"To impart life and interest to a film about growing alfalfa requires more than ordinary patience and perseverance. Mildred J. Caldwell has supplied these in her picture, Green Gold. Filmed throughout the year, it shows the plowing, seeding, mowing, bundling and threshing, to create a story with depth and perspective. There were times when the movie maker had to climb on stacks of baled alfalfa or ride on a lumbering machine while it performed some vital operation in the culture of alfalfa. Hemet Valley, in California, was the setting, providing pleasant scenic backgrounds for the different operations." Movie Makers, Dec. 1947, 537-538.
"Item is a film of a trip to Hawaii taken by Dr. Willinsky and his wife, Sadie. In the form of a travelogue, footage of Hawaii's landscape, vegetation, landmarks and local population is interspersed with captions that were added in by Dr. Willinsky to provide information about the country's culture. Footage includes shots of sites around Honolulu and Waikiki, surfers, Hawaiian flowers, churches and temples, sugar cane farming and singers performing outside a hotel. Sadie is occassionally spotted exploring the sites and interacting with locals."
"From Capetown, South Africa, comes Help Yourselves, Boys!, by Lewis Lewis, a charming record of two handsome youngsters and their father engaged in planting, growing and harvesting zinnias. Using many effective angles and double exposed titles, Mr. Lewis relates a plausible tale of his boys raiding the grape arbor, being caught, and finally having their exuberance turned toward flower growing. Since the newly hatched garden is situated close to the ocean, the scenic backgrounds are startling as well as pleasant. Rich, black earth and flaming orange zinnias provide an attractive setting for an engaging family movie." Movie Makers, Dec. 1947, 538.
"How Pine Trees Reproduce has some exciting scenes and some little known information on a subject few of us know much about. It could be a dull film, but Dr. Harlow's skill with camera and scissors has produced a most informative result" PSA Journal, Sept. 1964, 51.
"A short colour film recording a visit to a garden in Llandudno" (EAFA Database).
"Dr. William M. Harlow is professor of Wood Technology at the State University of New York, College of Forestry. His film records the unparalleled spectacle of live insects being trapped by the pitcher plant, the sundew and Venus flytrap. Expert close-up photography and effective time lapse sequences employing home made equipment includes material never before recorded on film. A top flight nature film with suspense and drama, carrying a powerful appeal to any audience." PSA Journal, Dec. 1955, 35.
"As an openly avowed disciple of Herman Bartel, one of the old masters of nature filming, Martin E. Drayson has been an ably and imaginative pupil. Seldom have individual scenes of such delicate beauty as his poured across the screen of personal movies. Interlude in Sunlight, like Mr. Bartel's work in Awakening or Pathetique, is essentially an effort to interpret, in cinematic imagery, compositions of music. As such, it is divided into three sections or movements, comprised pictorially of bees, flowing water and flowers. The musical scores which these interpret are Paganini's Moto Perpetuo, Massenet's Meditation from Thais, and Johann Strauss's Wiener Blut waltzes. Preceding these pieces (during the lead title assembly) and between the several sections, Mr. Drayson has elected the use of complete silence." Movie Makers, Dec. 1945, 496.
"Henry E. Hird offers the framework of a timely continuity plan for a scientific record in A Letter. A naturalist father writes a film letter to his sailor son who shares the father's scientific interest in bird and insect life, as well as in floral beauty. We see the father writing and the son reading a letter, the information in which is brought to life in film. Mr. Hird is a very capable observer and movie maker, and the combination of these abilities has enabled him to offer, in this informal style, a wealth of information. Extraordinary sequences of nesting birds are included." Movie Makers, Dec. 1943, 477.
This film was produced at some time in the 1950s.
"May Day Conflict is a well executed and skillfully edited family story film of the conflict created by the opening of the trout season and a flower festival both falling on May first. The central character is a good loser (the husband, of course!), as he accompanies his wife to the flower show after elaborate preparations for his fishing trip. Herbert F. Sturdy has deftly woven into the story pattern light, humorous incidents to provide amusing comedy relief from his fine floral closeup studies. Expert camera handling and smooth transitions lend a semi-professional finish to the picture." Movie Makers, Dec. 1948, 493-494.
Total Pages: 6
Amateur Cinema