"A cruise on the liner 'Atlantis'; from Tilbury to the Norwegian fjords." (EAFA Database)
"An amateur film made by and starring the husband and wife duo, John & Evelyn Kibar. After Mrs. Kibar asks Mr. Kibar to throw away his old collectables, or “junk,” Mr. Kibar begins reflecting on past travels. Only later do we find out this travel sequence is actually just a dream." Chicago Film Archives
"Neither the lead title nor the unpretentious opening scenes — as a small boy is seen building a crude toy boat — prepares the spectator for the pure enchantment of One Summer Day. For, almost unrealized even as it happens, the film melts with incredible smoothness from live action into animation and make-believe. The toy boat becomes a pirate galleon of old, a flower a maiden in distress and a twig her gallant suitor, as there unfolds a tale of romantic derring-do. Under cover of darkness, the pirates plot to kidnap the lady, whose protector, a humble fisherman, is away at his nets. He returns, only to be bested in the ensuing sword play, yet, undaunted, he still gives chase. With the help of a friendly whale, he overtakes the pirates, frees his lady and, as the galleon goes down in flames, the lovers return to shore, to live happily ever after. Then, as quietly as it all began, we are back at the edge of the sunlit pond. The boy lifts his boat from the water and turns homeward. And yet, through the true magic of the movies, we have entered for a brief moment childhood's enchanted world. Highly imaginative camera handling, technical skill and a keen sense of cinematic values make this an outstanding example of personal filming. The musical accompaniment and sound effects (including the cling-clang-cling of clashing swords) complement the picture perfectly. Glen Turner has added a new dimension to amateur filming with this simple story so superbly told in its brief 350 feet of 8mm. film." Movie Makers, Dec. 1949, 452-453.
"Harriet Gerry shot this film during an automobile journey from Rosedale to Williams Lake and Soda Creek on the Cariboo Highway, and part of the return trip via the Dog Creek Road, in the summer of 1941" British Columbia Archives.
"To realize that paddling bow position in a canoe can be the sole subject of an entire film should surprise any reasonable movie maker. But when you consider that Paddle Up Front! is a physical-education teaching film, it is not so surprising. Naturally, the continuity treatment is repetitious, as all teaching-film plans are likely to be. But C. Roy Terry, jr., production director, ably demonstrates that the person who occupies the forward position in a canoe has an important job when it is done properly. The photography by Ellis A. Ring is workmanlike, particularly in cross lighted scenes which point up the muscle movements in various strokes by the paddler. The didactic narrative seems unnecessarily obvious in places, but it probably is justified when one considers the specific purpose of the film." Movie Makers, Dec. 1950, 468.
"Porpoise Oil presents a cleverly planned and charming story that shows how the Indians of the upper St. Lawrence region live today and how their ancestors obtained oil from the porpoise of the neighboring bays. Dr. Leighton was fortunate enough to find an old Indian who, in his younger days, had been a champion porpoise hunter and the picture tells in Kodachrome how the fish was shot and the oil tried. This constitutes an important document of Indian craft that, otherwise, in time would be lost to the world. A touch of humor throughout and a surprise ending serve to spice the film and to make it the excellent study that it is instead of a routine record film. The continuity is well developed and the photography is of good quality." Movie Makers, Dec. 1937, 630.
"Rainbow Fantasy, in the words of Charles C. Hammack, is "an attempt to produce — not a conventional travelog — but more a story of adventure, a hiking adventure to what is probably one of the least visited of our national monuments, Rainbow Bridge, in southeastern Utah." In achieving this goal, Mr. Hammack has been largely and creditably successful. For him and his young wife, Rainbow Bridge takes on the aura of a lost horizon, a Shangri La protected from the outside world by the blistering desert heat and the brutal desert rocks. He brings this overtone of feeling to his film, both through his imaginative camera treatment of the subject and the intentionally dramatic acting of the two travelers. Mr. Hammack's is a new name in Ten Best competition, but it is one which we believe will be heard again."Movie Makers, Dec. 1943, 478.
"Amateur filmmaker, cinema historian and railway engineer H.A.V. Bulleid pays tribute to his dual loves of cinema and rail in an experimental short film. Bulleid uses 'metric editing' - the first of Russian director Sergei Eisenstein's 'methods of montage' - in which cuts are dictated by the number and sequence of frames, not what occurs on screen. First, Bulleid pays tribute to cinema, featuring the facades of picturehouses around Derby in static shots, which build to a dazzling crescendo of short shots. The section on trains features longer views of the railyards in operation, with trains shunting and coming into the station, before a final section focuses on trams, following electric streetcars as they move down urban streets" (EAFA Database).
"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.
"doc. a fantasia"/avant-garde documentary Risveglio, regista Vittorio Cossato, collaboratore tecnico Antonio Marzari. Il film presenta in una successione di inquadrature rigorosamente fisse, il contrasto tra il passato e il presente espresso talora attraverso simboli (come nella prima parte l'uomo che, visto di schiena cammina per un terreno paludoso, triste e squallido) ma quasi sempre per visioni di natura, di nuove generazioni al lavoro nel traffico dei porti, delle strade e nelle adunate. Vi sono dei passaggi freschi e il film nel complesso non manca di una certa omogeneità ritmica. Awakening, director Vittorio Cossato, technical collaborator Antonio Marzari. The film presents, in a succession of rigorously fixed shots, the contrast between the past and the present, sometimes expressed through symbols (as in the first part, the man who, seen from behind, walks through a sad and bleak, marshy terrain), but almost always through visions of nature, of new generations at work in the traffic of ports, roads and rallies. There are some fresh passages and the film in its entirety does not lack a certain rhythmic homogeneity. —Il Ventuno 29 (Review of the G.U.F. of Venice), June 1935, p. 16
Total Pages: 12
Amateur Cinema