Tweet The James FitzPatrick Travelogues

When I was a young child I remember on the first half of the programme at the pictures we would often be presented with a travelogue usually featuring "The Voice of the Globe" - James FitzPatrick. We all found them frightfully interesting as most of us were too poor to even go beyond the tram terminus. Made in Technicolor, they made you feel as though you were there.

For those who may not have memories that stray back that far, Mr. FitzPatrick narrated the travelogues rather quaintly himself and some of his phrases such as "As the sun sinks slowly in the west, we must say farewell to...." have been lampooned on occasion and stick forever in the mind.

I notice that Turner Classic Movies has been featuring some of these items between pictures now and then and it causes me to enquire as to who now owns the films? And, presumably what is shown on the telly are just prints that have been in circulation for some time - would the original negatives still be in existence from which sparkling new Technicolor prints could be made? I feel that a whole new audience would find these films fascinating - even though Mr. FitzPatrick does refer to some peoples as "native savages" in his colourful old-fashioned phraseology.

When I was a young child I remember on the first half of the programme at the pictures we would often be presented with a travelogue usually featuring "The Voice of the Globe" - James FitzPatrick. We all found them frightfully interesting as most of us were too poor to even go beyond the tram terminus. Made in Technicolor, they made you feel as though you were there.

For those who may not have memories that stray back that far, Mr. FitzPatrick narrated the travelogues rather quaintly himself and some of his phrases such as "As the sun sinks slowly in the west, we must say farewell to...." have been lampooned on occasion and stick forever in the mind.

I notice that Turner Classic Movies has been featuring some of these items between pictures now and then and it causes me to enquire as to who now owns the films? And, presumably what is shown on the telly are just prints that have been in circulation for some time - would the original negatives still be in existence from which sparkling new Technicolor prints could be made? I feel that a whole new audience would find these films fascinating - even though Mr. FitzPatrick does refer to some peoples as "native savages" in his colourful old-fashioned phraseology.

No idea who owns them, but I see them often enough on TCM and they sometimes can be patronizing in a "look at those funny foreigners" way. Even my parents native country got it in the neck from Mr. FitzPatrick. I was only glad that my mother didn't see the short, it would have outraged her, not a good thing for her advanced age. It's gotten so that when I find I've recorded a short I pray, "anything but a TravelTalk!" Of course, then I'm rewarded with a Pete Smith Specialty!

No idea who owns them, but I see them often enough on TCM and they sometimes can be patronizing in a "look at those funny foreigners" way. Even my parents native country got it in the neck from Mr. FitzPatrick. I was only glad that my mother didn't see the short, it would have outraged her, not a good thing for her advanced age. It's gotten so that when I find I've recorded a short I pray, "anything but a TravelTalk!" Of course, then I'm rewarded with a Pete Smith Specialty!

I suppose one way to look at it is that in Mr. FitzPatrick's day they said what they thought rather than cloak remarks in the meaningless double-speak of today called political correctness. I would be sorry though if your mother could be offended, but surely she would have a sense of humour to see what she regarded as foreigners as funny. If we take this political correctness further the Pete Smith Specialities are insulting clumsy, oafish and less intelligent persons. Times change as do values of those times and it would be a pity to cast everything away from the past because we think we may have grown up a bit.

The "funny foreigners" attitude is a universal human attribute, but I've never seen anything at all malicious in these quaint reports. They don't need the "might cause brain damage" warning the Surgeon General ought to require before public showing of Pete Smith shorts.

The FitzPatrick subjects are owned by Warners via Turner Entertainment. They are on the radar map for possible anthologies in the Warner Archive collection (as per their Facebook page), but it will take some time and (given Mr FitzPatrick's output) several volumes for that to happen.

James FitzPatrick was making his Travel Talks (and various other series) independently for some time before signing with MGM. They issued his films between 1931 and 1954, usually at the rate of about 8-12 a year. The series was in B&W until the fall of 1934 (curiously, the B&W entries are never seen on TCM).

-HA

The FitzPatrick subjects are owned by Warners via Turner Entertainment. They are on the radar map for possible anthologies in the Warner Archive collection (as per their Facebook page), but it will take some time and (given Mr FitzPatrick's output) several volumes for that to happen.

James FitzPatrick was making his Travel Talks (and various other series) independently for some time before signing with MGM. They issued his films between 1931 and 1954, usually at the rate of about 8-12 a year. The series was in B&W until the fall of 1934 (curiously, the B&W entries are never seen on TCM).

-HA

Thank you Mr. Aherne for this information. I had no idea he was so prolific - but was aware that he ventured into colour very early in the piece.

I think that they would prove good sellers if the films were struck with a new print and put on sale as DVD's. They are in a way a gem en-capturing times long since gone that many would find fascinating

I watched one the other day of Sydney Australia as it was in 1938. Very interesting for me living as I do in Oz.

No idea who owns them, but I see them often enough on TCM and they sometimes can be patronizing in a "look at those funny foreigners" way. Even my parents native country got it in the neck from Mr. FitzPatrick. I was only glad that my mother didn't see the short, it would have outraged her, not a good thing for her advanced age. It's gotten so that when I find I've recorded a short I pray, "anything but a TravelTalk!" Of course, then I'm rewarded with a Pete Smith Specialty!

I suppose one way to look at it is that in Mr. FitzPatrick's day they said what they thought rather than cloak remarks in the meaningless double-speak of today called political correctness. I would be sorry though if your mother could be offended, but surely she would have a sense of humour to see what she regarded as foreigners as funny. If we take this political correctness further the Pete Smith Specialities are insulting clumsy, oafish and less intelligent persons. Times change as do values of those times and it would be a pity to cast everything away from the past because we think we may have grown up a bit.

It would be more understandable coming from a country other than the US. My mother was dismayed when I told her, especially by the men and women of her country playing dress up (in archaic garb) for a travelogue. She lived in a large city and was quite well traveled. Also, too, she lived under Nazi occupation, so anything that smacks of how quaint her country was isn't well taken. I've seen the "look how cute the native peasantry is" done in TravelTalks to other European countries as well.

I didn't know that FitzPatrick made travel shorts for MGM through 1954, so I looked him up at IMDb. Sure enough, MGM was releasing his shorts through 1954, when Paramount took over for a year to release 5 FitzPatrick shorts in VistaVision. MGM had stopped producing John Nesbitt's Passing Parade shorts in 1949 and I did not realize that FitzPatrick held on through the 50s. MGM had stopped releasing Pete Smith shorts in 1955 and shut down their production of Tom and Jerry cartoon shorts in 1957.

For me, the question now is, why did MGM decide to stop producing Passing Parade in 1949? The only answer I can come up with is that somehow Nesbitt rubbed Louis B. Mayer the wrong way. In 1949, MGM started airing on its radio station WMGM (formerly WHN) the MGM Theatre Of The Air. Nesbitt, who started out in radio before going to Hollywood, would have been a natural to narrate his Passing Parade shorts adapted for radio. But what if Nesbitt asked for too much money MGM studio boss Mayer to take on this new radio chore? In 1949, MGM's silver anniversary, the studio was already in financial trouble, TV was cutting into its box office and MGM's movies were not the audience grabbers they had been (not at least until Quo Vadis, the Big One, came along in 1951). Maybe someone out there in Nitrateville knows the reason for Nesbitt's departure from the MGM lot.

For what it may be worth, here's some further info on FitzPatrick and his films. I posted this on the TCM Message Boards a few years ago when someone asked a question about the FitzPatrick shorts:

James A. FitzPatrick (1894-1980) started his series of one-reel travel shorts in 1930 and released them independently. He also produced other film shorts series, such as the "Movie Horoscope" series, "American Holiday" series, and "Music Master Series". He even got into feature film distribution in 1930 with his American release of the 1928 British silent movie "The Lady of the Lake", with sound effects added.

The "Movie Horoscope" shorts were one-reelers entitled "People Born in January" through
"People Born in December". Twelve were produced, one for each month, and released each month in 1930.

The "American Holiday" series consisted of ten shorts, each only three minutes long, focusing on a certain holiday. Each was released in time for the corresponding holiday, commencing in September 1930 for Labor Day, and covering ten holidays through Independence Day 1931.

The ''Music Master Series" was a series of 9 one-reel shorts featuring orchestral renditions of works by composers Bizet, Brahms, Liszt, Handel, Chopin, Beethoven, Strauss, Verdi, and Mendelssohn. They were released between September and December 1930.

In 1931 FitzPatrick started releasing his TravelTalk shorts through MGM. He discontinued those other three series (after all, he had pretty much run out of material, unless he wanted to cover more composers). He continued to release his Technicolor TravelTalks shorts through MGM at the rate of at least eight a year through 1951. Then for some reason MGM started calling the series "People on Parade". That lasted only a year, and so in 1952 it was back to the name "TravelTalks". Then, on February 12, 1954 MGM finally released the final entry in the long-running series, "Glimpses of Western Germany". The studio reissued six older entries over the next year, then finally retired the series.

FitzPatrick did other film work before the TravelTalks series, and occasionally during its run, but this basically covers his work on that series

For years I only knew these through their parody versions, primarily by Warner Bros. animation legend Tex Avery. To Tex's credit, the cartoons are still funny today, although at least one of them has wound up on the infamous "Banned 11" list of WB toons, shunned due to their racial stereotypes. I had no idea how spot on the narration in the toons was until I actually got to see an original Travelogue when we finally got TCM in Canada.

The FitzPatrick subjects are owned by Warners via Turner Entertainment.

Is that entirely true?
Kino released a VHS tape of early 30's FitzPatrick's Traveltalks back in the 90's that was *"authorized and curated by the FitzPatrick estate" I don't know if that means they own the rights to the early films or not...

...but I sure would like to see this re-released on dvd.



*(quoted from Kino's website)
http://www.kino.com/video/item.php?film_id=611

Is that entirely true?
Kino released a VHS tape of early 30's FitzPatrick's Traveltalks back in the 90's that was *"authorized and curated by the FitzPatrick estate" I don't know if that means they own the rights to the early films or not...

I actually don't know if Warners hold the rights to the B&W ones, because very few, if any, of those copyrights were renewed--unusual for MGM, which was normally diligent about renewing everything they and their predecessor companies had copyrighted. The Technicolor ones, though, are pretty solidly renewed and certainly part of the Warner library.

-HA

Fitzpatrick owned the B&W shorts, made before 1935. When they began making them in Technicolor (1935's Holland in Tulip Time), they were owned by MGM and were considered "works for hire".
Pre-WWII shorts were shot in 3-strip Technicolor. After the war, most were blowups from 16mm Kodachrome.
There were about 200 Traveltalks released over close to a 20 year period.
MGM made preservation elements from the original negatives.

For me, the question now is, why did MGM decide to stop producing Passing Parade in 1949? The only answer I can come up with is that somehow Nesbitt rubbed Louis B. Mayer the wrong way. In 1949, MGM started airing on its radio station WMGM (formerly WHN) the MGM Theatre Of The Air. Nesbitt, who started out in radio before going to Hollywood, would have been a natural to narrate his Passing Parade shorts adapted for radio. But what if Nesbitt asked for too much money MGM studio boss Mayer to take on this new radio chore? In 1949, MGM's silver anniversary, the studio was already in financial trouble, TV was cutting into its box office and MGM's movies were not the audience grabbers they had been (not at least until Quo Vadis, the Big One, came along in 1951). Maybe someone out there in Nitrateville knows the reason for Nesbitt's departure from the MGM lot.

I believe M-G-M cancelled The Passing Parade for the usual reasons: dollars and cents. As you pointed out, the industry was in a slump, and the expense of making quality two-reelers was getting to be more than the market would bear.

Nesbitt did a great deal of radio work, and his Parade passed from one network to another, disappearing for a while only to turn up again somewhere else on the dial. There was a version produced for a while by an M-G-M subsidiary, for the syndication market I believe. But there were a lot of similar shows out there: Ripley's Believe It or Not, Strange As It Seems, Art Baker's Notebook, etc. Nesbitt had a lot of competition.

There was also a TV pilot for a proposed hour-long Passing Parade series, produced at the Hal Roach Studio. The pilot told three or four stories, all narrated by Nesbitt. It was interesting and looked great (I had a 16mm print of it once), but for whatever reason it didn't sell.

Before the documentaries Fitzpatrick got his start in films directing and producing a series of silent "Juvenile Comedy " two-reelers such as CHIP'S CARMEN ('16) and CHIP'S BACKYARD BARNSTORMERS ('16) that starred a kid named Joseph Monahan who ended up doing an imitation of Charlie Chaplin in every short. The Museum of Modern Art has a copy of CHIP'S RIVALS ('16), and it's an interesting short with Monahan doing a pretty good Chaplin imitation.

Nesbitt died in 1960 at the relatively young age of 50, so maybe his health had something to do with his lack of work in the 50s.

While WB owns the color Fitzpatricks, George Feltenstein of WBHV confirmed to me today they do not own the black and white titles. Several years ago I was contacted by a family member who was touring a show of shorts and I am going to try to find the contact info.

I've often wondered about the method of filming early FitzPatrick Technicolor Travelogues. My understanding is that during the 1930's there weren't many three-strip Technicolor cameras available and that they were quite heavy and bulky. So how did it work? Did the Technicolor company ship one of their cameras to whatever location FitzPatrick was featuring to shoot material for a one-reel short and then ship it back to Hollywood? Did they just ship it on to the next location?

I, too, often wondered about how the Traveltalks were shot!

Even those that show up on Warner Home Video DVDs as special features have a shallow, pastel and soft focus kind of look to them. Obviously, since in the 30s and 40s there were limited number of 3-strip Technicolor cameras available--and they were NOT easily hauled around outdoors, much less going to exotic lands and out of Hollywood circulation.

The best theory--and obvious reality is these shorts were shot with 16mm cameras--or with early non-Technicolor 35mm color stock (!!?) and processed in Hollywood, edited in with music, narration, Technicolor main and end titles--then the finished product was printed in the Technicolor labs.

Of the many I've seen, only a few would I want to run for my home theatre audiences.

I don't have a high opinion of the Fitzpatrick traveltalks. Here's my IMDB review of Minnesota 'Land of Plenty':

"More than half of Minnesotans" Mr. Fitzpatrick informs us in his doggedly monotonous voice "Live on farms devoted to agricultural production." This is as opposed to those people who live on farms devoted to some other purpose, one supposes, like converting old brass bedsteads into cloche hats.

Still, one does not look at these Fitzpatrick Traveltalks for their refined sense of precision in rhetoric. They are, basically, the professional equivalent of those home vacation movies that your parents -- well, my parents, anyway -- took on vacations and showed to guests on the home screen when they wanted those guests to leave. Almost always worked, too.

This makes it clear that these Traveltalks were intended as chasers -- something to get the audience out after a program of a feature, cartoons, selected short subjects, newsreels, instead of waiting around inside for the next show. You looked at these Traveltalks, combining some beautiful Technicolor scenery with Mr. Fitzpatrick's peppy drivel, then the lights came up and you awoke thinking "Hey! Maybe I should drive to Minnesota!" Then you remembered that gasoline and rubber for tires were rationed and thought "Well, maybe after the war is over."

Some pretty pictures, though. Better than the ones my parents took.

That's pretty typical of them as far as I can tell after watching a whole bunch on TCM. For how these should be shot and produced, try the bunch that Jack Cardiff shot.

Bob

The best theory--and obvious reality is these shorts were shot with 16mm cameras--or with early non-Technicolor 35mm color stock...

16mm Kodachrome.

The pre-war Traveltalks were shot on 35mm, and from the look of the early ones (Tulip Time in Holland, for example), were real Technicolor. There are registration problems that would not have been present with Kodachrome, and that film was only introduced in 1935, the same year as the first color Traveltalks. Beginning with the post-war shorts, it is obvious they were shot on 16mm, as the sharpness of the image decreases.
Some of the image quality suffers due to the copying to safety film in the 1970s, or thereabouts, at Metrocolor Lab was to now-long-obsolete color reversal intermediate film stock (CRI), which wasn't the greatest for this purpose.
MGM had also used CRI for conversion of all their Technicolor features, but due to the quality, during the Turner days (1986-96), we re-did all of approximately 125 features to more accurate intermediate film stock. The shorts, regrettably, were not part of this second pass, as by that time the negatives had gone to "nitrate heaven".
I digress.
I've never seen anything about JF hauling around Technicolor 3-strip cameras, and would like some information if there's anybody that knows about it.
The person putting together a travelling show of some of the shorts was Kelly Fitzpatrick, JF's son, who accompanied him on some of these projects. Turner Entertainment licensed some of them to him for lectures, and supplied 35mm prints. This was around the early 1990s. I don't know anything further about Kelly, but he was very nice to work with.

Dick, we discussed this nearly 5 years ago, when you first joined Nitrateville.

See: http://www.nitrateville.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=725&p=3408#p3408

Jim Gettys

Jim, thanks for that reminder. In re-reading the posts, I'm glad to see that my stories have been consistent.

Whilst I got a Laser Disc of TravelTalks(incl one of a pre-war Hong Kong Chinese beauty contest), I did not know about the VHS from Kino but a few years ago I thought they had planned a DVD but I never saw one. By the same token I thought they were also going to issue a set of Screen Snapshots. Never saw anymore on that one either.

I was pleasantly surprised to see a TravelTalk on my home province of Nova Scotia on TCM recently, following a showing of God's Little Acre, titled On the Shores of Nova Scotia, focusing on the province's South Shore, including the historic town of Lunenburg where schooners like the Bluenose (plus the recently sunk replica of The Bounty) were built. Things get a little goofy, of course, when he turns his camera on a one-armed salmon fisherman and a paralyzed painter who holds the brush between his teeth, but overall it seemed pretty typical of tourism industry pitches extolling the seaside beauty of rural Nova Scotia.

Going to the IMDb, I see that this was part of a trilogy, also including a short titled Glimpses of New Scotland (which translates into Nova Scotia, in Latin) and one about Cape Breton Island (if you haven't been, you've probably seen footage of it in Johnny Belinda). Hopefully I'll stumble upon those two one of these days.

The pre-war Traveltalks were shot on 35mm, and from the look of the early ones (Tulip Time in Holland, for example), were real Technicolor. There are registration problems that would not have been present with Kodachrome, and that film was only introduced in 1935, the same year as the first color Traveltalks. Beginning with the post-war shorts, it is obvious they were shot on 16mm, as the sharpness of the image decreases.
Some of the image quality suffers due to the copying to safety film in the 1970s, or thereabouts, at Metrocolor Lab was to now-long-obsolete color reversal intermediate film stock (CRI), which wasn't the greatest for this purpose.
MGM had also used CRI for conversion of all their Technicolor features, but due to the quality, during the Turner days (1986-96), we re-did all of approximately 125 features to more accurate intermediate film stock. The shorts, regrettably, were not part of this second pass, as by that time the negatives had gone to "nitrate heaven".
I digress.
I've never seen anything about JF hauling around Technicolor 3-strip cameras, and would like some information if there's anybody that knows about it.
The person putting together a travelling show of some of the shorts was Kelly Fitzpatrick, JF's son, who accompanied him on some of these projects. Turner Entertainment licensed some of them to him for lectures, and supplied 35mm prints. This was around the early 1990s. I don't know anything further about Kelly, but he was very nice to work with.

My interview withJack Cardiff, “A Master's Palette,” American Cinematographer (Mar 2006), includes comments by Cardiff about working on the FitzPatrick Travel Talks. Cardiff essentially learned the ropes of color cinematography on these, though my recollection is that FitzPatrick subbed these out to a German producer.