Film Record: Blades and Sails

Still image from Blades and Sails in Movie Makers, Dec. 1951, 392.

Date produced: 1951

Filmmaker(s):

William Messner

Languages:

English

Length:

650 ft

Format:

16mm

Colour:

Kodachrome

Sound Notes:

Silent

Sound:

With sound on tape.

Awards/Recognition:

ACL Ten Best 1951

Description:

"There are precious few sails in this production which William Messner has called Blades and Sails. But there is a powerful lot of cinema in its smooth 650 feet of Kodachrome. And there is a wealth of flashing blades. The blades are bandied about by Ernest Riedel, a gaunt length of rawhide and muscle, otherwise known as the national, international and Olympic canoe champion. During the smoothly plotted course of Riedel's exposition of canoeing techniques. Mr. Messner demonstrates his own championship calibre behind the camera. His angles are so right as to seem effortless — though you suspect they're not. His follow-through is as deft as a sweeping blade and his cutting as crisp as a speeding birchbark. Blades and Sails is informative, entertaining and sound cinema — which is quite a combination in any man's movie." Movie Makers, Dec. 1951, 410.

Resources:

The film placed first in the "sports class" of a film contest sponsored by the Mineola State Fair in 1952 (Movie Makers, Oct. 1952, 279).

Featuring the American canoeist Ernest Riedel (1901-1983).

Subjects:

• Locomotion
•           Canoes and canoeing

Genre:

• Documentary

Form:

• Short

Screenings:

• Screened by the Amateur Movie Society of Bergen County in December of 1951: Bergen County, N.J.
• Screened by the Amateur Movie Society of Milwaukee in 1952: Milwaukee, WI
• Screened by the Irvington Boat Club in 1959 (The Irvington Gazette, May 7, 1959, 2): Irvington, N.Y.

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