"Local sound newsreel, made by Ben Culey, showing Armistice Sunday parade and remembrance ceremonies." (EAFA database)
"Local newsreel on events in Thetford filmed by Ben Culey, showing the Palace Cinema, which he owned and where people came to see his local news films." (EAFA Database)
"'Ritual of the Dead,' is an old-fashioned thriller. The leading characters, that of the young man who murders rather promiscuously and the tattered mummy who returns to life seemingly to accuse the murderer after the latter has reason to believe he has safely escaped detection for his crimes are carried by the producer. The denouement of the story, which is just that we have here intimated, carries a real thrill" American Cinematographer, Jan. 1939, 16-17.
"Like the title, it is really 'Beyond Manila.' It takes the follower into a country that has been little photographed, one part of that territory being the land of the Igorrote, in Northern Luzon. There is much to be seen of the people, the way they dress and live and work. There's abundant scenic beauty in the Philippines. We see many evidences of it in the pictures here shown of mountain and plain—of stream and waterfall. The natives, too, are real workers, women as well as men." American Cinematographer, Jan. 1939, 16.
"The subject of 'Nation Builders'—the history of Australia—is without doubt the most ambitious ever undertaken by any amateur filmer. The fact that the project was successful is in itself a tribute to Sherlock's skill. Granted that in connection with the 150th anniversary of his nation's founding there were pageants re-enacting historic events and an opportunity for an alter filmster to photograph them: but how many times have not other amateurs scored dismal failures trying the same thing? Filming such a pageant, it is all too easy to capture only the impression of history actually happening. The twentieth century background which must so often have been just beyond the camera-lines was never permitted to intrude upon his eighteenth and nineteenth century action." American Cinematographer, Feb. 1939, 61.
"doc. scientifico"/scientific documentary
"The title of Pomfret Today, produced by the T. W. Willard Motion Picture Company, gives a clear impression of the subject matter of this recent addition to the Willard tradition of fine school films. Produced for the Pomfret School, in Connecticut, the picture provides a pleasant portrait of a gracious institution carrying on its work amid settings of quiet beauty. Studies, sports, hobbies and recreation — all are recalled here in sequences marked by a wealth of warm color and distinguished technical ability. A directly planned continuity is neatly edited and adequately titled, in a subject designed primarily for alumni screening." Movie Makers, Dec. 1937, 630.
"Luc Fauvel is a Norman, and he turned to his own pays to contrive as sensitive and trenchant a study of French provincial life, in miniature, done by the medium of film, as did giants like Flaubert and de Maupassant through the medium of words. His Vieille France has irony, pathos, humor and plain reporting. It is the tale of an old bonnet maker of Normandy, who goes through her daily tasks, in which she has grown old, but who, at the end of the labor, reviews the past, by means of her photograph album, and meditates on her son, who died on the field of honor in the World War, and on her daughter who has become a great dancer and is far removed from the little Norman village of her origin. Mr. Fauvel accomplishes most by suggestion, by indirect statement and by a kind of insidious comment on life, never more than fleetingly presented. This young Frenchman, now studying at Cambridge, in England, will give us better and more technically well knit pictures as times goes on." Movie Makers, Dec. 1937, 630.
"The current and widespread revival of interest in cycling is the subject of Under Your Own Power, by Sidney Moritz. Carefully planned, attractively photographed in color and neatly edited, the production is a pleasing and happy record of bright days in the summer sun. Mr. Moritz has shrewdly remembered in his film the predominant human interest of this leisured sport, as well as the lovely scenic vistas to which it leads, and has embroidered both of these subjects with distinctive angles and some successful "effect" shots framed by cycle wheels. Amusing, effective and well worded titles in color round out this highly entertaining etude of modern wheeling." Movie Makers, Dec. 1937, 630.
Total Pages: 299
Amateur Cinema