In the Land of Diamonds

Traveltalks goes to South Africa and arrives in the Orange Free State. First, we see some flowers and then go to the zoo to see the liger. Next, they go to Kimberley, the diamond capital of the world.

The liger is probably the highlight of this episode. He may be the only actual liger that I have ever seen. I don't know why we are watching attack dog training. I wasn't going to say anything about South Africa's troubled past, but it is right in my face. On top of that, they are praising Cecil John Rhodes with his problematic history. Of course, they don't mention that. It gets a bit too much for my modern sensibilities.

In the Land of Diamonds (1952)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Decent TravelTalks entry has James A. FitzPatrick heading to South Africa with his first stop in the town of Bloemfontein. We learn that this city was founded in 1846 by some Dutch explorers who took this as their home to fight off natives. We learn that the title translates to "Fountains of Flowers" and this is when we see exactly that. Our final stop is at a zoo where we see the first tiger/lion mate, which is going under the name of a liger. We then move onto Kimberly, which is known as the diamond capital of the world. We see a mine that was abandoned in 1915 and learn that $250 million in diamonds were taken from it. We also visit the Kimberly Kennel where we see a train dog act. Overall this is a pleasant entry in the series that once again benefits from some nice stories being told and of course the Technicolor, which helps bring things to life. The best moments probably deal with the liger simply because it's so strange and especially the way it's presented.

We see the origins of diamonds and all the beautiful colors in the Lions and and doggies and all kinds of nice things and how they obtain to catch the timings of the bandits in the airport and all these kinds of things can do it the editing is greater yeah

We get to see lots of flowers at the beginning of this Traveltalk, which makes some sense because we're looking at Bloemfontain. The we get to see a liger, the offspring of a lion and tiger. Yet we don't see any people at a recognizable distance until most of the way through when we get to see diamond miners getting out of an elevator from a diamond mine near Kimberly. There are a few people seen on the streets, but they are so far away you can't make out whether they are men or women, let alone Boer or Xhosa. Then we get to see some German shepherds being trained to attack.

Not that it was up to Fitzpatrick to denounce the racial situation in South Africa almost seventy years ago, or lecture the audience about the shamefulness of the statue of Rhodes. It was his job to show his audience the interesting stuff, the stuff that looked pleasant and attractive: flowers and diamonds, mostly. Nowadays we disagree with that conclusion. When I think of that, I wonder what common assumptions we make today our descendants will scorn.