Home Movies (1943)

HOME MOVIES Published in Hollywood MARCH 1943 One of the 3nY inte rest;t "9 an;, C'0Se«PS ?n ... Jun9'e ft,„_, . V IT is a coincidence that following Fredrick Foster's fine article on zoo filming in the February issue, that the Movie of the Month for March should be a zoo picture. "Jungle Parade" is no epic but it emphasizes in picture treatment all that was touched upon by Foster in his article on movie zoography, and proves that it really is possible to turn out more than ordinary zoo pictures when possessing an instinctive flair for continuity. "Jungle Parade" is a production in 8mm. Kodachrome by Fred Evans of Los Angeles. The picture runs 175 feet. Locale for the splendid animal scenes is the famed San Diego Zoo and title for the picture was suggested in the interesting book written by Belle J. Benchley, the Zoo's noted curator. Evans' picture is not just a series of movie snapshots of animals strung together hit or miss fashion. There's a logical beginning and end with a light story thread woven among the carefully filmed animal scenes. The picture begins with professionallike introduction in well executed titles which will be described later. Ooenin^ scene shows a family — husband, wife and a small boy — seated in the living room. The husband is reading a book and a closeup shows it to be Belle Benchley's book, "My Life In A Man-Made Jungle." The wife suggests they take their little boy to see the "man-made jungle." The husband agrees and th;s sequence dissolves into the next, showing the family car starting the journey. The trio reach the zoo, enter the • Frame enlargements from Fred Evans' Movie of the Month, a record of a trip to the 100 in which a light continuity is blended with rare shots of animals and birds. MOVIE oitke MONTH gate, and from this point we see the various animals from the visitors' viewpoint. Not infrequently Evans has cut in, between the animal shots, brief closeups of the trio's feet walking to or away from the camera — a cinematic effect that overcomes any possibility of monotony in the subject and reminds the spectator that the little family are present seeing these same animals. Full shots of the family group are never allowed to intrude in the animal sequences except in the subtle manner already mentioned, and in one scene where the 75 little boy was pictured seated on a huge tortoise. Notable, too, is the skill by which Evans avoided the bars and netting of cages in all animal shots. A highlight is the climaxing sequence portraying a demonstration of trained seals, which is a daily feature for visitors of the zoo. Here spectators are shown for the first time. Of interest is the manner in which Evans filmed this sequence— not from one camera angle, but from various angles and with lenses of varying focal lengths so that the O Continued on Page 87