GET 35% OFF YOUR FIRST YEAR!

Limited time - use promo code: FALL35 at checkout

Live stream preview

Watch this video and more on OVID.tv

Watch this video and more on OVID.tv

Start your free trial

Already subscribed? Sign in

Family Business

Food, Glorious Food! • 1h 26m

Directed by Tom Cohen • Documentary • 1982 • 90 minutes

Part of the acclaimed Middletown series.

Howie Snyder is an archetype: a retired Marine colonel in his mid 40s, he is an American entrepreneur struggling to make his business succeed.

Howie's Shakey's Pizza franchise in Muncie, Indiana employs his whole family: wife, nine children, and Howie himself. He's the representative of the American Dream: the chance to invest long hours and hard work in exchange for financial security for oneself and family. To watch Howie Snyder as he dickers for better treatment by the Shakey's chain, as he seeks additional financing to stave off looming bankruptcy, and as he sits morosely counting an evening's disappointing receipts is to watch America at work. And to see Howie's family rally around him in the hour of his greatest need is a heartwarming experience.

"Marvelous... as close to a genuine slice of life as television can muster."—Los Angeles Times

"Remarkably intimate... There are scenes that will stick with you for life."—Chicago Tribune

Tags
american studies, americas, anthropology and archaeology, business, doc, documentary, dvd, economic anthropology, economics, expository, family business, family issues, film, icarus films, indiana, labor and economics, management, middletown, muncie, ovid, ovid_ca, pizza, restaurant, s_0034, s_0081, s_0085, s_0104, s_0263, s_0306, s_0461, shakey's pizza, social significance of work in a small family-run business, social studies, sociology, the, the industrial heartland, title_defgh, title_f, title_m, united states, video, world regions

Up Next in Food, Glorious Food!

  • Food Coop
    1:37:22
    Food Coop

    Food Coop

    Directed by Tom Boothe • Documentary • 2017 • 97 minutes

    FOOD COOP takes us deep into the belly of the Park Slope Food Coop, one of America's oldest cooperative food supermarkets, with a healthy dose of insight and wit.

    Nestled deep in New York City, which, for many, exemplifies both the glory ...

  • Egg Cream
    15:12
    Egg Cream

    Egg Cream

    Directed by Nora Claire Miller, Peter Miller & Amy Linton • Documentary • 2020 • 15 minutes

    EGG CREAM is a short film about the enduring meaning of a beloved chocolate soda drink born on the Jewish Lower East Side. The egg cream contained neither eggs nor cream – it was a product of necessity an...

  • Impromptu
    10:09
    Impromptu

    Impromptu

    Directed by Bruce Alcock • Animation • 2013 • 10 minutes

    Impromptu takes a look at the redemptive power of food, wine, music and love through the eyes of a modern man. Chuck is in his element, cooking and listening to Chopin with his baby daughter, imagining what he will say to his wife Sylvie o...

×