"Edited footage of western scenery on a road trip to Yellowstone Park. Includes scenes of camping and numerous landscapes, Mount Rushmore and the various grounds of Yellowstone with their hot springs and geysers." Chicago Film Archives
"After a day of domestic squabbling, an imposing wife and bumbling husband have their furniture appraised. When two men show up as assessors the confusion begins, ultimately giving the husband a chance to prove himself." Chicago Film Archives
"Item is a film of Dr. Willinsky's trip to a snake farm in Miami, Florida. The last few minutes of the film switches to footage of a snake charmer likely taken by Dr. Willinsky in Morocco. Film is in the form of a travelogue with commentary provided by Dr. Willinsky." Ontario Jewish Archives.
"This film shows Charles Devenish Woodley making a film." Library and Archives Canada.
"The Unexpected, by Ernest H. Kremer, is that rara avis of the amateur movie world, a perfectly produced and universally entertaining family film. It is no secret, surely, that taking pictures of one's family outranks all other reasons prompting a home filmer to buy his camera. It is an equally open secret that the results, generally, are those that only a mother could love. Judged impersonally and by even the simplest movie standards, the technique is sloppy, camera treatment dull and continuity non-existent. But now, with The Unexpected, family film making takes on new stature and its apostles may speak with new pride. The picture tells a simple tale: A man arrives home and finds a note from his wife. Unexpectedly, she writes, she has been called to the city, but there is food in the icebox, et cetera, etc. Later that evening, after a suavely developed interlude of husbandly miming, the wife returns and announces that she expects a baby. The rest of the rewardingly short reel records early activities in the life of the infant, capped by a swift and comic climax. A simple tale, but superbly told. Mr. Kremer's technical skill, developed through years of competent 8mm. work, is more than a match for this, his first 16mm. production. Perhaps most outstanding among the picture's many fine points is its admirable economy of footage. Running a scant 325 feet of film, it has a sense of pace regrettably rare in amateur movies. Mr. Kremer, for example, recognizes the lap dissolve as a spatial transition, not a specious ornament — and he uses it as such with telling effect. His editing is crisp, his camera treatment incisive and his continuity planned and purposeful. The Unexpected, in proving that excellence can join hands with the hearthside, should be a ringing challenge to all family filmers." Movie Makers, Dec. 1948, 474-475.
"In Autumn, Martin E. Drayson extends brilliant camera handling to embrace a quality ordinarily associated with painting, raising his film several notches above the usual autumnal study. Call this quality expressionism, a term we are familiar with in the paintings of Manet, Cezanne, Gauguin or Vlaminck. Literally painting with light the shades and hues of the season, sheer poetry is produced by their reflections in the shimmering surface of a pond, which unique camera viewpoint was used for the climax of the footage. The film escapes the static quality often noted in nature studies by the dexterous changing of camera position; added to this are the natural movements created by the wind brushing softly through the dry leaves, or, again, by gentle ripples momentarily disturbing the water's glassy surface." Movie Makers, Dec. 1948, 475.
"Crystals While You Wait is a record of the triumphant climax of long scientific research for a crystal substitute. Desperately needed as a filter in expanding telephone transmission lines, the final perfection of this synthetic crystal could not have been more exciting electronically than is this study of it esthetically. To it, Joseph J. Harley has brought creative imagination, absolute accuracy and a rich sense of this drama in a laboratory. Ethylene diamine tartrate (known to electrical engineers as E.D.T.) is the hero of this scientific saga. And a colorful one it is in this record of its synthesis into electrically usable crystalline form. From its provocative lead title assembly — double exposed on a dynamic pattern of back lighted crystals — through its smoothly integrated sequences of laboratory procedures, to its triumphant and stirring climax, Crystals While You Wait is a moving marriage of science and cinematics." Movie Makers, Dec. 1948, 475.
"The construction and performance of marionettes are skillfully pictured in Life Hangs By A Thread, by Paul R. Elliott and Joseph Dephoure. Aided by skillful lighting, a fine sound track perfectly harmonized with the action and an intelligent script, interest is closely held from the time a marionette is a lump of putty to its moments of glory when, in the hands of an experienced operator, it seems to take on a life of its own. Perhaps the most impressive thing about Life Hangs By A Thread is its careful step by step planning, indicating the sound belief by its producers that a movie should tell as much as possible pictorially, with the commentary used only to enhance the visual appeal." Movie Makers, Dec. 1948, 475-476.
"In Maxine's Big Moment, William Messner proves that he knows the language of the motion picture, for he tells his tale in true visual terms. No subtitles are used, nor are they needed. This is a small film but a suave one, scarcely more than a vignette, as it recounts the excitement of a teen age girl's first formal dance. In it, the producer has used high key lighting that is eminently suitable in portraying a lovely young girl anticipating and preparing for a party. The choice of softcolor backgrounds adds immensely to the mood of the film, and the imaginative mirror shots in which the young lady pins a corsage to her gown are noteworthy. Fine editing and smooth transitions, in addition to good acting, combine to make a delightful and entertaining home movie." Movie Makers, Dec. 1948, 476.
Total Pages: 299
Amateur Cinema