A determined seesaw rider in Stanley Park.
Canada
English
00:16:00
533 ft
16mm
Kodachrome
Silent
"This film captures (in excellent pre-war Kodachrome) a day in the life of Stanley Park. An early effort at independent documentary production by a group of Vancouver film enthusiasts, including amateur cinematographers Oscar Burritt and Don Lytle. The Coast Films group intended to produce a series of films that could be distributed by the fledgling National Film Board of Canada, but World War II intervened, and this was their sole group effort. Stanley Park was restored in 1987 by the British Columbia Archives." (BC Archives)
"Stanley Park is a languid but lyrical look at flora and fauna, people at play, and the traffic of cars and ships in and around the park. . . . The excerpt shown here [on the AMDB] is the middle third of a 16-minute film [at 24 frames/second]. We see people arriving at the park on a weekend--by streetcar, by car, and on foot. The next sequence shows a very large audience watching a concert performance at Malkin Bowl. (The three young women on stage have probably just finished singing "Three Little Maids from School" from The Mikado.) There's an engaging sequence of children playing on the swings and seesaws; then there's footage of adults playing checkers and tennis, and another large crowd enjoying a cricket match. Scenes along the beach and the seawall (including the Second Beach Pool) lead into shots of boats and steamships sailing near First Narrows, and an ocean liner passing under the recently-completed Lion's Gate Bridge. Charles Marega's handsome Art Deco stone lions, poised at the eastern approach to the bridge, are shown in close-up." -- Seriously Moving Images, July 2025.
"Item AAAA2788 - Stanley Park : [plus out-takes]." Oscar and Dorothy Burritt fonds, British Columbia Archives.
Donald Lytle, telephone conversation with D.J. Duffy, November 11, 1985.
BC Archives, Royal BC Museum
Amateur Cinema