Ah, July 4th! And like many traffic controllers on my day off I stay away from crowded roads and burrow into my library-but wait! An e-mail from an Internet friend brings me new coordinates for my Time Machine! Allons-y!
This lovely feature, o…
Ah, July 4th! And like many traffic controllers on my day off I stay away from crowded roads and burrow into my library-but wait! An e-mail from an Internet friend brings me new coordinates for my Time Machine! Allons-y!
This lovely feature, of just under 16 minutes runtime, was assembled by the Mitchell and Kenyon group from many smaller reels ranging from 1895 to 1897. First we have detailed footage of the town of Lyons (and a wagon advertising M&K's own recent footage available to the town for viewing-one way to defray travel costs for sure) showing the creators' own arrival at Lyons, various street scenes full of pedestrian and horse traffic. We then have a brief scene of 'bowling' quite removed from our modern counterpart..the action then shifts to Evian-les-Bains, and various port activities before skipping merrily to Rond-point on the Champs-Elysees river, and scenes of families relaxing in the park and nearby hansom cabs. Onwards we go to nearby Place de l'Etoile, heavy traffic and a glimpse of an early steam truck and trailer, Garre de Parrache and the nearby railways, then off to Marseille, full of shops and horse-drawn buses, stopping by Paris long enough to film a lovely parade featuring an Ostrich-drawn buckboard (!) camels and an elephant. Back in Lyons we have footage of a school recess and gamboling children, a tram in Toulouse, a parade of that new-fangled invention the automobile back in Paris (already hogging the bicycle lanes, heh) a dance back in Lyons and then off to see musicians in La Ciotat, so many events and locations all captured for posterity delivered at a lively pace...
Luckily for Posterity this fragile nitrate-based film stock survived the passage of time long enough to come to the attention of film fan Guy Jones, who used advanced AI to clean up minor blemishes, correct for aspect ratio and speed, and even add a 'soundtrack' of effects and music that truly catapults the viewer into the midst of this whirlwind French odyssey....many thanks to you Sir, for this restored historical treasure...B&W, Soundtrack.
