — my brother Pat and I — step off the porch, supposedly to join the men, but our grandma calls us back.
You know it’s nice to have a creek running into your town.
Looks like the old bridge going into Millheim Park, where the swimming pool used to be. Then we see footage of the creek where it runs along the edge of Millheim Park.
You can swim in it. You can fish in it. And you can lay a pipeline in it too. That’s what we did in Elk Creek about 20 years ago. We built a reservoir up in the hills and ran a pipeline down. And then laid it in the creek for a couple hundred yards before running it underground into the town. It worked fine too.
The only thing wrong was that, in the spring of the year, Elk Creek — she gets pretty rough sometimes. Two years ago she had knocked a joint loose between two pipes. And now it had happened again.
The question was where?
[8:40] Harry and Elmer are roped together with someone else (Drew Kolb?) walking in the creek, checking the pipeline for leaks. Elmer is in the middle, with the other two supporting him, one on each end of the rope, trying to stay close to shore, where the footing is more firm. The water at one point is knee-high with a strong current. The rope, by the way, was my Dad’s, that he had from working as a foreman for Penn Line and which hung on a hook in our garage. Harry borrowed it from him.
[9:50] They find the leak; Drew and Elmer use a long crowbar to push the pipe back together at the joint that had come undone.
Once the break was located, it didn’t take too long to fix. The pipe had to be pushed together again. Then lead wool was packed in all around to make the joint water-tight.
The three men re-seal the joint and hammer in lead wool — with the ringing sound of the hammer packing the lead. This is at about 10:00, roughly halfway into the movie.
Elmer felt pretty good, now that it was all over. But Harry Detwiler, he was worried.
[10:56] The men walk out of the creek and sit down to relax on shore, with a closeup on Harry, looking concerned.
It was the second break in two years. Something would have to be done to make sure Millheim didn’t go without water again.
[11:22] Fade to black to meeting scene.
Each year the Millheim Borough Council draws up a proposed budget of taxes and expenses. For once the budget had been shaping up fine. Now at the last minute the matter of the pipeline had come up.
[11:50] Elmer Benner presides at the meeting. They look at an engineering sketch of the creek and pipeline. Whitey Musser and Harry Detwiler are there with two others.
Two years before when we had the same problem the state engineer had drawn up a rough sketch showing how we could prevent pipeline breaks during the rough rainy season. All the pipe lying in the creek would have to be taken apart, then moved into a ditch along the bank.
The borough would have to pay for the work, about $2000. That’s a lot of money. Whitey suggested that maybe the state could pay part of the cost. According to the statute book, the state helped out financially with schools and roads, but when it came to water, they gave advice, but no money. So it looked like the townspeople would have to bear the whole expense. That would mean a rise in real-estate taxes. And no one could afford it.
Yet they couldn’t afford not to do it.
[12:33] Closeup on Harry.
Suppose they were without water again and there was a fire. They decided they’d have to take that chance and just hope the repair would hold this time.
[12:49] Millheim Journal typesetting. Guitar music again, as if recognizing an old-world craft. I recognize the younger of the two men in this scene, but can’t remember his name.
It didn’t take long for the rest of us to find out the Council’s decision on the pipeline. Just long enough to take Elmer’s hand-written copy of the proposed budget and set it up in type. For a number of years we’d been printing up the budget. The money doesn’t come easy in Millheim. And we like to know in advance just what the council’s planning in the way of spending and taxes. Then if we don’t feel the council’s budget is justified, we can put pressure on them to change it.
[13:25] We see people apparently reading the Council proposed budget, posted on the window of the office of The Millheim Journal.
This year Mrs. Bright, she’s our librarian, she was disappointed in the library appropriation. She’d hope for $75. She got $50.
[13:46] A boy on bicycle delivers newspapers to front porches.
But the item most of us were interested in concerned the pipeline. And before long all of Millheim had the news that the Borough Council had decided not to appropriate the money for fixing up the pipeline that year.
[14:10] People are looking at a newspaper, The Millheim Journal.
As was to be expected, people reacted in different ways.
[14:28] Men talking to each other, obviously disagreeing. Drew Kolb with the paper on his front-porch swing, hand on chin, looking concerned. Thunder & lightning, drama coming.
Each year ten days after the proposed budget is published, we hold a public hearing on it — to let the council know what we think.
[14:56] Looks like St. John’s Lutheran is the site of the meeting, well attended, to a degree that strikes me as unrealistic. Several people stand and speak, Mary Bright, for one, and others.
Elmer had been hoping we’d settle for the repair, that we wouldn’t bring up the question of the pipeline. But he didn’t get away with it.
[15:20] Key moment: Harry kicks Elmer’s ankle under the table. Harry’s tie is intended as a joke. I remember him talking about it. The director insisted he wear one, and Harry wasn’t happy about it, so this tie — more garish in reality than in B&W — was the result.
So Elmer had to go over the whole story again. Well as everybody knew by this time, if the pipeline were going to be fixed so there wouldn’t be any more breaks, it would cost a lot of money. The real-estate taxes would have to go up. And taxes were high enough already. Besides, suppose there was another break. Elmer could always fix it. That’s what they had him around for.
[15:51] Smiles from people in the church, grimace from Harry.
It was no laughing matter. When the last break occurred, creek water got into the pipes, and some of them were drinking it. And they were mighty lucky nobody got sick, like they did in the next borough during a water break. The hospitals had been full.
[16:00] Doc Gramley speaks at the meeting. Images of kids in a hospital, probably stock footage.
And what about their jobs? So many of them depended upon water power. And fire insurance rates could go up if nothing was done. And speaking of fire. What if there was a break and they had a fire like the one over in Woodward?
[16:38] Footage from a fierce house fire, maybe from the Woodward fire Doc Gramley mentions.
Yes, it’d be pretty terrible if such a thing happened. All Mary Neff knew is she got caught with a tub full of wash, and she wasn’t going through that again. The cost, well, that was her husband’s worry.
Well, sure it was. But as far as he was concerned, it wasn’t worth it. He’d rather go without a clean shirt once in a while.
Elmer thought that about ended the subject. But he was wrong. We weren’t through yet.
[17:18] Still at the meeting, a church full of dressed-up people, all the men wearing ties. Some stand to object when Elmer appears to be closing discussion of the pipeline situation.
Drew Kolb, in bowtie and light suit, stands to speak, earnestly in closeup. There’s a pause while the councilmen do some pencil on paper arithmetic. Faces of townspeople at the meeting, waiting with concern.
Drew Kolb wanted to know how much we’d save if we volunteered to contribute most of the labor ourselves. We’d done it before when we had dredged the reservoir. Why couldn’t we do it again?
[17:51] Harry speaks.
With voluntary labor the cost could be cut almost in half. Yes, but a lot of men would be needed for the job. Just how many would actually be willing to pitch in and work?
[18:00] Elmer takes over the meeting. When he asks how many would help, a few hands go up. First a couple, gradually more, ten or fifteen. The elder councilman — whose name I don’t know — firmly shakes his head No.
It certainly didn’t look as if we’d get very far with the pipeline.
[18:22] Harmonica player, on a porch near the creekside, pulls his harp from his shirt pocket and starts playing — might be “All God’s Children,” country gospel tune. Men with picks and shovels walk down to the creek.
But when it came time for the job to be done, no one was surprised to find that there were more than enough of us.
[18:45] Echo of Hollywood: From the standpoint of recognizing Rodakiewicz’s professionalism, it’s noteworthy that this scene echoes a classic depression-era Hollywood movie — the last 12 minutes of “Our Daily Bread,” by acclaimed director King Vidor (easy to find on YouTube). In Vidor’s 1934 movie, a community of farmers whose crops are dying from drought pull together to dig an irrigation ditch. Rodakawiecz assuredly knew this scene and was purposely quoting it visually.
The backing track is blues harmonica, with some prodigious note-bending. The perspectival double row of pick-and-shovel wielding men is carefully choreographed epic cinema. No small amount of community organizing, likely more than went into solving the pipeline problem itself, went into making this scene.
And the Reverend Abernathy, he came along to give a hand with all the others. And when we ran into the usual problem we tackled it in the usual way.
[19:30] Time to dynamite a rock. The harmonicist is so absorbed in his playing that at first he doesn’t realize what’s happening. And then, rather ridiculously, climbs a tree. No doubt intended as comic relief, it’s impressive tree climbing — like a circus performance. Then the explosion — with a small white dust cloud.
The first part of the work was finished. Early Saturday morning, a week after the ditch-digging, the second part of the project began. A few minutes before nine, Elmer was on his way to shutoff the water. This was the day the pipe was to be taken apart and moved out of the creek.
[20:45] Elmer Benner walks up to the reservoir and turns the water off.
At nine sharp, the water supply was going to be shut off for at least eight hours, and everybody was busy filling pots and pans.
[21:04] Mary Neff draws and drinks a glass of water, then fills a pot. Elmer turns off the water. the work crew moves the pipe out of the creek and into the ditch they’ve prepared. Someone — it looks like Drew Kolb — tows pipe with a jeep. The harmonicist, with guitar backup, switches tunes to what sounds like an old work song.
[22:07] A group of women and a young boy in overalls — my brother Bob, with my mother Shirley — picnic with a guitar player. Also in this scene are my grandmother Nona, Harry’s wife (belted dress) and Nona’s sister, Phyllis Wagner Bierly (checked dress).
[22:29] The men finish re-laying the pipe, and sealing the joints with lead wool and hot lead.
By five in the afternoon, the last pipe had been moved into place. The last joint was sealed with hot lead.
And Elmer headed up toward the reservoir again. This time to turn on the water.
[23:00] The men cover the pipe ditch with dirt and re-fill it. Then we see downtown Millheim, an active and busy Saturday morning. The harmonica and guitar are playing “Cindy, Cindy.”
The next morning everything was back to normal again.
[23:13] Scenes from around town, echoing the opening scenes from when the water stopped flowing — including a few seconds from the Millheim swimming pool. Water flows in the town-square fountain again as several men, who may have been part of the work crew (one of whom looks like Harry) stand at the corner. One of them steps forward (Drew Kolb?) for a drink from the fountain.
[23:54] The camera pulls away seamlessly — a quite clever shot — moving east out of town, (apparently shooting from the back window of a car, what becomes a wide shot with deep focus), across the Elk Creek bridge, while the viewer sees Millheim recede as if in a rear-view mirror. The car is headed, no doubt, back to NYC.
Now if you were a stranger driving through Millheim, you’d think it was pretty dead. Maybe you’d be right. But you can’t really tell about a place until you’ve lived there, can you?
[24:16] THE END
About the Narration: This film would be less than it is without the high quality of the narration, both in the writing and the professional (uncredited) voice. Whoever he is, he’s a fine voice actor, with a warm style that reminds me of Hugh Beaumont, who played the father in “Leave It to Beaver.” Who knows? Whoever it was, I expect he was well compensated, and he deserved it.
The writing, almost for sure, is the director, Rodakiewicz. He had other documentary film-writing credits, including some high-level productions. The writing integrates with the visuals — usually by understating and, as much as possible, letting the film tell the story.
For example, the narration never mentions dynamite, and has only a sentence that implies — “And when we ran into the usual problem we tackled it in the usual way” — while the film shows someone putting blasting caps in place. Then we see the (almost comical) puff of white smoke that represents the explosion.
Although he speaks in straightforward, down-to-earth language, the narrator’s point-of-view is complex. He’s omniscient — an observer who already knows the whole story, while, at the same time, inhabiting the awareness of many of the Millheim citizens and, like a ventriloquist, speaking for them as the story proceeds. He’s Harry, Elmer, Doc Gramley, Mary Neff, Mary Bright, Whitey Musser, and others.
He uses the first-person plural pronoun, “we” — including himself as someone who has experienced these events. Assuredly the writer of this narration wasn’t actually a Millheim citizen, but first-person probably contributes to a greater sense of involvement for the viewer. Third-person “they,” would be normal for an outsider, and is also more the norm for documentary films.
In many ways, “Water for Millheim” can be thought of as an example of the “docudrama” style that’s become common in the age of Netflix and other streaming media (frequent for crime-scene re-enactments). A difference, however, is that the actors were real Millheim citizens who, in many cases, took part in fixing the water problem, presumably before anyone had the notion to make a movie about it.
The tone of the narration, its “voice,” is informal, relaxed, folksy — consistent with the soundtrack music (blues harmonica, guitar and ragtime piano). For instance, when things go wrong in Millheim, the citizens know to “hunt up” Elmer Benner. Drew Kolb is “a mighty useful fellow.” It’s possible to appreciate this folksiness as intended to contrast, for a German audience, with the stereotyped efficiency and formalism of the then-recent Third Reich era of German society.
There are many light touches, obvious attempts at humor — the tree-climbing harmonicist, the man (same actor, I think) shampooing in the shower when the water cuts off, and Harry kicking Elmer’s ankle under the table at the town meeting. Harry, it could be said, in insisting on the “right way” to fix the problem, not a cost-cutting shortcut, represents a German, or perhaps Pennsylvania Deutsch manner of thinking and acting.
The coming together of people to get a job done certainly represents Pennsylvania Deutsch tradition as much as American small-town life in general. Rodakiewicz appeared to recognize this with the Amish wagon scene in the film’s opening. There’s some irony inherent in making a movie to show Germans how an essentially German community can solve problems.
We might also note, in this vein, that the willingness of Americans to show other people the way to do things is, by now, much recognized as problematic — no small part in the negative attitude toward Americans that’s become prominent in many parts of the world since the early post-WW II era. (Only a few years later than this movie, 1955, eminent British writer Graham Greene published The Quiet American, his prophetic tale of American naïveté and arrogance in Vietnam.)
Perhaps the most obvious fiction is the full-house (it looks like a hundred or more people) portrayal of the town meeting — well dressed citizens in suits and ties, standing room only. I’m skeptical that, with the exception of making this movie, Millheim ever had a town meeting this well attended. From today’s perspective, moreover, it stands out that there are only a few women. Representative of the time, feminism hadn’t yet blossomed into active roles for women in local politics, at least not in Millheim.
When it comes to solving the water problem, Mary Neff cares only, says the movie, about getting her laundry done. The money for fixing things is her husband’s problem. Only Mary Bright, among all the named participants, is a woman in an official capacity, and she’s shown as frustrated in her desire to have better funding for the library.
More egregiously, the film partakes in crude misogynist jokiness — that, it seems fair to say, grates on the ears of most contemporary people. “When Elmer first heard the news, he didn’t put much stock in it. What did women know about plumbing anyway?” It’s one indication of how much has changed socially in 70 years — in particular, attitudes about women. And we see, at least, that Elmer realizes, reluctantly, that he jumped too quickly to his conclusion: “But he had to admit they knew what they were talking about.”
Lastly, with regard to the writing, I’m not enamored of the closing lines — “Now if you were a stranger driving through Millheim, you’d think it was pretty dead.” It’s evident that the writer is a city dweller . . . someone who, aside from being there to do a job, is unlikely to linger in a small town like Millheim.
His last two sentences, though delivered in the narrator’s usual friendly tone, can be heard — if you’re of a skeptical mind — as something Rod Serling might say in a “Twilight Zone” episode. “Maybe you’d be right. But you can’t really tell about a place until you’ve lived there, can you?”
It’s a rhetorical question, somewhat disingenuous (or so it seems to me), since the director (speaking through the narration) hasn’t lived in Millheim or probably anyplace like it. I wouldn’t want, nevertheless, to put too fine a point on this, as it sounds to me as if Rodakiewicz mainly wanted to end the narrative with a light touch, not wanting to impose an over-dramatic sense of closure.
I’ve looked back, on the other hand, at whether it might be possible to end with the narrator’s previous sentence: “The next morning everything was back to normal again.” This comes as the film shows a montage of scenes of the water-flow returning. With blues harmonica and guitar to fadeout, the narration could have ended appropriately, I think, without the somewhat awkward subjectivity of the last three sentences.
Notes on Henwar Rodakiewicz: My attention to “Water for Millheim” renewed after a brief (early May 2022) visit to Millheim. Back home (Pittsburgh), I looked at the movie again. I did some online browsing and found a site for the Penns Valley Area Historical Museum and e-mailed Kay Gray, the curator, about my VHS reel of the movie (from my mother), offering to donate a DVD copy.
In the midst of e-mailing with Kay, I googled the film’s director, Henwar Rodakiewicz (credited in the film’s opening) and found he was a long-time friend and correspondent of Georgia O’Keeffe and her husband, photographer Alfred Stieglitz — both now well known. This connection for me fueled a deeper look at the movie. Rodakiewicz, I found, was a photographer as well as a documentary filmmaker. He was part of a circle of artists in 1930s Greenwich Village with O’Keeffe and Stieglitz, and continued to correspond with them after O’Keeffe moved to New Mexico.
At a certain point, after watching the movie again, it struck me that the climactic pick-and-shovel scene was similar to the classic King Vidor scene — which I’d seen it on TV years ago, possibly on Turner Classic Movies. It was easy to find “Our Daily Bread” on YouTube and re-watch it, which confirmed my sense that Rodakiewicz was echoing Vidor — and also tended to confirm my dawning sense that Rodakiewicz was an accomplished professional, studied in his craft.
My interest was also activated from memory (vague) of my brief child-actor career, participating in “Water for Millheim” — as the young boy in a “Millheim” sweatshirt gulping water at the downtown fountain as it stopped spouting. I vaguely recall being coached by Rodakiewicz to look at the camera first — before bending down to the water, and to be disappointed and downcast as the fountain frustrated my thirst. I also recall that he seemed less than enthralled by my performance, having me re-do it many times.
I remember, also vaguely, with memory prompted by this project, that he spoke with an accent — Eastern European, (Austrian I’ve learned) — that I hadn’t heard before. I asked my mother about it, and she told me, seriously (amusing to me now), that that’s how movie people spoke.
After filming was done, Rodakiewicz (although I didn’t know his name then) stopped in at our home on West Main Street and left a small gift with me — a ceramic figure of some sort, a version of what I now know as “Hummel figures,” that he’d found at the Millheim 5 & 10¢ store. I have no idea what became of it, but have the memory of thinking, distinctly, that it didn’t seem like much of a gift. As an adult looking back, it strikes me as a generous gesture. I also think that possibly he felt obliged to acknowledge in this way the effort he’d put me through to get that scene.
Some of Rodakiewicz’s photos have been exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art (and some can be looked at online):
https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auction/2020/alfred-stieglitz-georgia-okeeffe-juan-hamilton-passage/henwar-rodakiewicz-steeple
Some of the correspondence among Rodakiewicz, O’Keeffe and Stieglitz is online:
https://blogs.loc.gov/manuscripts/2022/03/artistic-trio-georgia-okeeffe-and-alfred-stieglitz-letters-to-henwar-rodakiewicz-a-new-by-the-people-crowdsourcing-transcription-campaign/
https://perilofafrica.com/2019/03/long-lost-georgia-okeefe-alfred.html
This commentary is posted at the above site:
O’Keeffe and Rodakiewicz first met in New Mexico in 1929, when she and fellow artist Rebecca Salsbury Strand James, spent months together in Taos and became part of Mabel Dodge Luhan’s artistic network. O’Keeffe stayed and painted in subsequent years as a guest at the H&M Ranch in Alcalde, New Mexico, owned by Rodakiewicz and his wife, the writer Marie Tudor Garland. From there she explored the area that would become her eventual permanent home, near Abiquiu.
Both O’Keeffe and Rodakiewicz were married during most of the time period of these exchanges. O’Keeffe, famously to Stieglitz until his death in 1946; Rodakiewicz, first to Garland, and later, to Peggy Bok—both of whom were good friends of O’Keeffe’s.
It is not known if their relationship went beyond platonic friendship, but these letters document that O’Keeffe felt emotionally close to him. She writes to him as a trusted confidante, revealing her feelings, her vision, and her work as an artist.
At the same time, Stieglitz’s letters also reveal a close bond of affection for Rodakiewicz, and mutual ties in the New York art world.
During their correspondence, Rodakiewicz worked on a series of films. Stieglitz showed Rodakiewicz’s short film, “Portrait of a Young Man in Three Movements” at An American Place [his New York City gallery] in 1933. Rodakiewicz collaborated with Paul Strand on the artistically acclaimed “Redes” in Mexico. Released in that country in 1936, the film was distributed in the United States as “The Wave” in 1937. His “One Tenth of Our Nation,” about discrimination in African American education in the South, briefly landed him in jail for violating local Jim Crow mores.
The letters between O’Keeffe and Rodakiewicz came to an end in 1947, after Rodakiewicz featured O’Keeffe as a southwestern artist in “The Land of Enchantment.”
Rodakiewicz’s movie “Portrait of a Young Man” (echoing James Joyce’s title, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man), a 55-minute silent film, is online:
https://lightcone.org/en/filmmaker-1491-henwar-rodakiewicz
Another Rodakiewicz short documentary (13 minutes), titled “The Dropout: Why Teenagers Drop Out Of High School,” is on YouTube. Produced by the Mental Health Film Board of the National Education Association, dated 1962 (though it seems from an earlier time than that), this film presents a now near-laughable stereotyped image of the 1950s era bad-boy, dropout juvenile delinquent, a type later acted for comic effect by Henry Winkler as the Fonz on the “Happy Days” TV sitcom.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Df-UYhnax2A
Late in his life, Rodakiewicz lived in Los Angeles in an architecturally notable home designed by R. M. Schindler:
https://www.thenedscottarchive.com/news/item/rm-schindler-house-for-henwar-rodakiewicz-photographs-found.html
Rodakiewicz’s death in 1976 was reported in a short New York Times obituary:
Henwar Rodakiewicz, a motion picture producer, died February 12 at St. Vincent's Hospital. He was 73 years old and lived at 1 University Place.
Mr. Rodakiewicz, who specialized in documentaries, was associated with “The City,” “Land of Enchantment” and the television series, “The Search,” He also produced for the Port of New York Authority “Via Port of New York,” a 28‐minute color film on the handling of cargo.
He is survived by his wife, the former Olga Kotchovkova.
Things I’m curious about:
• How did this movie happen? Who talked to whom to persuade USIA to put up funds and make it happen? Perhaps Congressman Van Zandt was involved, but how did he become aware of the “Water for Millheim” story?
My educated guess (emphasis on “guess”) is that Harry somehow instigated it, perhaps through the Penn State Agriculture Department (which Van Zandt mentions), from which he had two degrees, including a master’s degree in the mid-30s.
Harry had (about 1951) returned from five years in post-war Germany, sponsored by the U.S. State Department (of which USIA was a sub-agency). In Germany he consulted with people of a town near Stuttgart (Vaihingen an der Enz) in the transition to democratic government. He and his wife Nona (née Wagner, from Spring Mills), who joined him overseas in 1947, acquired fluency in German.
Among other things, Harry helped in effectuating the “de-Nazification” process in that region. In correspondence with Nona in January 1947 (before she joined him), he’s forthright that German government couldn’t, as a practical matter, be reconstituted without participation of former Nazis. (Nona’s sister was Phyllis Wagner Bierly, wife of Stanley C. Bierly, of Bierly’s Appliances on Main Street, and she lived with Bierlys in Millheim for a period until joining Harry in Germany.)
My surmise is that Harry — after return to Millheim and involvement in borough affairs — developed the idea that a film like this might be helpful to civic reconstruction in Germany. He liked Germans (obviously not all of them), and I think felt connection from his central Pennsylvania background, having grown up in Smullton, professing to be descended from Hessians (German mercenaries for King George III, some of whom settled in Pennsylvania after the Revolutionary War).
• Things that aren’t credited: None of the music, the narrator, or the writing — the latter almost certainly Rodakiewicz — is credited.
• What year was this film made? It’s early 1950s, maybe 1952. One marker is that my youngest brother, Robert, born September 1950, appears with my mother, as a blonde-haired toddler in a picnic scene near the end.
My other brother, Patrick, born in February 1948, appears to be the young child my grandmother, Nona, Harry’s wife, is holding hands with (her left hand) and walking, with me on her right hand, in several brief shots.
Another marker is that Congressman Van Zandt refers to Penn State as “Penn State College” — Penn State attained university status (Google tells me) in 1953, as an initiative of its then-president Milton Eisenhower, brother of U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower. I vaguely remember this being talked about as “news” in our household.
I wonder if anyone is still around, in Millheim or elsewhere, who remembers the situation depicted in this movie.
• How did my mother get a VHS reel of this? In an archive somewhere — the State Department, maybe, or Penn State — there’s a film reel that’s primary source for this documentary. To track it down, I’m afraid is beyond my capabilities.
VHS (Video Home System) technology didn’t exist until the mid-1970s, so someone was able to create the VHS reel I have (from my mother) from an original film reel. How that happened I don’t know. The film no doubt has better image quality.
• Was “Water for Millheim” screened in Germany, as intended, and, if yes, how was it received?
I have no information about the reception of “Water for Millheim," and would love to hear from anyone who has any further information.
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