# CONQUER BY THE CLOCK IMPRESSIONISTIC WWII INDUSTRIAL INCENTIVE DOCUMENTARY 77114

Made by RKO Pathe as part of the WWII industrial incentive effort, "Conquer by the Clock" presents a hectic montage of images of productivity, set to the click of time clocks, the hum of industrial machinery, and the clattering of guns. In wartime America, three 8-hour shifts and 24 hours of work were necessary in munitions plants, shipyards, and other vital factories. In 1943, the film was nominated for an Academy Award. The film shows the activities in a munitions plant at the 3:30 mark, with rifle cartridges being manufactured. A lazy employee goes off to have a smoke, and as a result a bad batch of bullets is missed. In the end this proves to be a fatal mistake for a soldier in the field, whose rifle misfires in combat and he is killed. It also shows the owner of a wartime plant who goes to watch a baseball game instead of overseeing the loading of a vital survival kit aboard a lifeboat, resulting in the inadvertent death of two men. Overall, the film encourages American workers to make the best possible use of their time in a war where industrial production and combat are synchronized on an international level. Encourages American wartime workers to "keep their sleeves rolled up." Describes the volume of industrial and agricultural production that can be accomplished in a single day: enough rifles for a battalion, 1000 acres of corn converted to 30,000 bushels of food." The film calls tired workers, in effect, "saboteurs". Narration admonishes workers for the death of…

- Kind: Documentary
- By: PeriscopeFilm
- Genres: War, Documentary, Industrial and advertising
- Archive: [Internet Archive](https://archive.org/details/77114-conquer-by-the-clock)
- Licence or status: none stated by the archive
- Who can watch: Teens profiles and older (the archive gives no rating; placed by Invisible Network from its collection and subjects)

[Watch now](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/watch/archive/ia/77114-conquer-by-the-clock?play=1)