"Edited film used by an amateur travel-lecturer documents travel in western and southwestern United States beginning at a rodeo in Phillipsburg, Kansas (trick riding, lassoing jack rabbits, roping calfs, wrestling steers, horse races, bucking broncos and bucking steers as well as scenes of an airplane flyover and of an airplane crashing which possibly was a stunt) and continuing to Black Hills, South Dakota (forest scenery and ca. 1927 construction of Mount Rushmore--blasting off cliff face, scaffolding, men working and completed monument). Shown are roadside scenery, railroad tracks, men cleaning railroad tracks with hose and tank on small train car on the way to an unidentified mountain fishing camp possibly in Colorado (canoeing, fishing in stream, and a smokehouse) and a mountain farm where colts are branded. Cog railway is taken up to Pike's Peak. Travels continue to to the Southwest (unidentified southwestern town possibly Santa Fe with adobe buildings and men and children in Mexican dress singing and playing guitar, American Indian dance performance indoors possibly Zuni, parade of American Indians in unidentified city perhaps Gallup and Navajo band. Scenes of the southwest continue with Navajo in Canyon de Chelly (hogans and herding sheep), prehistoric archaeological sites (Mesa Verde, Chaco Canyon another unidentified cliff dwelling possibly Montezuma's castle) and Taos Pueblo. Film records American Indian dances at a gathering of Indian tribes possibly at Gallup, intertribal horse races and women's tug-of-war. Hopi are shown dancing at Hopi. Also shown are Indian women (possibly Apache or Navajo) and children together and children in cradleboard and the Navajo reservation (hogans, women spinning and weaving under a ramada, herds of sheep and goats and "dipping sheep"). Natural wonders of Grand Canyon, Monument Valley and Rainbow Bridge National Monument are featured.Travel continues to Yellowstone National Park, California (scenery, black bears, hot springs and geysers) and onto the California coast possibly Monterey (seals on rocks). Also shown are an unidentified town with oil pumps and derricks and people waterskiing" via the Human Film Studies Archives, Smithsonian Museum.
"Luz externa fue una de las producciones más ambiciosas del súper 8 mexicano. El guión se basaba en el monólogo de Ernesto, un machín jipiteca, que relata a un amigo las peripecias con su novia Raquel. Posteriormente el guión sirvió como la base del cuento con el mismo título que apareció como parte del libro El rey se acerca a su templo. Tanto la película como el cuento se abocaban a describir el abanico amplio de la juventud clasemediera urbana contracultural que había aparecido a fines de los años sesenta y principios de los setenta: los macizos que acceden al consumo de drogas, las muchachas de buena familia que se acercan a ese mundo, los nuevos conversos a la revolución social o los intelectuales que participan del ambiente con simpatía" (Vázquez Mantecón, 2012).
"Luz externa [External light] was one of the most ambitious productions of the Mexican super 8. The script was based in the monologue of Ernesto, a 'machin' hippie, that tells a friend about his adventures with his girlfriend Raquel. The script served later as the base for a short story with the same title that appeared as part of the book El rey se acerca a su templo [The king approaches his temple]. Both the movie and the short story described the wide range of the middle class urban countercultural youth that emerged at the end of the sixties and the beginning of the seventies: the strong men that had access to drugs, the girls from good families that entered that world, the new converts to social revolution or the intellectuals that sympathize with that ambiance" (Vázquez Mantecón, 2012).
(Catalan): Viatge per Hongria, escultures, imatges del riu Danubi, el transport dels troncs d'arbre. Imatges de la vida quotidiana i el seu paisatge: cavalls, el transport en carro de la Fusta, canalla, porcs, l'extracció d'aigua d'un pou, edificis i monuments típics de Magyar i Budapest (Plaça de la Llibertat). Documental de caire pedagògic on se'ns mostra el desmembrament d'Hongria a través d'un mapa.
Pedagogical documentary of a trip through Hungary. Images of everyday life and its landscape: horses, wooden cart transport, children, pigs, the extraction of water from a well, buildings and monuments typical of Magyar and Budapest, and the Danube River. [Description from Filmoteca de Catalunya catalog].
"Mexican Silhouette, conceived as a gamble, has grown up to glory. After but a few years of average movie making experience, Clement K. Chase — as with so many — felt an irresistible urge to attempt, in one film, a concentration of all his accumulated skill and experience. He turned to a subject he knew with intimacy and affection, and Mexican Silhouette was the result. It is a splendid educational and general interest study, divided flexibly into three main sections — Mexico, D. F., Mexican Agriculture and Mexican Cities. To these subjects, Mr. Chase has brought a mature photographic skill, marked by tripod steadiness, stimulating compositions and a dramatic feeling for the use of filters. Well titled in the original silent version, the film is now being distributed commercially in both sound and silent editions." Movie Makers, Dec. 1939, 633.
"General scenes around Acapulco; Bay, ships, beach, poolside, city scenes, landscape, cliff diving, traditional dance and crafts." UC San Diego Library.
"2 part edited travelogue film of the people and customs encountered in towns along the Amazon River in South America. Part one includes landscapes, a variety of housing from towns to shacks along the river, people selling goods, trapping and selling exotic animals, herding cattle, boating, and a religious ceremony." Chicago Film Archives.
"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.
"Most of the residents of New York City know that the world's metropolis is something more than a play place for sensation hunters. But, if one were to judge from many films of New York City, the conclusion would be inevitable that the urban settlement at the mouth of the Hudson River is chiefly devoted to night clubs and parades and is populated largely by those who frequent them. In New York Calling, made for the New York Central System, of which he is supervisor of the Motion Picture Bureau, Frederick G. Beach has presented the New York Central's eastern terminal city as a reasonable and understandable place, where sane people live and to which a man may bring or send his family for a holiday without wondering if they will survive the experience. Made for showing to families, Mr. Beach's excellent Kodachrome footage covers the best of New York City with an apparently effortless leisure, in spite of its brevity. Including many different phases of a great city, the picture has a generous amount of well made closeups. Things that will interest children are strikingly presented. If this reviewer did not already live in New York City, Mr. Beach's movie, with excellent narrative and music, would be the best possible argument for him to change his residence. It certainly will prove to be persuasive in the days when railroads can again urge us to travel for pleasure." Movie Makers, Dec. 1942, 508-509.
‘"The logo for Dufaycolor is at the head of the film. The subject matter was chosen to show off the process of the film stock's built-in colour filters" (EAFA Database).
Total Pages: 15
Amateur Cinema