User Reviews

James Fitzpatrick sends the Technicolor north under the command of cameraman William Snyder so Fitzpatrick can go into the studio. He seems to have trouble saying "Northwest", but he rhapsodizes over fish, particularly the ones who get through the dams on the Columbia River. Then it's on to peacocks and bears fighting in the woods, at which he raises his voice.

At times it's hard to tell whether I was looking at, say Crater Lake or a painting of it, with the camera slowly panning across its serene waters.

Oregon seems to be severely underpopulated. We se one guy who's in charge of counting fish, and another one who seems to be in charge of watching Crater Lake lest it run away. The copy of this Traveltalks that plays on TCM is in pretty good shape and if you don't care whether you're actually looking at Crater Lake, Oregon is quite pretty.

TravelTalks goes to the Columbia River and visits the fish ladder at Bonneville Dam. They follow the fish up the river to see Indian fishermen at Celilo Falls. Next, they visit a miniature village created by Rasmus Petersen. They drive through big trees, feeding bears, and arrive at the picturesque Crater Lake National Park.

James A. FitzPatrick is talking a lot about the colors at Crater Lake. Technicolor is colorful for its time, but it does have some drawback. It doesn't have the natural color shades. It looks a bit artificial which is noticeable as we look back at it. The bears are fun, but I'm really taken with the fishing. The waterfall fishing looks amazing. I would love to try that.

Scenic Oregon (1943)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

With WWII at full speed it prevented James A. FitzPatrick from going overseas so his TravelTalks series stayed in the U.S. and this entry takes us to Oregon where we start off by looking at the Columbia River. We learn some brief history about it before traveling to a location, still owned by Indians, where they make extra cash by fishing in a strange way. We also see a location where fish are released into the river and apparently the record for fish released was just over 10,000 in an eight hour period. From here we travel to Crater Lake National Park where we see the legendary lake and hear about it's rather strange history. We also see some bears fighting for some food, which FitzPatrick says he put there so that they would get in front of his cameras (lets hope they didn't go into a campsite later that night for more and hurt someone). Fans of the series know what to expect and this is another nice entry. The beautiful lake and river look terrific in Technicolor and are good enough to make this 9-minute short worth sitting through.