"Here, in Duck Soup, is the true life blood of amateur movie making — the family film. Since the hobby's very beginning in 1923, and consistently through the years since that time, more persons have bought more amateur movie cameras to take family films than for all other reasons put together. And yet look at the results! Or better still, don't look at them — for they are on the average an incoherent hodgepodge of over and underexposure, unsteady camera handling and wild panning on disconnected mementos of familiar milestones. Duck Soup, for those filmers who are lucky enough to see it, should change all that. For here is a well planned and crisply executed family film which has a beginning, a middle and an end. It has also precise camera work, fluid sequencing, and lighting on the children which will delight the heart of all home filmers. Do not, however, let these disciplined excellencies mislead you. For, above all else, Duck Soup is no stodgy exercise in family record keeping. These people had fun! Look . . . Duck Soup is a rollicking, rambunctious saga of what happens in a household when Pop, charging recklessly that the trials of homekeeping are "duck soup," is deserted for a few days by his deserving wife. What happens, as Pop gets the works from a quintet of utterly engaging youngsters, shouldn't happen (as they say) to a dog. There is stolid, well-meaning Tim, who, returning from the corner store, mangles a loaf of bread beyond all human use; there is demure and lovely Ellen, who plays the bride with Mom's best lace tablecloth; there are Greg and Kevin, impish and angelic twins, who roughhouse their way through the afternoon nap, bathing, haircuts and countless other high-spirited adventures. And there is, finally, Gary, the baby, who bawls like a foghorn and is Pop's particular problem-of-the-day. Duck Soup, in recounting these hilarious misadventures, is not a "great" film in the majestic sense of the word. (Majesty would be impossible in the face of that Lawler brood!) But it is family filming of the finest sort. It is warm, winning and alive with good spirits. Duck Soup is the best of the Ten Best for 1952 — and it richly deserves the Maxim Memorial Award which it has won." Movie Makers, 1952, 323-324.
"a soggetto breve"/short fiction
"Footage captured by cinephotographer George Sewell, showcasing the results achieved using Dufaycolor film stock." (EAFA Database)
"Structurally sustained by only the slimmest of plot incidents, Dummy Walks Out is in essence an etude in cinematics, sparkling with brilliant photography and bravura with striking angles. An evening of bridge, consistently bad cards to one player and, in time, the dummy walks out — such is the simple scheme of this masterpiece in miniature. Throughout its brief footage, however, the producers, M. P. Gamber. ACL, and Walter Mills, ACL, have contrived a gleaming glossary of cinematic imagination which delights the eye and beggars analysis. Near shot, closeup and extreme closeup (in several scenes, a single playing card fills the entire screen) follow one another with graphic beauty. Dummy Walks Out is a brilliant answer to the timid souls who "alibi" that the Eights can't take it." Movie Makers, Dec. 1935, 534, 550.
An elderly couple visits the beach, where they observe young people engaged in sports and romance. These sights prompt the couple to reflect on the story of how they met at the same beach in their younger years.
"A man is practicing for a part in a play by covering his eyes with bandages and going through his daily life pretending to be blind." Sacramento Public Library.
"Eastman Kodak Company prize for the finest example of photography in any out-of-door picture whether it wins a cash prize or not was awarded to Tatsuichi Okamoto, Maysuyama, Japan, for 'Early Summer,' 1 reel. This is a different subject than the one which won him second prize." American Cinematographer, Jan. 1933, 25.
"The main agenda of the prewar farmer's movement was struggle against landowners. Prokino also considered this as their prime concern. The main title sequence and the latter part of the film have unfortunately been lost. While we cannot see its entire structure, we can still get a glimpse of it from this surviving short."
"East Coast, produced by the Rockville Cinema Club, is a picture that keeps the most jaded critic interested in its outcome. Carefully staged and convincingly acted, this story of the eternal triangle has an original twist. The production shows painstaking attention to story detail and photography, that leaves with the audience the feeling of having seen a finished picture. The acting was far above the average and shows the result of the club's previous experiences in making this type of picture. The sets were largely laid out of doors, but, both indoors and out, the exposure and lighting were handled in a most finished and competent manner. Smooth and logical, the scenarization, editing and titling represent a vast amount of careful preparation." Movie Makers, Dec. 1936, 542.
A film about a mother who thinks her family has won a competition in their local newspaper. When a series of unfortunate events happen after, the mother is relieved to find out she was only dreaming.
Total Pages: 203
Amateur Cinema