Still from The Countess Receives via EAFA.
United Kingdom
English
00:24:54
600 ft
16mm
B&W and Colour
Silent
"The first film produced by Laurie and Stuart Day in which they presented their holiday footage with a 'prologue and epilogue' and, if possible, with a theme. In this example, holiday footage taken by Laurie and Stuart Day in the Austrian Tyrol is prefaced by and concludes with scenes featuring Laurie and Stuart Day at home in Stoke on Trent in Staffordshire"(EAFA Database).
"[W]e read about the desirability of giving one’s holiday films shape. So since then all our efforts have had a prologue and epilogue, and if possible a theme […]. This was first noticeable with a film of Austria called The Countess Receives, which was the result of reading a charming romance by Cecil Roberts developed from an advertisement by an Austrian Countess offering paying guests to her castle: “Sun, wild flowers, warm bathing, and dancing in the moonlight”. As I actually saw this advertisement shortly after reading the book it naturally suggested the framework of the resultant “visit” (Day 1958).
Day, Laurie. “Our First Movie.” Amateur Movie-Maker. May (1958): 248-49.
This film is part of the Institute of Amateur Cinematographers Collection held by the East Anglian Film Archive, Norwich, UK.
Institute of Amateur Cinematographers Collection, East Anglian Film Archive
"The film begins with Laurie Day reading a novel, Cecil Roberts’ Pamela’s Spring Song. She reads a paragraph in the novel, which includes a reference to a newspaper advertisement placed by an Austrian Count and Countess, offering rooms to paying guests at their castle in the Tyrol. Stuart Day passes her a newspaper. Laurie Day glances at the paper and reads a similarly worded advertisement placed by an Austrian Countess. She draws her husband’s attention to the similarity between the two and persuades him to holiday in the Austrian Tyrol. The footage shot in the Tyrol and during an excursion to Bavaria is followed by another scene in the Days' garden, in which Laurie Day models her Tyrolean clothing souvenirs for her friend and explains to her how the holiday came about and the places they visited. The film concludes with Laurie’s friend comparing the advertisements in Cecil Roberts’ novel and the newspaper, before she begins reading the novel. The holiday film includes footage of sightseeing attractions and beauty spots in the Tyrol; street scenes and people encountered in the Tyrol as well as on a return trip to Oberammergau. Sequences in the holiday film include shots of: the Tyrolean castle near Kitzbűhel in which the Days stay; street scenes in Kitzbűhel (including a funeral cortege at the end of the holiday footage); activities on the lake at Schwarzsee; a cable car journey to Hahnenkamm on the outskirts of Kitzbűhel; an excursion to Innsbruck and the lake at Achensee; a coach tour through the Salzach valley, with visits to the Johannisberg, the Pasterze Glacier, the Grossglockner and Zell Am See; an excursion to Bavaria, including visits to the castle at Neuschwanstein and Oberammergau; the local population in Kitzbűhel in regional clothes" (EAFA Database).
Amateur Cinema