In Old Amsterdam

James A. Fitzpatrick send the Technicolor cameras winging to Amsterdam, to take pictures under cinematographer Keith Covey. The portrait of the city on view is pretty standard for the long-running series of travelogues, offering the sort of subjects that a tourist might wish to see, now that the ravages of the Second World War were being cleared away.

Fitzpatrick's narration had calmed down a lot over the years. If his Highlights of History lecture and 30-second lecture on Rembrandt is neither deep nor novel, at least he didn't obviously write it with an open thesaurus before him. Neither does he shout as if his audience is deaf.

The standard-looking images looked a bit off when I looked at this short subject on TCM this morning, with the colors looking unnatural and slightly blotchy.

In Old Amsterdam (1949)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

This TravelTalks series takes us to Amsterdam as James A. FitzPatrick talks about some of the town's history. We start off seeing the Schiphol Airport where the narrator brags about his 3,500 mile track only took eighteen hours to complete. From here we learn about The Flying Dutchmen and then we see the Cental Rainway and hear about its uses. Up next we learn about how the town was pretty much land lifted from the sea and this explains the various canals that are an important part of the location. We also see a funny bridge toll and then it's onto Rembrandt Park where we hear a quick bio of the famed painter. Overall this is a pretty good entry in the series as we get a lot of good stories and the visuals are quite nice as well. Once again the Technicolor really helps bring the city to life and it was especially put to good use during the scenes on the water. One wishes that we got more images like these but there's still some good stuff here.

Traveltalks is flying from New York City (New Amsterdam) to the original Amsterdam. It took less than 18 hours. Much of the city is reclaimed from the sea and consists of islands. It's a vibrant city of canals and they go look at some paintings.

I don't know the local society around this time. Certainly, they're not going to the red light district and I don't expect that for Traveltalks. It becomes a sort of school trip thru the city like visiting museums. They're looking at paintings and plates. It's not the most exciting episode even for this series. It is strictly family friendly and bland.