'Silent film shot by Miss Philippa Miller recording scenes of people and activities around the 1930s-style bay-fronted terraced houses and gardens in a small residential close at different seasons of the year. Miss Miller lived in Norwich so the film has provisionally been linked to Norwich, but identification of the location would be welcome. The film captures the relaxed and friendly relationship between the women, men and children filmed and Miss Miller behind the camera. From the film stock marks it appears that the film was shot between 1965 and 1967.
All but two of the scenes are filmed outdoors. Indoors we see four women sitting together looking at two boxed costume dolls and stroking a black poodle, and a brief scene of an elderly lady. The exterior scenes were filmed during winter, spring and summer and capture people's activities and domestic chores around their homes and gardens, their comings and goings, and various pet dogs. Scenes include: women clearing a path through snow; a row of ten sparrows on a ledge above a snowy roof; a man washing a car with cloth and bucket of water as laundry billows on a washing line; a woman dressed to go out in hat and coat carrying bags; children playing with a dog, a football, a toy pram and a toy tractor; a bride in white outfit with bouquet standing with a man, perhaps her father, and a woman chauffeur in peaked cap helping people into a car as they leave for a wedding; crocuses; another man washing a car; a boy on a tricycle; a knife grinder at work, operating his machine by treadle within a handcart with large wheels; a man mowing the lawn a man painting the front gate of a spring garden; a young man and woman; a man up a ladder cleaning windows; women with two children in matching coats; a house under construction with the timber frame of the upper storey and roof open; a woman hanging out sheets on a washing line; a woman shaded beneath a floral parasol standing in front of flowering rose bushes; a woman setting off on a bicycle; a woman holding a baby; children sitting on a lawn and playing with modelling clay; a young man; a woman at a window; a chaffinch; rose bushes; another lady dressed in hat and coat with bag going out; a woman playing ball with the black poodle; a man using an axe to chop at the roots in a hole around a tree stump' (EAFA).
"Mainly shows trip(s) up the Stikine by riverboat and placer mining activity [nearby]. Includes: waterfront view of Wrangell, Alaska; views of and from riverboat Hazel B No. 2 going upriver; the Three Sisters (islands in the river); riverboat at Telegraph Creek and barge at Dease Lake, and local activity; forest fire & fire-fighting; shots of Fokker F-11AHB flying boat designated CF-AUV (at dock and taking off) and a Fairchild floatplane; aerial shots in the vicinity; wreckage of aircraft CF-AUV (which crashed at McDame Lake, 13 July 1935); general scenery and wildlife. The placer mining footage, which is interspersed, includes shots of a small mining camp, sluice works, panning, hydraulic monitor operation, jerry-built mining equipment in use, etc. [The footage] was shot [ca. 1933-35] by Joseph J. Jackson, whose company "Three J's Placer Mines, Inc." prospected near the confluence of Thibert Creek with Dease Lake in [the years 1931-35]." (BC Archives)
Una mujer camina por el paisaje entre ruidos. Hace fuego para calentarse un poco de comida pero un sonido la invade. Se encuentra con un soldado muerto dentro del bosque.
A woman walks through a landscape while noises are heard. She makes a fire to warm some food but a sound overcomes her. She finds a dead soldier inside the woods.
"Among the Ten Best, Another Day, by Leslie Thatcher, ACL, is a splendid example of the relatively simple avant garde film, so popular among European amateurs but so seldom attempted by even the advanced workers of the American continent. Set against the background of Toronto, Another Day portrays in semi abstract fashion the dramatic changes which overtake the life and tempo of a great city as Saturday crosses the noontime deadline from work to play. Mr. Thatcher's conception of this theme is clean cut, his execution suave and technically brilliant. Dissolves, wipeoffs and double exposure are blended intelligently with matchless straight photography to enhance the beauty of striking angles and compositions. With the subject matter of such films ready to the hand of every amateur cameraman, it is a strange phenomenon that to date they are not attempted more often." Movie Makers, Dec. 1934, 513, 534.
"Ella Paul did not try to cover the whole of Mexico, as do so many who visit that fascinating country. In fact she chose to limit her study to one small locale — the town of Patzcuaro and the activities on its lake. This primitive yet industrious community is recorded in pleasing compositions and with sympathetic appreciation of its sunny warmth and charm. The familiar butterfly nets, dugout canoes and the heroic statue of Morelos are all there in Beneath Mexican Skies; but Mrs. Paul's camera gives them a fresh treatment." Movie Makers, Dec. 1950, 466.
"Documentary on smoke pollution and the effects it has on people's health." (EAFA Database)
"...in which flow fast visions of the Virgilian city, temples monuments palaces frescoes particular and total, boats on the Mincio and aquatic flora" "...in cui scorrono veloci visioni della città virgiliiana, templi monumenti palazzi affreschi particolari e totali, barche sul Mincio e flora acquatica" —Ermes Cavassori, "I film della Mostra," Il popolo del Friuli, Dec. 12, 1942
"In Caineville, Glen H. Turner has now turned his camera on a Western ghost town, and with moments of sheer movie magic, he has brought it to life again. The slow turning by the wind of the leaves of an abandoned school book, and the slow pan to initials carved on a schoolhouse desk, evoke as if he were alive the youngster who carved them. In another scene, done with consummate smoothness, Mr. Turner shows an abandoned street on which a schoolboy, with books over his shoulder, slowly materializes into solid form — and then dissolves again into thin air. Surrounding Caineville always are the brooding mountains and the ever-encroaching river which implacably seeks to destroy the last vestiges of the crumbling village. Caineville is a triumph of imaginative creation over static material." Movie Makers, Dec. 1953, 320.
"A “city symphony” film, produced to encourage Photographic Society of America members to attend their 1963 conference in Chicago, City to See is a surprising film. It combines footage of Chicago with a deadpan commentary that pokes fun commercial travel films: “Chicago is my town,” the narrator says wryly, “and no other town will do.”" Chicago Film Archives
Total Pages: 6
Amateur Cinema