Every week during the 20s, millions of British cinema-goers had a taste of the American dream - 'a form of life far beyond anything we knew'. In the wake of those films, American business pioneers like Ford, Edison and Firestone launched their assault on the Old World. With the lipstick and light bulbs, patent leather shoes and vacuum cleaners, came the salesmen of the commercial revolution. One example of their technique: persuading a widow to sell her husband's gravestone to raise money for the deposit. The film also reveals some of the subterfuges American companies employed to break into lucrative British markets, and take over British firms.

David Dimbleby charts the changing relationship, not only at the top, but among the ordinary men and women who lived and fought together until Hitler had been defeated.