United States
English
01:30:00
Kodachrome
Silent
"The Golden West, as this amateur movie was titled by its maker. whose identifty is lost, tours America's Riviera," as the film rather grandiosely labels the Los Angeles region.... It focuses on public places and seldom the filmmaker's family members, who are onscreen largely to illustrate local customs...." (Scott Simmon) During a ride on a blimp, the filmmaker shoots aerial footage of Los Angeles and area, including some of the local film studios. Other sequences include a visit with B-movie actor George O'Brien, on set at RKO, and a Shriners Parade at the Los Angeles Memorial Colosseum, where floodlights illuminate floats representing various Hollywood studios.
The filmmaker is not credited. In archivist Lynne Kirste's commentary for the excerpt in Treasures 5, he is described as an unidentified amateur filmmaker from Pennsylvania.
Scott Simmon, "The Golden West" [program notes] in Treasures 5: The West, 1898-1938, National Film Preservation Foundation, 2011, 61-63.
Disc 3 of the Treasures 5 box set includes 8 minutes of scenes excerpted from The Golden West.
Don May Collection, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
Amateur Cinema