Linotype: The Film

A Must See, especially for anyone in the printing business
I stumbled across this movie quite by accident and am really glad to have seen it. I had no idea how important the Linotype was in advancing the availability of reading materials to so many people. It was also fascinating to learn about it's evolution, starting with a need to make copies of notes to a becoming a working machine. It's so complex it's a miracle that it works at all, but was the cutting edge technology for printing for 80 years. Thankfully there are still a few people interested in perserving a few Linotype machines for the computer generation to learn about. At just over an hour and a quarter, it's a short film, well worth your time to watch.

Completely awesome
I gotta be honest; I didn't know what to expect with this film. A movie about a printing machine? It simply didn't sound that interesting to me. I heard so many good things about it, but I went in to the theater not having any idea what to expect. I walked out of the theater pleased as punch, and pre-ordered the film before I even left. I plan on showing it to just about anybody that comes over to the house. This turned out to be a completely captivating film with flawless directing and editing that is driven by remarkably interesting and often hilarious characters. Don't let the seemingly boring subject matter fool you. There is not a dull moment in this film.

Thr roar of the press & the smell of the ink
It was like being back there again, 40 years on! I worked for 6 years on a local newspaper and worked a Linotype machine for about 18 months of that time. The Linotype was as complicated and well-engineered as a watch, and was a marvel to watch and work. The film describes how coming of the Linotype was the latter day equivalent of Facebook, Twitter & the World Wide Web all arriving simultaneously, and thereby allowing the printed word to reach the masses more quickly and more cheaply. It changed everything.
This film is a superb evoaction of traditional newspaper production prior to computerisation. Listening to the Linotype machines transported me straight back to my Apprenticeship (