Visiting Italy

From the time he took moviegoers to visit "Japan in Cherry Blossom Time" in 1930, James A. FitzPatrick produced and narrated hundreds of short travelogues under the umbrella title FitzPatrick Travel Talks. Most of them were distributed through MGM, where he worked from 1931 until 1954. At a time when global travel was far outside most people's budgets, he brought fans vivid pictures of key tourist attractions using Technicolor from 1934 on. For this tour of Italy, he managed to cram views of the Tiber, the Colosseum, St. Peters, St. Francis of Assisi's home, the leaning Tower of Pisa, the Cathedral of Florence, the Ponte Vecchio and more into just eight minutes. More than just filler shown between features, his films provide a fascinating glimpse of the past. The Italian cities he photographed in 1951 have changed greatly in the intervening years, with his films serving as a vivid record of their past glories. With the coming of television, however, shorts were on the way out. After moving to Paramount for five more VistaVision Visits, the sun set for FitzPatrick's career in 1955.

By Frank Miller