Film Record: Riches from the Sea

Image from Movie Makers, Dec. 1938, 596.

Date produced: 1938

Filmmaker(s):

T. J. Courtney

Languages:

English

Length:

400 ft

Format:

16mm

Colour:

B&W

Sound Notes:

Silent

Awards/Recognition:

ACL Ten Best 1938 - General Class

Description:

"The story, older than the craft of lobster fishing, of a ten year old boy earning his own first few pennies is told beautifully and sensitively in Riches from the Sea, by T. J. Courtney. As simple and human as the life of those it pictures, this film captures the spirit of the young fisher boy as he goes about his work of baiting and dropping lobster pots. They are his own, just given by his father. The money he makes from selling the lobsters he catches, some of which he boils on the beach, is also his own. Finally, when the last one is purchased by tourists along the dusty road and the boy races to the village, clutching his coins, to buy the coveted store window toy, the picture swells to its climax, fully equal to the importance of the occasion in the youngster's life. Lovely angles and expert composition bring beauty in black and white to the photography, and the acting, by Philip Boutilier and his little sister Lorraine, of Seabright, Nova Scotia, is unaffected and agreeable. This photoplay illustrates how completely the locale and life of an interesting community can be conveyed by threading it on a simple story of human nature." Movie Makers, Dec. 1938, 597.

Resources:

Discussed by Courtney in "We Spent Three Cents" (Movie Makers, April 1939, 170, 184).

The film was available in the ACL's Club Film Library.

Record of the film in Nova Scotia Archives' filmography.

Locations:

• Nova Scotia, Canada (Filming)

Subjects:

• Art and Recreation
• Locomotion
•      Boats and Boating
• Nature
•      Water
•           Bodies of Water
• Recreation
•      Sports
•           Fishing
• North America
•      Canada

Genre:

• Family

Form:

• Short

Tags:

Screenings:

• Screened by the New York 8mm. Motion Picture Club in 1939: New York City, N.Y.
• Screened by the Indianapolis Amateur Movie Club in 1939: Indianapolis, IN
• Screened by the Hartford Cinema Club in 1939 and 1953: Hartford, CT
• Screened by the Rockford Movie Makers in 1940: Rockford, IL
• Screened by the Bell Laboratories Motion Picture Camera Club in 1941: New York City, N.Y.
• Screened by the Passaic Cinema Club in 1942: Passaic, N.J.
• Screened by the Metropolitan Motion Picture Club in 1943: New York City, N.Y.
• Screened by the Amateur Motion Picture Club of St. Louis in 1946: St. Louis, MO
• Screened by the Australian Amateur Cine Society in 1949: Sydney, Australia
• Screened by the Christchurch Movie Club in 1953: Christchurch, New Zealand

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