"Amateur filmmaker and cinema historian H.A.V. Bulleid plays up slapstick and detective serial conventions in a comedy about a hapless private investigator for whom even the simplest tasks are fraught with mistakes and misunderstandings. Upon leaving his house one fine morning, Horatio Spink is asked to cash a cheque by his long-suffering wife. Heading straight to the bank, he collects the money, which he precedes to count on the street in full view of the local pickpocket. Unaware that he is now £15 lighter, Horatio walks home through the streets of Derby, bumping into the pickpocket outside his home. Startled, the boy runs away and Horatio gives chase. Given the slip by the pickpocket, who launches the cash over the houses, our hero ends up in a neighbour's backyard with a glamorous young sunbather. And having been spotted by a neighbour, Horatio seems destined for trouble. How will he get out of this one? What will his wife do? And will he ever get that money back?" (EAFA Database).
"The Horn, which hepeats should not confuse with Dorothy Baker's epic Young Man With a Horn, is nevertheless a yarn about a jazz trumpeter—and, like Miss Baker's Rick Martin, one whose life ends in death after he loses his stuff. It is a swift, savage, tender and tragic tale which Dominic Mumolo (himself a professional musician) tells here. And to its telling he has brought with amazing proficiency every resource—imagery, acting, music, speech and pace—of high motion picture drama. Herb Willis plays the part of the manic and despairing trumpeter as if to the manner born. His miming makes this difficult and decisive role wholly believable, while his voice (used not as narration, but in a musing, stream-of-consciousness flashback) is by turns tender, pathetic, searing and passionate. Musical phrases, prepared especially for the picture by Frank Worth, add immeasurably to the film's power. The Horn is a stirring and trenchant study in human emotions. If you dislike having your heartbeat aroused, you'd better avoid it. But if not...then The Horn is a movie made for you" PSA Journal, Jan. 1955, 49.
"A half-horse, half-man pursues a young woman who turns herself into the same figure. Using a spare animation style, Straiton deals with a mythological subject that reveals his personal sense of humour. A beautiful film, set to original music, that is stunning in its simplicity." Canadian Filmmakers Distribution Centre.
A brief film showing horses gathering around a country house.
Hortobagy is a strange title, but only because the film comes from Hungary. Szilagyi Attila of Hungary shows us the plains of his country and the life of the Hungarian Cowboy and the Hungarian Sheepherders. The film is in black-and-white and is a very interesting 16 minutes about people, costumes, and a land that very few of us have an opportunity to see. The filming is well done and the sound track is in Hungarian," PSA Journal, Mar. 1970, 43.
"Working with the difficult subject of machinery in motion and under actual factory conditions. Bay State Film Productions, Inc., succeeded, with remarkable effectiveness, in producing a film of such simple clarity and orderly progression as to make it an excellent teaching medium. The picture, designed and executed to acquaint a company's salesmen with the background production steps to the things they sell, is lacking in none of the essential details that go to make it effective. The story is told by a general foundry superintendent in an easy, pleasing manner. Although of highly technical subject matter, the film arouses interest in average audiences as well as in the individuals handling the products made within Building 100 of the Chapman Valve Company of Indian Orchard, Mass., who commissioned the picture." Movie Makers, Dec. 1944, 495.
"'Hot Water,' by Earl Cochran, S.A.C., of Colorado Springs, is 375 feet of 8mm. Kodachrome. The subject covers with considerable thoroughness a visit to the geysers. The photographer, although he has been making motion pictures but a year and a half, shows plenty of promise for even more work out of the ordinary when he gets better acquainted with problems of exposure and color. That is not said in any manner of derogation of the work that took the nod for the present subject." American Cinematographer, Jan. 1939, 17.
"Using the moving camera technique, the audience is carried from the first, hesitant beginnings of the Civil War, through the major campaigns, to the inevitable ending of this bloodiest of all American conflicts. Using old wood block prints for his pictorial material, Edward McCarthy has done a remarkable job of breathing life into this segment of history" PSA Journal, Oct. 1963, 41.
"The 1938 Seattle film, shot by Iwao Matsushita, features chubby cats playing, eating, and being cuddled by their humans." K5 News.
Total Pages: 203
Amateur Cinema