User Reviews

This is one of many of James A. FitzPatrick's travelogues. Starting in Liverpool, we are shown quite a few boats around the Liverpool docks. FitzPatrick does mention that Liverpool was heavily bombed during the war, but we see no evidence of any of the bombing there. He does mention how Liverpool was a port involved in the slave trade — ships leaving to Africa and coming back from the West Indies with sugar and rum.

I wish this was closed captioned - I believe the next city shown is Chester, which has an ancient road that was used by the Romans. What is shown of Chester looks like what many would imagine what a city in England looks like — white buildings with dark woodwork.

The next city, Coventry, was heavily damaged during the war. FitzPatrick does show much of the damage from the war - grasses and weeds growing were buildings were standing a decade earlier. In the middle of looking at all of the destruction, FitzPatrick does mention Lady Godiva before showing the rubble of a bombed out factory. Since this was done 4 years after World War II, FitzPatrick does talk about the potential for the next war to be the end of the world as we know it.

A few monuments, including Warwick Castle, we finally make it to Stratford and Shakespeare's life and some of the buildings associated with him.

James A. Fitzpatrick sends Hone Glendinning and Virgil Miller around the island of Great Britain to shoot survivals of earlier centuries and the devastation of World War Two while he muses on the Atomic Bomb and sounds more thoughtful than he usually does. Then he gets to Stratford-on-Avon and rhapsodizes. There are lots of monuments, and a fan from a bombed-out factory whose vanes are still turning in the wind.

The copy of this episode of Fitzpatrick's long-running TRAVELTALKS series that plays on Turner Classic Movie looks pretty brown in tone, but is otherwise in good shape and showing most of its muted color values.

From Liverpool to Stratford (1949)

*** (out of 4)

This here is one of the more entertaining entries in James A. FitzPatrick's TravelTalks series. This one here takes us throughout England after WWII and we get to see some of the damage done to cities like Coventry. We're told that over 50% of the buildings were completely destroyed and we get to see a few of the factories that were bombed during the war. We also visit Chester's Main Street, Warwick Castle and we even get to see Shakespeare's hometown including a place where he first worked as well as hear about his first marriage. Even if you're not a fan of the series I think you'll still enjoy this one because it's rather interesting seeing these cities years after the war and how damaged they still were. As usual, FitzPatrick's narration is top-notch and the Technicolor really brings the footage to life. The one rather strange part has FitzPatrick talking about how bad the war was and then he goes on to mention that he fears the next war, with its new technologies, would be the end of mankind.