Jasper National Park

The TravelTalks team arrives at the train station. There is an interesting giant totem pole. Next, they head off to Jasper Park Lodge and spend some time there getting food and playing golf. There is a lot of scenery and more resorts. They do film a few glaciers and that's probably the most compelling part. I doubt they exist now or if they do, they ain't as massive.

Basically, this is TravelTalks on vacation or maybe doing work for the tourist bureau. I could excuse it if this is the war years. It's the 50's. There is no need to stay so close to home. One would hope for somewhere more exotic.

Jasper National Park (1952)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Colorful entry in MGM's TravelTalks short has James A. FitzPatrick once again visiting a beautiful place and telling us of its history. The majority of the short consists of showing us all the beauty there is to be seen in various lodges, golf courses and of naturally the nature. We get to see a family of black bears being fed and we end the film with a trip over the Angel Glacier. One should know what to expect from a series like this and the entry here is pretty good as we get the normal good narration mixed in with some beautiful scenes. The stuff on the glaciers is certainly the highlight but one wishes the print shown on TCM was in a little better shape so that the images would really jump off the screen. It was somewhat fun seeing the older styled golf course and the bear sequence includes a rather funny, if dumb, joke.

James A. Fitzpatrick not only sends the Technicolor cameras to Jasper National Park, with Howard P. Nelson to run them. He goes himself. Just as the Traveltalks about Scotland were an excuse for Fitzpatrick to tee of at St. Andrews, there's a golf course or nine at this Park. Perhaps Fitzpatrick is referring to himself when he mentions that some of the worst golfers in the world have played this particular course.

After eighteen years of producing and narrating these travelogues for MGM, Fitzpatrick sounds a lot more relaxed than his earlier essays, although he still despises a short word when a long one will do. There are bears and glaciers, rivers and, astoundingly, room service.

The copy of this movie that plays on Turner Classic Movies is a bit fuzzy and the color elements a bit muddled.