Rocky Mountain Grandeur

James A. Fitzpatrick sends the Technicolor cameras to the Rocky Mountains, particularly the Grand Tetons, so he can shout at the audience about dude ranches. Not that he disapproves of them. He bellows approvingly about the pretty ladies that cameraman Winton Hoch has spent his time capturing pictures of. I approve of them too, It's just that I don't need to behave as if my audience is hard of hearing. Neither, I hope, is there an orchestra playing "Home on the Range" so I have to scream my lungs out in vain hope that they'll pay attention to me. You're reading this, I hope, because you wish to. If not, you may stop now.

The copy of this episode of the Traveltalks travelogue was not as sharp as others have been, but that big sunset right at the end is a beautiful one.

It's a pre-War TravelTalks episode. They first travel to Colorado, then Wyoming. I can do without the James A. FitzPatrick's poetic overly-flowery language or the operatic singing. It's old and not in an appealing way. The scenery is plenty good enough. There isn't anything new or original or exotic. It's the Rocky Mountains. It hasn't changed for thousands of years. It has some people vacationing which looks like an old home movie. It has horses and one smart dog. It has some cowboy rodeo work. The cowboy needs to get thrown by that horse. The sunset visual is gorgeous and classic. At least, it ends perfectly.

Rocky Mountain Grandeur (1937)

** (out of 4)

Another entry in James A. FitzPatrick's TravelTalk series from MGM. This Technicolor short takes a look at the Rocky Mountains and its various wildlife, trees and people. I've reviewed several of these TravelTalk shorts over the years and I think each one of them feature me saying that I'm sure these were very valuable back when they were released as people got to see how other parts of the world worked but today they come off rather bland and boring. There's not too much to learn in this short but I did enjoy the Technicolor, which really showed off the woods and various horses that are shown throughout. The narration is pretty straight forward like a documentary would be.