"'Creatures of the Past' was highly enjoyed. It is the work of C. E. Welsh and C. B. O'Donovan of Pittsburgh. They took as their models a display made by local and New York department stores. The manner in which they photographed led the viewer back centuries to the time when the prehistoric mammoth was on this earth. Honorable mention was accorded these cinematographers for their work." American Cinematographer, Feb. 1936, 73.
"1 View of small plane at an airport. 2 View of dinghy in a harbor at the Great Salt Lake. 3 Views of shoreline and boat moving through the Great Salt Lake. 4 Views of the west coast of Central America, dolphins leading the boat, fishing, Santa Cruz, local inhabitants, cliff diving and a vacation resort." University of Utah Marriott Library.
"The recipe for a film like Dad and I Took a Walk sounds simple enough. You take equal parts of Father and Son, add a cupful of scenery, season with judicious pinches of natural science — and cook till done. The secret, apparently, lies with the "cook till done" section; so much depends on the cook. But W. W. Vincent, jr., is a good chef, to judge by the results from his cinematic oven. In clean cut, tripod steady Kodachrome, he and his son are seen roaming the pleasant Wisconsin landscape, with nicely timed pauses to point out, one to the other, a nesting robin, a praying mantis or a bright snake asleep in the warming sun. As the two men discuss their finds, spoken titles are double exposed against appropriate backgrounds or the pages of a bird manual are inserted naturally in full frame closeups. Dad and I Took a Walk is an attractive blend of personal filmdom's most popular subjects — field, family and fauna." Movie Makers, Dec. 1942, 508.
"A Day at the Zoo is a lively and pleasing film of a family's visit to the New York Zoological Gardens. The youngsters of the family discover the Children's Zoo and make the acquaintance of farmyard animals. They feed the chickens and pet the lambs while Father and Mother look on. The larger and stranger beasts in the main part of the Zoological Gardens are next pictured; the children feed them, too, but at a safer distance. In this film, Walter Bergmann has produced the best type of informal zoo picture — a story with human interest, enlivened with a sense of humor." Movie Makers, Dec. 1943, 477.
"Denali, the high one, takes us into the Park at the base of Mt. McKinley in Alaska to give us a better acquaintance with the animals that live in the 49th state with the long, cold winters. We visit with the bears, the big ones, the moose, fox, sheep, birds, and the busy beaver. We learn that the beavers work during the short summer season cutting, gathering, and storing leafy branches for winter food. There are many close-up views of the animals feeding and doing things wild animals do" PSA Journal, Oct. 1962, 33.
"Desert Life is a painstaking and little short of amazing study of the unusual creatures that make their homes on the American desert. Its thoroughgoing coverage of the subject may be because of the fact that Henry E. Hird is an Easterner who approaches this cinematic exposition with a fresh viewpoint. Every shot in his color movie is clean cut and perfectly exposed, but the really unusual feature of the film is an unmistakable indication of the infinite patience which must have been Mr. Hird's as he stalked his prey. The lizards and reptiles of the desert are all here, just as they move and have their being; the gila monster, the little, darting lizards and the snakes, including the strangest of rattlers, the "side winder." The desert rodents are represented, too. Most remarkable are the ultra closeups which show the fangs of the rattlesnake and how poison is extracted from them. The deadly black widow and other spiders pose for closeups, too, in this comprehensive film. Then, to show the desert's beauty as well as its danger, there are some excellent flower shots." Movie Makers, Dec. 1941, 563.
"Loosely scripted film in which people at play in a park are interrupted by an authority figure who prevents them from enjoying themselves. The actors include many friend of the filmmakers, such as artists Michael Morris, Robert DiCastro and Sally Gregson. Images on negative stock are incorporated into the film" (Duffy, 94).
"Chester Dale was aboard a boat somewhere on the Nile when a native elephant hunt happened along. He made a remarkable camera record of the exciting chase" The Baltimore Sun, June 17, 1934, 44.
"The dependence of all living things on water. The physical properties of water; water as a habitat for such creatures as insects, birds, beavers, frogs; use and abuse of water resources by man." (BC Archives)
Total Pages: 12
Amateur Cinema