"At the Sandpits is perhaps Crawley's first completed work, produced when he was a teenager; Crawley went on to make many award-winning amateur films before turning professional in the 1940s as a producer of industrial films. Employing rapid cutting, trick photography, and imaginative scenarios, At the Sandpits conveys a strong sense of dynamic action in a short film about a family picnic. The film begins by showing the preparation of sandwiches for a picnic; after showing the meal in a few deft shots, the adults are seen relaxing, while the kids and pets, shot from extreme low angle in slow motion, run toward the sandpits. The film continues with short but carefully constructed sequences of the kids pretending to be buried alive in the sand, having a baseball game, and then returning home, tired. Finally, the film concludes with a strange dream sequence, employing trick photography, in which three girls appear decapitated behind a sheet" Tepperman, 173.
"Twin boys wreak havoc on a park when their dad falls asleep on their picnic." Sacramento Public Library.
"James Watson has made a neat family picture which should be in constant demand by his son and his friends. Mother and son walk in the woods prepared to have a picnic lunch. The story is introduced with Walt Disney's Peter Pan. After reading the book, Mother takes a snooze and Sonny goes for a walk. He comes upon Peter Pan with his flute, the Good Fairy, and a bewitched woman, in the woods. Meantime, his Mother is searching for him. After they join and walk together we again meet these persons in their normal atmosphere and then realize Sonny had supplied the imagination to cloak them as characters in the story-book" PSA Journal, Nov. 1957, 33.
"The Model Anesthesiologist is a clam bake purely for fun by a group of the medical brotherhood who are having a sort of jam session in their own way with their own tools, and they are willing to let the camera record it all for posterity. They sing, they clown, and they poke holes in the back of some poor victim as they burlesque their workaday world" PSA Journal, Sept. 1966, 34.
"Irwin Sharpe and Cye Landy have gone back to film beginnings in composing their engaging little etude, Picnic. The fundamental of their selection is the old reliable device of the chase sequence. Beginning quietly with a simple family picnic, the producers soon overlay on this bucolic subject a mysterious kidnapping and its resultant chase. The cutting, camera positions and tempo of this climactic sequence show a true understanding of cinematic expression." Movie Makers, Dec. 1947, 538-539.
"Film depicts a club picnic held at a Eaton Hall Farm. Film includes title cards. Footage includes families at picnic, playing games, canoeing, swimming and people filming with motion picture cameras" Archives of Ontario.
"George Mesaros, who has demonstrated his competence as a maker of good movies in other fields, turns to humor in this film comment on wartime conditions. The point of the story — for it is the foray and not the tale that is pointless — turns on providing for a picnic in the yard of the home. While the master of the house is shopping with ration points, the skeptical family gets, from the Victory garden, cooks and eats the alfresco feast, at the end of which Father — who really did find something in the shops — returns with loaded arms. First class Kodachrome pictures and a well knit continuity are used by Mr. Mesaros to bring to American audiences something of the spirit of easy and natural outdoor fun with food that for so long characterized the Europe of happy memory. Some of the scenes of cooking are so realistic that one almost reaches for what is shown on the screen." Movie Makers, Dec. 1943, 478.
"Wilbur W. Krimpen's Rowdy Clam Bake is a sure source of delight for all lovers of food, drink or shuffleboard. It is a charmingly informal treatment of a clam bake through the successive stages of food preparation, cocktail time, shuffleboard (to whet appetites) and, ultimately, food consumption. In addition to its entertainment value, Rowdy Clam Bake rates high for its informative aspect, as it provides a step by step study of what constitutes a successful clam bake. The ingredients involved will not be listed here, lest the reader's credulity be strained. However, the film's parting shot, a closeup of an Alka-Seltzer container, is indicative of the epic dimensions of the feast." Movie Makers, Dec. 1948, 491-492.
A group of families takes separate vacations – the husbands go fishing, while the wives and children choose to hold a picnic. Both vacationing groups encounter obstacles that disrupt their plans.
"Color film of a family picnic and riding in a model T." Church History Library.
Amateur Cinema