Kodachrome travelogue showing daily life and architecture in Italy.
"The film begins at a women's hairdressers. The manager asks one of the hairdressers to dinner that evening but she refuses as she has a customer, Mrs Blowers, who requires longer visits. At this the manager appoints Jane, a fellow hairdresser to take the appointment. Jane looks at the portrait of her fiance. We follow as the portrait dissolves into the real man. He works with cars and is informed that he has lost his job. Back at the hairdressers and Mrs Blowers arrives for her appointment. What starts as 'just a trim' becomes a longer matter. The clock shows 7.15 PM, closing time at the hairdressers. Jane loses her temper with her customer and insults her. The woman responds, stating that she will be making a complaint. On her way out Jane is informed that her customer was a stakeholder in the business. Jane meets with her boyfriend and they agree to share their bad news at a café. Later Jane discusses her situation with her friend but still despairs at her predicament. We see her writing a letter to her fiance, returning his ring and ending their engagement. She posts the letter. The next day at work Jane is informed of her week's notice. She begins cutting a young girl's hair. Outside one of the employees has alerted all about a fire. Jane notices smoke at her door. She covers the child and carries her out of the building but collapses from the smoke. The next sequence shows her in hospital. She is visited by her boyfriend and we see that she is wearing her engagement ring. At home recovering, she is visited by Mrs Blowers. This is where the film ends abruptly" (MACE Online Archive).
"'Japan and Its People,' Dr. Roy Gerstenkorn's educational class winner, was a pictured visit to the homes and temples of Japan. Ignoring the cities in his search for the story of the Japan that is not known to the average visitor the doctor penetrated the towns and smaller communities. His picture was awarded a high rating on its photography as well as on his treatment of the subject. After the showing of this picture before the Los Angeles Motion Picture Forum last summer the local school authorities requested and received permission from the doctor to make a duplicate of it for school purposes." American Cinematographer, Jan. 1938, 27-28.
"Jeannie is the little girl in the house where too much of the family income is spent for purposes other than family. With the aid of the court Jeannie is assigned to a Home where she can have the things she needs and toys and playmates. Perhaps we all know the story but each one tells it differently, arriving at a happy ending. The foundation of this club production was a publicity film which it made and donated to the Home" PSA Journal, Nov. 1959, 48.
"Leo Caloia unlimbered his new Auricon sound camera to produce much of this picture and all of its sound track, but tighter editing as well as better direction would have greatly inproved the result. The continuity has to do with a couple, seen washing the supper dishes, discussing a proposed vacation, for which they have been putting money in a joint bank account. As they discuss the various places they would like to visit, there follow a number of scenes of each, then the camera cuts back to the discussion. The wife is summoned to the door by the mailman, receives a bill from a sporting goods store. She questions her husband about it and he confesses to having spent the proceeds of their bank account for a new set of golf clubs." American Cinematographer, May. 1951, 192.
"Journey Through a Day is a beautiful and restful film of a day in a young boy's rural life. The colorful photography by Dale Johnson of Dallas is excellent. He packs a solid day of carefree existence into 17 minutes of entertainment and wishing it were your day" PSA Journal, Nov. 1969, 56.
"Joyous Noel by Gilbert B. Jansen Jr. is the sort of color motion picture record of an American family's Christmas that so many home-loving cameramen dream of producing - but seldom do. Undoubtedly the producer and all members of his family will treasure this film immediately. Not a great work, Joyous Noel is nevertheless an unusually good Christmas film in which all of the preparations and celebrations found in graceful family living are depicted through the activities of a young couple and their two children. Well lighted scenes, technically proficient camera work, pleasant acting by all concerned, and a background of Christmas carol music all contribute to make this a thoroughly pleasant production" PSA Journal, Jan. 1955, 50.
"Just another day with junior and the usual problems of getting a boy to get out of bed, wash, dress, and finally eat his breakfast as he must get along to school. An opportunity for some of us to relive those long-ago days" PSA Journal, Nov. 1960, 42.
"Excellent handling of camera and lights. A nice story telling family film starring Maxine (who has appeared in several other prize winning films) and her new baby." PSA Journal, Dec. 1955, 37.
"In L'Ile d'Orléans, Radford and Judith Crawley cross a bridge and come back. But they cross a bridge with a difference, because what they see and what they make us see on the other side of that bridge is the inner essence of a withdrawn people, who proudly conserve the memory of things past in the realities of things here. The Maxim Award winner opens a door into a region of Eastern Canada — the Island of Orleans — where old French and old Canadian folkways are lived placidly and with dignity. Actually, the camera crosses a very modern bridge at the film's beginning and returns over it at its end. But, once in L'Ile d'Orléans, in the hands of the two Crawleys, this Twentieth Century box of wheels and gears spins a tale of yesterday, even if it pictures just what its lens sees today. The landscape and the old houses, some of them there for more than two hundred years, set the decor, after which we come to the dwellers in this separate Arcady. They do, with a delightful unconsciousness of being observed, the things that make up their daily lives, and, when invited to take notice of the visitors, they do this with a fine courtesy that is the very refinement of hospitality. Mr. and Mrs. Crawley devote a liberal part of their footage to a careful study of home cheese making, in which camera positions and a large number of close shots turn what might have been a dull and factual record into something of cinematographic distinction. The highlight of the Crawleys' film is a leisurely and sympathetic watching of what is the highlight of life in l'Ile d'Orléans — the country Sunday. We see different churches, all of a general type, but each with its essential neighborhood individuality. Finally, one of these is singled out for an extensive camera visit. Bells ring and the country priest is shown with his gravity and solemn courtesy. The countryside comes to life with its church bound inhabitants who wind over the simple roads slowly yet purposefully and with the assurance of those who know that the land is theirs as it was their fathers'. With such pictures of everyday life, scored with appropriate music for double turntable showing, Mr. and Mrs. Crawley have etched an epoch, in a record which can stand on its own feet with good genre description in any art form. With not a single concession to sentimentality — as should be the case in honest work — but with a sure feeling for that which reaches out for the finer emotions, they have shown us what they found across the bridge. Here is personal filming at its best." Movie Makers, Dec. 1939, 608-609.
Total Pages: 38
Amateur Cinema