User Reviews

James A. Fitzpatrick sends the Technicolor cameras down to Guatemala City under the supervision of cinematographer Nat Finston, so he can show us the architecture and a movie theater whose whose marquee proudly proclaims it's showing a Fitzpatrick Traveltalk.

It's a bit far afield for this MGM travelogue series during the Second World War. Mostly they took the audience to the exotic lands like Michigan. Occasionally, they would approach the Canadian border, or take a trip down to Mexico. Guatemala was a little further south than they usually got. Fitzpatrick's language is typically flowery, particularly when he's talking about flowering trees.

The copy that plays on Turner Classic Movies, like many from this period, seems to have been made from a 16 mm. print. The colors are a bit dull.

Traveltalks goes to Guatemala City and that's it. It's a lot of churches, buildings, and more buildings. Then it's a garden and a country club resort. There's not much of the real people's everyday life in this one. It's an old tourist advertisement. The best is probably that weird church for about five seconds.

Modern Guatemala City (1945)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

TravelTalks entry takes us to Guatemala where we learn that it became the capital three years after the original was destroyed by an earthquake. From there we learn that there are 170,000 people living there at the time and that many of them visit a theater downtown where they learn about other parts of the world by watching TravelTalks shorts. The funniest moment in the film tells us about a law that was passed in 1931 where anyone elected to the government must show all of their earnings so that the people can make sure they didn't take any bribes while in office. When their term is over, if their bank account has extra, unaccounted for money then they must return it. This is a pretty good entry in the series as FitzPatrick's narration hits all the right notes and it was pretty funny seeing the TravelTalks ad at this theater. Once again the Technicolor is the best friend as we get some great visuals including some really nice looking buildings. Also on hand is a pretty good looking statue of Columbus.