Seeing Spain

Seeing Spain (1953)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Another decent entry in MGM's TravelTalks series with James A. FitzPatrick. This time out we visit Spain and four of their most popular cities; Madrid, Granada, Seville and Toledo. We stop at all four cities and see various buildings, parks and a few cathedrals as we learn why these locations are so popular among tourists. If you're a fan of the series then you'll know what to expect and they pretty much deliver what you'd want. We get to hear some good stories about these cities, learn their brief history and get to see the images in Technicolor. There's really nothing here that jumps out at you but it's a pleasant way to kill 9-minutes.

An MGM TRAVELTALK Short Subject.

With the assistance of this little film, the viewer will be SEEING SPAIN as it was in the 1950's. The brisk tour takes us to the cities of Granada, Seville, Toledo & Madrid, showing us parks, palaces & cathedrals. Some colorful Spanish dancing is also featured.

This is one of a large series of succinct travelogues turned out by MGM, beginning in the 1930's. They featured Technicolor views of beautiful & unusual sights around the globe, as well as vivid, concise commentary. These films were produced & narrated by James A. FitzPatrick.

Granada, Seville, Toledo, it doesn't matter which James Fitzpatrick is talking about, I didn't understand him until the third or fourth time he said the name. He does better with Madrid, which turns out to be a harder name to mangle than the others.... although all of them should be pretty familiar enough to say in a manner that does not defy understanding.

As usual, the audience is treated to all the tourist attractions as shot by cinematographer Hone Glendinning. As usual, Fitzpatrick manages to be boring and pompous about the beauties he is speaking about, whether they be the fountains of Granada, the dancing ladies of Seville, or the statues of Queen Isabella.

I found it difficult to appreciate the usual fine camerawork of Glendinning. As with far too many of the Traveltalks, the copy that ran on TCM this morning had been poorly preserved and seemed to be out of focus.

Traveltalks goes to Spain to examine the legacy of the warlike Moors. Starting with Granada, it goes to Seville, Toledo, and finally Madrid. The cities are old and not that crowded. At least, Madrid looks busier with lots of cars. It's wild to see so many old cars. The architecture looks great and this one concentrates a lot on monuments. This is very much a tour for tourists.