"By a facile blending of warm hearted humor and a keen perception of human interest values, George Mesaros has created a film study of a famous beach in New York's metropolitan area that is replete with interest, information and entertainment. His technical skill and knowledge of what makes a motion picture move prevent this from being the dull collection of random shots all too frequently characteristic of this genre subject. Employing himself as a frenzied and frustrated shutterbug and a filming friend as plain Joe Doakes at the beach with his wife, a lunch and box camera, Mr. Mesaros proceeds to examine with interest and obvious affection the thousand and one attractions of the Long Island resort. An excellent musical score and a brief commentary help to integrate the compact 700 feet of the film's lively length." Movie Makers, Dec. 1949, 454.
"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difference, because what they see and what they make us see on the other side of that bridge is the inner essence of a withdrawn people, who proudly conserve the memory of things past in the realities of things here.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.
"Lake Mohawk, Preferred, made by Leo J. Heffernan, is a picture of the attractions, residences, entertainments, dog shows, yachting regattas and water sports of Lake Mohawk in New Jersey. But Lake Mohawk, Preferred is also a film with a continuity idea utterly new to amateur movies, for the not unusual subject matter of the picture is held together with a "screwball" theme and "gags" that keep you wondering what is going to happen next and entertained in the meantime. A handsome couple have a movie camera. "Concentrate to make good movies," says their instruction book. This they do in a very pleasant way (see the frame enlargement on page 577), and the results are surprising. Their mental efforts transport them and the camera bodily about the lake, at just the right time and place to film whatever is going on. They have some astonishing experiences, too. Sometimes they can't seem to materialize, and they pick up odd characters in their voyages through ether. But their method works and they get beautiful and lively sequences of life at Lake Mohawk." Movie Maker, Dec. 1940, 603.
"In Ultima Thule and Peggy's Cove, produced by Edward A. Bollinger, ACL, and Mrs. Bollinger, one finds what must be the ultimate in beautiful scenic photography, magically infused throughout with a sensitive feeling for the relationship of ordinary people to their natural backgrounds. Beyond the veritable perfection of many of the scenes in these pictures it seems impossible for camera and film to go, even when guided by skill and imagination as superb as Mr. and Mrs. Bollinger's. Compositions, cutting and sequence structure are incisive and stirring, while the title wordings and execution leave little to be desired in suave good taste. The two subjects are first and last reels of a four reel study of Nova Scotia, in which, it is understood, Mr. Bollinger has done the camera work and his wife the editing and titling. It is a happy combination, from which have resulted documentary reels of magnificent skill and breathtaking beauty." Movie Makers, Dec. 1935, 550.
"Frances Christeson, experienced cinematographer and artist of cine devices, gives us in Log of the Timber Rush the movie diary of a holiday voyage. That the freighter, in which she had booked passage, stripped its gears and was stalled somewhere in the Pacific Ocean, well off the coast of Mexico, upset her film plan but did not stop her. It became part of an amazing personal and movie making experience. But before the misfortune at sea and the long delay of weeks, waiting for help and repairs. Miss Christeson had filmed the loading of the Timber Rush with affectionate attention to detail and the use of fascinating cine symbols. She also had captured sequences of gorgeous quality, framed through ship's gear and depicting the beautiful, lazy clouds of the tropics and the life aboard the vessel. When the gears were stripped and the long period of inaction came, the camerawoman had, as she puts it, "the job of filming nothing happening." She does that as well as possible, and the result is a delightful sea picture marred only by the doldrums of fate." Movie Makers, Dec. 1938, 619.
"Charles O. Barr, jr., in Long Remember, has done an extremely difficult thing admirably. This is a Kodachrome record of the recent last meeting of Union and Confederate veterans of the American Civil War on the battlefield of Gettysburg, in Pennsylvania. Because the persons of chief interest, the veterans themselves, were unable to contribute motion to any real extent, Mr. Barr's problem was to avoid using movie footage for still photographs, and yet not to offer an incomplete record of the interesting and historically important gathering. Aided by title wordings that were both dignified and exciting, the maker of this film managed to give to it a sweep of action that, without them, would have bogged down badly. There was motion, of course, in the parades, but these, of themselves, would have been trite fare, had they not been related to the battlefield by shots of watching veterans and by a whole series of admirable angled shots of the statues and markers on Gettysburg field. It is noteworthy that what might have been the dull portions of the record — the construction, housing and victualing arrangements — were given very intelligent, brief handling." Movie Makers, Dec. 1938, 619-620.
"The Making of Canadian Homespun, by Duncan Mac D. Little, ACL, is a distinctly novel cinematographic achievement because it is an al fresco industrial film depicting a process of manufacture that normally is largely performed indoors. In addition, it is a uniquely valuable contribution to folk way records, listing, as it does, in a lovingly made film inventory, the steps involved in the production of homespun cloth by a geographically sequestered population which maintains one of the last stands of homely folk craft on the North American continent. Mr. Little's picture was made in summer in a region lacking facilities for indoor lighting. It compresses seasonal activities into the space of a few days, showing sheep shearing, preparation of the wool and its spinning and weaving. For this purpose, a spinning wheel and loom were set up in the open by the country people of the locality, who cooperated happily with Mr. Little. Not only is this ancient process preserved in an exceptional film record but, at the same time, there are offered many character studies of exceedingly individual French Canadians." Movie Makers, Dec. 1935, 551, 553.
"In 1921, Sheeler and Strand collaborated to make Manhatta, considered to be the first American avant-garde film. Inspired by Walt Whitman's poem "Mannahatta," which is quoted in one of the intertitles, the film portrays life in New York City in sixty-five nonnarrative shots. The sequences display one epic day in Lower Manhattan, beginning with a ferry approaching the city in early morning and ending with a sunset view from a skyscraper. Shot from extreme camera angles, the film captures the dynamic qualities of the new metropolis" Museum of Modern Art (New York), Department of Film.
"Unity of theme is the striking characteristic of Jose M. Pavon's Menemsha — and its Achilles heel as well. The producer, in a series of beautifully composed scenes that seem to ebb and flow with the surging rhythm of the sea, has extracted the essence of a small fishing town on the coast of Martha's Vineyard. For almost its entire length, the film emphasizes the salt and the sea and the strange, lovely things of the ocean littoral with a feeling that Mr. Pavon accents brilliantly in double exposures of the shimmering sea water sweeping over even the deserted wharves. Unfortunately, Menemsha's unity breaks down a little as Mr. Pavon's camera roams too far afield and brings in elements that suggest fresh water and inland life rather than his original theme. A little cutting would tighten up a film that, technically and artistically, is a delicate and creative delight." Movie Makers, Dec. 1949, 454.
"In producing Mexican Fiestas, the Hiram Percy Maxim Award winner of 1938, Ralph E. Gray has written a triumphant climax to his sympathetic and beautiful studies of Mexican life. Last year, in the Ten Best winner, Primitive Patzcuaro, he trained his camera quietly but observingly on the small scope of a single village. This year, in the dynamic sweep and action of Mexican Fiestas, Mr. Gray has ranged the length and breadth of Mexico to record with amazing vitality the thrilling ceremonies of a people at play. Here is an authentic documentation of religious and quasi religious holiday customs, both pagan and Christian. Here the simple mind of the Indian peasant interprets history and theology in his own colorful and often childlike idiom. Here, in the words of the film's own preface, "brave fireworks still exorcise the Devil; bright costumes do honor to the Diety, and exciting dances revive in antic splendor the ancient folklore of Aztec, Moor and Spanish Christian. To this striking and turbulent subject matter, Mr. Gray has brought a photographic skill which but rarely returned him anything less than perfection. The film's episodes, well edited and shrewdly titled, march smoothly onward to an amazing climax of pageantry and beauty. Important as a document of ethnologic value, entertaining as a drama of people at play, Mexican Fiestas is a worthy winner of the Maxim Award for 1938." Movie Makers, Dec. 1938, 596-597.
Total Pages: 16
Amateur Cinema