[GreenKeys] Teletypes in "Mister Smith Goes to Washington"

[Jordan Spencer Cunningham]

*Mister Smith Goes to Washington *is a film I traditionally watch around Independence Day, though it has been a few years now for me. It is one of my favorites.

I happened to have noticed the machinery in this film this time more than I did before. In every shot where a teletype is featured, they seem to be using Model 26s (see attached screenshots). This movie premiered in October of 1939, and the Model 26 must have come out either 1938 or 1939:

Several online sources state the 26 was made available in 1939, but I wonder if they're all citing the Wikipedia article on Teletype Corporation that only states the 26 came out in 1939 but has no citation for it. I looked up the first issue of the Model 26 manual, and it's dated February of 1938. I wouldn't rule out the manual being finished shortly before the product was commercially available, but it seems unlikely for the manual to be finished nearly a full year before the product actually shipped. Regardless, the machines used in this movie would have been pretty close to new-- supposedly the film started production in April 1939.

One of the pictures features several people working to set up a temporary communications room where the villain of this story later sits like a spider calling the shots for lies to be printed in the papers he runs. There is a somewhat large box to the right side of the image that appears to be teletype-related, but I can't tell what it is. I thought perhaps a power supply, but I'm sure one of you saltier gentlemen can pinpoint what it actually is.

-
Jordan Spencer Cunningham
teletype.net
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