Egypt Speaks (1951)
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When you see that this short is from MGM and James A. Fitzpatrick you're probably going to be expecting a TravelTalks entry but you'd be wrong. This is actually from their "People on Parade" series, which is somewhat confusing. The film starts off with Fitzpatrick telling us that the goal of this short isn't to show scenery but instead discover the people of Egypt. We then meet a few people but not once do we really learn anything about them. If Fitzpatrick's goal was to make us know these people then he failed horribly because none of them ever say anything interesting and those who don't speak don't get any narration that would make us care one way or another for them. I'm really not sure what the point of this thing was but since Fitzpatrick tells us to "get to know the people" then it has to be seen as a failure. Are we really suppose to believe that the two people interviewed here represent the entire viewpoint of Egypt? As with Fitzpatrick's other series, this one was shot in Technicolor and there's no question that some of the images are very good but at the end of the day there's very little to recommend here.
**
When you see that this short is from MGM and James A. Fitzpatrick you're probably going to be expecting a TravelTalks entry but you'd be wrong. This is actually from their "People on Parade" series, which is somewhat confusing. The film starts off with Fitzpatrick telling us that the goal of this short isn't to show scenery but instead discover the people of Egypt. We then meet a few people but not once do we really learn anything about them. If Fitzpatrick's goal was to make us know these people then he failed horribly because none of them ever say anything interesting and those who don't speak don't get any narration that would make us care one way or another for them. I'm really not sure what the point of this thing was but since Fitzpatrick tells us to "get to know the people" then it has to be seen as a failure. Are we really suppose to believe that the two people interviewed here represent the entire viewpoint of Egypt? As with Fitzpatrick's other series, this one was shot in Technicolor and there's no question that some of the images are very good but at the end of the day there's very little to recommend here.