User Reviews

... or at least about nine miles to the south. This 1969 short is just plain weird,and is often shown on Turner Classic Movies' Underground which salutes offbeat material as well as films from the Warner Brothers vault that nobody wants to watch. But this is worth it for the goofiness of it all.

This fifty year old ten minute short tries to be a travelogue of life in Greenwich Village by making it look like villagers have nothing better to do but wander the streets in search of rare books and antiques and go biking in the park. Then it - not cleverly at all - segues into a commercial for buying cotton clothes. No wonder most of the people in this short look like models - they are!

TCM shows another short similar to this - a short about relaxation techniques that is actually a commercial for highly addictive tranquilizers. But at least those two things have something to do with one another.

Greenwich Village does not look like this at all today. It has become one of the most expensive places to live in the nation, so forget about stay at home moms pushing strollers through the streets! It is interesting that this was made in 1969, the year of the Stonewall riot and the place and the year where the LGBTQ rights movement was born. I wonder if this short was made before or after that event?

Full disclosure: this film was produced by the Cotton Producer's Institute, so it may not Ben fully objective. But this documentary reveals the wonder of a life once so easily enjoyed by those happy people in Greenwich Village who so innocently and unabashedly wore cotton. "Cotton's casual appeal is in step with carefree living," the filmmakers fearlessly proclaim. "Worldly worries are laid aside, and time is spent on the home, making repairs, minding the laundry, browsing through antique shops in search of a possible bargain, or shopping in the world-famous Bleeker Street Market." Woven for the Now Generation, cotton, in this nearly forgotten world of wonder, was "as ruggedly appealing as the great outdoors, yet sophisticatedly shaped for the modes of cosmopolitan life." And what a wondrous life it was, filled with joyful mysteries, since forgotten, of truly carefree lives of personal fulfillment and human engagement only possible with superior fabric.

Alas, though the filmmakers hubristically proclaimed that golden era was fresh as today, and eternal as tomorrow, our world is far more circumscribed today, bound in other fabrics; and we live in a world of faded glory. But look back, see for yourself, how life once was lived, and yearn again for the beneficent touch of that most carefree of fabrics. For surely, what we once had and lost, we might regain in time, with the aid of this historic record to guide our way!

This short subject would have you believe that Greenwich Village in 1969 was an idyllic place, half rustic country hamlet, half Little Olde Nieuwe York. 1969 was the year this short came out, and I had been taking the Railroad into the City for half a decade by that point, traveling by myself.

Yes, you could do that in back then without your parents being called in to explain to Mrs. Gradgrind how they could be so negligent. I can assure you that the Village was nothing like the thing portrayed in this movie. It was a residential section of the city, with lots of shopping on Eighth Street and Bleecker, and a place where you could go to bars and music clubs and all the sorts of things that were not easily available out in the suburbs.

Actually, this is an advertisement for cotton, particularly clothing made of cotton.

I watched the short film, "R.F.D. Greenwich Village," on TCM on Sunday, May 15, 2016, with no idea what to expect. It's ostensibly a travelogue about the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Manhattan, but its blatant commercial message identifies this as a sponsored film with an industry backer. The first inkling is revealed about a minute into it with the line of narration, "Cotton's casual appeal is in step with carefree living." As the film shows the sights of Greenwich Village (but never the sounds), following a prototypical young white couple around on their tour of cafes, gardens, bookstores, parties, brownstones and Washington Square Park, the narration emphasizes their clothing at regular intervals, as in "Freed from conservative business attire, the modern villager finds comfort in cotton corduroy, the fabric woven for the 'now generation,' as ruggedly appealing as the great outdoors, yet sophisticatedly shaped for the modes of cosmopolitan life."

Despite the narration's insistence that "village styles have always been avant-garde, always a step or so before their time," the fashions on display were wildly outdated by the time this film came out. I was stunned to learn from IMDb that the release date was 1969! When I was watching it, I was certain it was much earlier. There are lots of berets, floppy hats and mid-'60s Carnaby Street fashions. There are no signs of hippies, few people of color, no mention at all of the East Village (no St. Mark's Place, no Tompkins Square Park), and, most amazing of all, nothing to indicate that this was the year of Stonewall, for cryin' out loud! The only sign of the social and cultural turbulence of the era is seen in a quick shot of visiting sailors walking past some street graffiti with the peace sign and "Paint Peace" on a wall. (Ironically, it's painted over a slogan, "Down with Gusanos," a derogatory term for anti-Castro Cubans.) Yet the narrator tells us that "Today, Greenwich Village is the postmark for many countrified cosmopolitans, people who prefer small-town casualness to rigid metropolitan dress for men and their suburban counterparts. Manufacturers and designers work around the clock to provide the cotton sportswear and leisure wear they demand for the country life." He also insists that "Here thousands of people live in an atmosphere much like the one they left in their own hometown," something that would have been big news to the people who came to the Village precisely to escape the strictures and prejudices of their hometowns.

The soundtrack is awash with canned commercial music that comes nowhere near to reflecting the musical tastes and styles of Greenwich Village. Even when we see a montage of street performers in Washington Square Park, including a quick shot of Latin drummers, the music doesn't change. The only thematic break in the soundtrack comes during a party scene when we hear a singer with a guitar performing something vaguely folkish that might not have seemed out of place several years earlier.

At the end, we see the credit, "Produced by the Cotton Producers Institute," and I wasn't surprised at all. Why they chose Greenwich Village as a backdrop is puzzling, although I'm guessing it was to convince the rest of America that cotton was "hip," without actually using that word.

The narrator claims that Greenwich Village is a suburban oasis in the middle of the chaotic urban Manhattan. It purports to show this village lifestyle. It's a promotional short produced by The Cotton Producers Institute and that's probably why there are little comments about clothes sprinkled throughout. I saw this on TCM. There are two ways to enjoy this and hate it. First, it's good to just walk the streets although it's a very gentrified version of life. Second, one has to enjoy the cheesiness of it all. The lifestyle is so constructed by whatever committee that approved this. It's almost funny, but it's not. I do want to know what R. F. D. Mean.

Like the message, or not, it's great to have a snapshot of moments from time. In this case, a corporate message, piggybacking on popular misconceptions about a New York City neighborhood held by the previous generation. EVERYTHING is informative in this piece! Is that John Denver heard singing in the background at the party? Would love to know... And, could it be that Leonard Nimoy is the narrator. Don't know. Heading over to Amazon right now to check out their corduroy vendors.