Paris on Parade (1938)

A Disappointing Continuation

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

Like the 1937 travelogue on Czechoslovakia, this one has profound interest for the historian. When I think what horrors all of these people would soon be cast into....The other aspect of historical interest is the colonial exhibits. Of course after the war the colonies would start the long process of breaking away from their colonizers.The architecture of each nation is another facet that might make someone want to watch. It shows the thinking of various nations toward their environment as reflective of their culture, except of course for the colonial exhibits which were basically the colonizers showing native housing as interpreted by outsiders for outsiders. We have no way of knowing what, for instance, a creative architect in SE Asia might have thought up for this exposition. Egypt's pavilion was a take on traditional architecture. Czechoslovakia went in for something that the Jetsons would appreciate. The Norwegians preferred to bring to mind their fjords and water. Hungarians danced, perhaps wondering what they would face when they went home. They might not have gone home if they had known of the decades of rape, pillaging, and murder at the hands of one fiend after another that were to come.I thought Russia's gigantic sculptures on top of the massive building were meant to intimidate and apparently that was the case. I didn't see the German pavilion. Apparently it was opposite the Russian and they had a war of ideology going on. Germany's was topped by an eagle and swastika and had had a statue of two nude men. Russia's pavilion had a man and woman. All in very heroic-type poses as advertising for their country's and system's superiority over all others but especially over their rival across the way, totally against the peaceful theme of this travelogue or indeed of the exposition. I also read that the Spanish pavilion had Guernica on display.Everything was accompanied by the usual music to represent each part of the world.There are websites that talk about this exposition, what it wanted to achieve, and the other exhibitors not mentioned in the travelogue. Obviously one goal of the Depression era expos was to boost tourism and trade. But the specific goal of this one had a decidedly anti-war aspect to it that was promoted by the narrator of the travelogue. It is debatable if ANY of the Thirties expos achieved its goals but as my dearly departed mother used to say, they made a lot of work for a lot of people. And in the Thirties, that made a welcome change.

Paris on Parade (1938) *** (out of 4) One of the better entries in James A. FitzPatrick's TravelTalks series visits Paris during the 1937 Paris International Exposition. According to this short there were forty-four different nations displaying various forms of their country here and being able to see just a few are a real treat. I'd be lying if I said I had previously heard about this event but that's what makes some of these shorts so much fun. The entire short didn't really show off the city, like so many in the series, but instead just looked at this event, which had some great displays including works from Africa, Sudan, France and many others. Just seeing how different these places were, side by side, is what makes this short such a winner.

Ironically, the theme for the Paris Exposition was "The Spirit of Peace", just as World War II was looming across many European countries, including France and the city of light.This is a rather by-the-numbers dry view of various pavilions, all of which are glanced from outside only with no indication of what the buildings held inside. The usual commentary is spoken by James FitzPatrick in a dull monotone.At least we're told that the flags of 44 nations are displayed along the banks of the Seine where the Eiffel Tower is part of the exhibition; countries included Great Britain and its Empire, Sweden (simplicity), Czechoslovakia (impressive architecture), U.S. (American Indian displays), France (replica of Statue of Liberty and French colonies, a pavilion of French-IndoChina and colonies of French West Africa), a shot of a water skier on the Seine, and a Russian statue of heroic figures situated atop a monument 100 ft. high.At the Spanish pavilion we see dancers from Segovia; and toward the closing we see The Fountain of Peace, an aquatic display of the kind France is noted for. The final shot are the illuminated fountains at night in brilliant color (thanks to electricity) and the short documentary ends with a pyrotechnical display of fireworks, the very same kind that would light up New York's World Fair a few years later.Interesting but none of the pavilions looked that impressive to me. Might have been more interesting to show some of the interior displays, but I suppose time would not allow that.Sad to realize that the theme of peace was an ironic one, considering all that was soon to follow.

This is one of MGM's "Traveltalks" with James A. FitzPatrick - just a couple of years before Nazis were trying to make themselves feel at home there. This is a brief look at the Paris Exhibition of 1937, which included pavilions of other European nations that would be invaded by the Nazis even sooner than France.According to Mr. FitzPatrick there were 44 nations with their exhibits on the banks of the Seine, showing the "faith in the ideals of man's humanity to man" on the eve of the world witnessing man's inhumanity to man - some of which was already taking place (Japan's invasion of parts of China, Germany already having concentration camps, annexing Austria, Italy invading Ethiopia, etc.).It is very difficult for a modern viewer to watch things like the "modern" architecture of the Czechoslovakian pavilion with the knowledge that a lot of the architecture of that former nation will most likely be destroyed over the next 6 or 7 years.There were also interesting exhibits from former French colonies: Indochina and French West Africa, which included Senegal, Dahomey (now Benin), the Ivory Coast (Côte d'Ivoire), Mauritania, French Sudan, and other colonies. There was also the Soviet Union's exhibit which included a Stalinist statue of a man and woman worker that was, according to Mr. FitzPatrick, about 100 feet tall.The illuminated fountains were quite beautiful as were the fireworks displays.This appears occasionally on TCM - it's definitely worth checking out.