Movie Makers (Jan-Dec 1953)

MOVIE MAKERS 217 CloseupS— What filmers are doing What with summer vacations, and the presence in New York City during late weeks of two big conventions (the Shriners and Jehovah's Witnesses), we have had a fine and friendly stream of visitors recently at ACL headquarters. As far as we were concerned, this was swell; for the weather has been far too hot and humid to really enjoy anything beyond visiting. But what our visitors must think of New York's climate we scarely dare to contemplate. With the Nobles — who preceded the Witnesses into this weather-worn city — there came Edmund Shively, ACL, and Mrs. Shively, from Mifflinburg, Pa. And if you think that Mrs. Shively came along simply for the ride, you'd better think again. What with four cameras (two sills and two movies), Mrs. S. was quite as shutter happy as her husband. The Shrine convention brought also to the Big City another welcome visitor in the person of Victor Thornton, ACL, of Fort Worth, Texas. Mr. T., accompanied by his wife, his young son and a posse of pleasant friends descended on headquarters by appointment one afternoon, and we all took the rest of the day off to screen his film of a recent Caribbean cruise. And what a cruise! There was, to begin with, this big, beautiful and white-hulled ship, the Alcoa Clipper; sails out of New Orleans with general cargo for Gulf and West Indies ports, and returns 17 days later with a load of bauxite for Alcoa's aluminum mills. And not at all as an afterthought the Clipper also provides de luxe, air-cooled accommodations for exactly forty five passengers. So what happens? What happens is that exactly forty five congenial folks in and around Fort Worth put their heads (and their oil wells) together and simply bought out the ship for one entire voyage. Such goings on! Even before sailing the Clipper's captain had been named an Admiral in the Texas Navy — ■ JIM WATSON, ACL, right, Cathy Moss and John Dowell toast their success at a party marking 1952 Ten Best award to Man With The Box. an appointment which was authenticated by a formal document signed by Texas Governor Alan Shivers. The skipper (who apparently knew his Texans) countered this one by flying the Texas State flag and a Fort Worth Yacht Club burgee from the ship's port signal halliards each time the Clipper entered a foreign port. Drove other mariners nuts trying to find these strange ensigns in their code books! Well, Mr. Thornton, with inexhaustible energy and a fresh imagination, recorded on 16mm. film (2000 feet of it) all of these gay goings on — -as well as the colorful countries which they visited. And then, to round out his picture, he sounded the whole thing with a 25 mil magnetic stripe on film. Quite a cruise . . . and quite a picture of it, too! Texans, of course, are not the only folks to take cruises and make movies of them — although obviously they do both of these things bigger and better than the rest of us. However, Geneva Leilich, ACL. of Chicago, has been giving these twin operations a determined and skillful try, making up in the continuity of her cruising what it might lack in concentrated ebullience. A registered nurse, Miss Leilich had the good sense this spring to book herself an elderly, private patient who, after two years in the hospital, suddenly decided he wanted to take a cruise. And, since this spunky old party was crippled from the waist down, he decided also that he wanted Miss L. to go along to look after him and his wheelchair. So what happened to them? What happened was that the patient so enjoyed his first trip (it was on the sleek cruising vessel Silverstar and also to the West Indies) that he made two more voyages in immediate succession — accompanied, of course, by our heroine. And, so help us, they are even now on a fourth swing around the sunshine belt! All of which we learned recently when Miss Leilich stopped by the office, gallantly squired by the Silverstar's master, Capt. Alfred Leidig. to whom she was eager to show her trip pictures. Miss L., by the way, has been named the Captain's Lady, an honorary post in which she serves as the skipper's hostess at the many social functions aboard the Silverstar. You know those big, two-part trailer trucks that are used so much these days on interstate freight hauls? Well, the railroads (naturally) have not been happy about this sort of competition, and now, after years of complaints. Impossible distances become close-ups Prlmar Reflex Photo "normal 105 mm. lens LONG DISTANCE LENSES FOCAL LENGTHS TO 1000 mm! Used by the world's foremost explorers, scientists and news services, Astro lenses have been making photographic history all over the globe. 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