Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2017/02/06/the-1933-chicago-worlds-fai.html
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Thank you. The worlds fair’s interest mm, given they essentially were combination advertisement entertannemrnt and potentially the first hacker cons.
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My wife’s grandfather was one of the official photographers of that world’s fair. His name was Ralph Fallert Sr.
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I’m going guess Hemingway didn’t write that script.
I love Technicolor. Two- or three-color, I don’t care.
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I’ve seen plenty of photos of this Fair, but had no idea it was so dazzlingly colorful. No wonder they wanted to capture it in Technicolor. And the narration is amazing.
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Very cool
Maybe he wasn’t drunk enough yet to write a quality script.
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Not enough simmering homoeroticism?
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Love the car demo. “30! 40! 50 MILES AN HOUR!!!”
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I believe Disney had some kind of exclusive deal with Technicolor; they made Flowers and Trees in 1932. Other studios were champing at the bit to use it, but there were licensing issues and Disney’s exclusivity to work around.
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Did that include live action?
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That would have helped.
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I knew an elderly couple in the 1990’s who bragged about going to the Chicago World’s Fair, they would talk about it in great detail as if it just happened the week before.
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Fascinating on many levels. The biggest surprise is seeing the streamline buildings painted bold colors. I had always imagined they were white. I wish we could have gotten a look inside the exhibits. The overheated narration provides moments of unintended comedy, like when the narrator effuses about excited visitors cavorting in gay costumes while the visual shows a sea of weary men in suits slogging around. I was blindsided when the travelogue turned into a Plymouth ad. I should have been warned by the extra screen time given to the Chrysler pavilion–amusingly, the only building shown that didn’t have a crowd of people out front. This film is a rare treat. Thanks for bringing it to our attention.
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Is it due to the quality of the sound equipment that the narrator is actually shouting his copy?
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“The Avenue of Flags”
But, man, the Chrysler Pavilion is f’ing awesome.
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Halsted Street?
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You might be thinking of the FIRST World’s Fair in Chicago: The Columbian Exposition in 1893. That was the White City. Only one of the main buildings deviated from the plan (because the architect in question was ticked off at the Fair’s architect).
A number of the homes of the future from this World’s Fair were ferried over to Beverly Shores, Indiana in the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore. There are very occasional inside tours – I think possibly only once a year – but you can walk by them any time.
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