"Efforts of the American Cancer Society both to disseminate accurate information on the disease and to dispel erroneous conceptions form the theme of this unit production by the Amateur Movie Society of Bergen County, in Hackensack, N. J. Based jointly on a case history of neglect and a situation illustrating some baseless fears of cancer, the film shows the many forms of service rendered by the A.C.S. through its local chapters. Handsomely mounted and capably photographed, the picture is a tribute to the technical skill of its director, William Messner, and the cameramen who assisted him. The commentary and music on the sound track ably support the visual message. A tendency towards confusion in the scripting prevents the picture from fulfilling completely the thesis implied in its title." Movie Makers, Dec. 1949, 472.
"The Will and the Way is a simple story of '"little people" — but it looms large in its appeal to the human heart. There are, in its tender adventures, the laughter of sympathy and the tears of pathos. From these, as from any great expression of beauty, there comes the genuine and ennobling uplift of the spirit which is so rare in a workaday world. Chester Glassley has been equal to his task. His photography, both indoors and out, is as nearly flawless as skill and patience will permit. His camera treatment is marked by a wise concentration on close views, a dramatic selection of angles and a fine sense of matching and contrasting color values. Good cutting, paired with a brilliantly executed montage sequence, rounds out the technical achievements. But his greatest production triumph lies in the casting and direction of the two lead players, who bring to the amateur screen its most genuine and sensitive acting to date. A young wife is to have a baby. Because of a harsh experience with a rum sodden doctor, she turns blindly toward the thought of going only to a specialist, a great obstetrician, famed both for his fine care and his $1000 fees. Her young husband's reaction as he learns of this feeling is the simple theme of the entire story: "I don't know where we'll get the money, but if that's the doctor you want, then that's the doctor you're going to get!" From then on. life for the young couple is a race against time, punctuated for the husband by a frantic search for cash, which leads him through the indignities of a pie eating contest, the insults of '"amateur night" and the bruises and battering of a vastly unequal prize fight. But the baby wins in the end. The harried father collects only three hundred dollars of the specialist's fee, a sum he begs the great doctor to accept as a down payment. This the physician does, only to return the entire amount later — with a receipted bill — as his tribute to the boy's courage. The Will and the Way is a short, unassuming film, made technically with the simplest tools provided by the craft. But, in its unfailing imagination, its moving tenderness and. above all. in its deep understanding of the human heart, this film is a proud peer among its colleagues of the Hiram Percy Maxim Award." Movie Makers, Dec. 1940, 576-577.
"This film seems to pick up the same couple from “I’ve Got This Problem” (played by Don Klugman and Judy Harris) a few years later, as they attend a swinging bohemian party where they pilfer personal objects from the unsuspecting guests." Chicago Film Archives.
The film follows a blind young man in Lorestan who spends his summer alone in his village while everyone else has moved under the mountain away from the heat. He waits for cars next to the road in hopes that they will give him money. While trying to find a car that passed him one day he finds a water stream by accident and the calmness of its environment makes him seek refuge there every day. But the seasons change and after the first rain, the small stream turns into a big body of water and the young man is left with nowhere to bring him happiness every day.
Total Pages: 8
Amateur Cinema