YMCA: swim team, singing, basketball; sights in Prague
Creator(s)
- International Relief Organization (UNRRA) (Producer)
- Julien H. Bryan (Camera Operator)
- Sam Bryan and International Film Foundation
Biographical History
Julien Hequembourg Bryan (1899-1974) was an American documentarian and filmmaker. Bryan traveled widely taking 35mm film that he sold to motion picture companies. In the 1930s, he conducted extensive lecture tours, during which he showed film footage he shot in the former USSR. Between 1935 and 1938, he captured unique records of ordinary people and life in Nazi Germany and in Poland, including Jewish areas of Warsaw and Krakow and anti-Jewish signs in Germany. His footage appeared in March of Time theatrical newsreels. His photographs appeared in Life Magazine. He was in Warsaw in September 1939 when Germany invaded and remained throughout the German siege of the city, photographing and filming what would become America's first cinematic glimpse of the start of WWII. He recorded this experience in both the book Siege (New York: Doubleday, Doran, 1940) and the short film Siege (RKO Radio Pictures, 1940) nominated for an Academy Award in 1940. In 1946, Bryan photographed the efforts of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Agency in postwar Europe.
Scope and Content
Man operates a movie reel projector, children watch and cheer the movie. Boys swim in a pool and cheer each other on. Man sings to a classroom. Man plays piano. Boys play basketball. CUs of Czech language booklets. The Charles Bridge in Prague. Young men learn how to play basketball. Large buildings in Prague. CUs, signs for the YMCA. Men stop and read sign, then enter the building. A group of people in a room sing together and perform hand motions to the song. Camera tracks backwards over Charles Bridge. The Prague Castle. CUs, basketball players. More city scenes of Prague, streets, buildings. A woman pours tea. Boys dive into a pool. CUs, St. Vitus Cathedral and statues on the Charles Bridge. Men ride an open elevator. Boys. Newspaper. Girls exercise in a gym. A young boy points to pictures on the wall. Eating in an apartment. Boys in pool. Shots, street scenes. INTs, men in lounge, talking and reading, CUs pictures on the wall.
Note(s)
At the time of the filming, Julien Bryan was working under contract for the International Relief Organization/UNRRA and tasked with capturing images of Europe rebuilding. The finished films were intended for an international [European] audience, often screened under the auspices of the US Department of State. Transferred at 18/24 FPS Additional photographs are available in the USHMM Photo Archives.
Subjects
- MOVIE CAMERAS
- CZECHOSLOVAKIA
- SPORTS/GAMES
- MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS
- CHILDREN
- CITIES
- BRIDGES
- CHURCHES
- UNRRA
- YMCA
Places
- Prague, Czechoslovakia
Genre
- Film
- Outtakes.