"The Utah Trail is what its producers call a "Cine Musical." In it, Al Morton and his wife have attempted to illustrate in movies a ballad which charmed them and to pay tribute pictorially to a region which they loved. They have been largely successful. The film's continuity is fluid and well integrated; the camera work is uniformly excellent and the double exposed color titles add greatly to the picture's feeling of competence and craftsmanship. Perhaps the Mortons' finest achievement in this production is the care and intelligence with which they have cut their footage to fit the ballad of their choice. The Utah Trail is a charming and colorful tribute to a well loved land." Movie Makers, Dec. 1942, 508.
A comedy about a man who, while under sedation at the dentist, dreams of a device that will make things disappear at will.
"'Vacation Highlights,' as the title implies, is a record of a vacation trip, but instead of the usual array of catch-as-can shots which make up so many vacation record films, Terry Manos has given this excellently photographed narrative substance by employing inserts of a letter to his wife and daughter, describing his trip, and a number of tie-in shots of the two to knit the whole into a pleasant continuity. The picture is remarkable, not so much from its narrative standpoint as for its consistency in exposure. There is not a measurable difference in exposure in any scene throughout the picture. The picture depicts the start of the trip by automobile, which takes the travelers across the U.S. border into Canada and thence through the province of Quebec. On the return trip they visit such interesting sights as a wood pulp mill and the famed Ausabel Chasm, in upper New York. The camera treatment of the pulpwood sequence and of the Chasm scenes definitely mark this filmer as a photographer of promise. Manos used a 16mm. Bolex camera and Kodachrome daylight type film." American Cinematographer, Apr. 1950, 134.
"Sometime during the summer of 1950, Fred Evans, L. A.'s genial maestro of 8mm movies, arranged to pick up a new Nash sedan in Grand Rapids, Mich. What better excuse need there be for packing up his two Southern California sons and taking them East to meet the land of their forefathers? Which is exactly what he did in Vacation Highlights of 1950. The lead title is commonplace, perhaps almost banteringly so; but the film footage which follows it is not. Niagara Falls, his native Vermont, Concord, Lexington, New York, Philadelphia and Washington are on the Evans itinerary of American history. There is a rewarding stop at the St. Louis zoo — for its incomparable Sunday shows — and soon the Evans are home again. But not without one final twist to the tale. "Hey, look-out here, Pop!" urges the oldest offspring as he returns from scouting the premises. The family cat, with inimitable feline pride and savoir faire has had kittens." Movie Makers, Dec. 1951, 410.
"A Vacation with Lucy Carlisle, Margaret Pinkham, Virginia Carlisle." oldfilm.org
"Film is a fictional story about a teenaged woman named Vanessa who returns to her Yorkville home to find that her parents are at a cocktail party and her sister is being babysat by someone who isn't what 'she' seems" Archives of Ontario.
"Okamoto again demonstrates his fine sense of composition, repose and rhythm. Okamoto never hurries his pictures, neither does he hold them too long to bore you. He plans only to give you another fine picture, but he always puts life into his shots. Autumn Leaves is a fine Okamoto offering, but in the opinion of the judges it does not contain the same spark of creation as his last year's effort, 'Tender Friendship'." American Cinematographer, Jan. 1936, 24.
"In the countryside of Japan, the atmosphere of autumn is captured in shots of bare trees, reeds, reflections and sunlight on rippling water, floating leaves and dark clouds. A woman carrying a small child on her back is reflected in water as she stands near a pole, then rests against a harvest stack while crocheting from a ball of yarn. She walks along a path surrounded by farmed terraces. A child (described in the opening titles as motherless) plays with a paper ball while the grandfather tills the soil. The child blows into the ball to inflate it and the grandfather gets out his pipe and lights it with a match. Then he helps to inflate the ball. Against a sky of darkening clouds, they walk along the path, the man carrying the rake and the child a kettle. A woman with an infant on her back passes them, and the child stops and watches after her as she moves away. Then the child stops at a wayside shrine, and the grandfather offers comfort. Against low sun beneath dark clouds they are seen in silhouette as they continue on their way" (EAFA Database).
Total Pages: 295
Amateur Cinema