“South America - Continent of Contrasts” is a circa 1960s color film focusing on the aforementioned continent served by Pan American World Airways and its offshoot Panagra. Pan American-Grace Airways, better known as Panagra, was an airline formed as a joint venture between Pan American World Airways and Grace Shipping Company. Panagra was founded in 1929 to compete with SCADTA, a German-owned company, and held a quasi-monopoly over air travel in parts of Colombia and South America during the 1940s and 1950s. It merged with Braniff International Airways in 1967.
Hundreds of years before it became a tourist destination, Incas called South America home (mark 01:57) and constructed the equivalent of 10,000 miles highways, remnants of which still exist as the camera pans across them and onto to what were once Incan cities.
Today, we are told, descendants of Spanish soldiers, Portuguese fisherman, and others still travel to South America - only this time as tourists. After a few scenes in Panama the film takes the viewer to Quito, the capital of Ecuador (mark 05:10). “a city dyed with the color of Spain.” We see plazas and churches “bearing the reflections of Barcelona and Madrid.” Following are street scenes and beach scenes from Lima, Peru starting at mark 06:20 as tourists soak in the sunshine and we watch generations of families work silver (mark 08:00) and visit a country market. By mark 12:15 we’re taken high into the Andes Mountains in the Cusco Region of Peru to see Machu Picchu, a 15th-century Inca citadel, and starting at mark 14:00 visit La Paz, the capital of Bolivia, which rests 12,000 feet above sea level. The camera pans its buildings and people on a Saturday morning as they move to buy and sell at a local market, and later witness a Diablada, a traditional dance characterized by the mask and devil suit worn by the performers (mar 14:38). From there we land in Santiago, Chile (mark 15:46) and a look at the women who are described as “remarkably handsome” before moving on to other sights such as literal horse play and examples of traditional dance. There are scenes of workers harvesting grapes from a vineyard and a setting sun before moving into the mountains as tourists rest and relax lakeside, enjoying the moment. “Here … intimacy comes back again,” the narrator says at mark 21:33.
We cross the mountains with more aerial views and slowly move into Argentina (mark 23:30), where we stop in Buenos Aires (“the cosmopolitan capital of the southern continent”). There are scenes of the Obelisco de Buenos Aires (an obelisk erected in 1936 to commemorate the fourth centenary of the first foundation of the city) at mark 23:45 and travel down July 9 Avenue which commemorates Argentina’s Independence Day and is the widest avenue in the world. Peddlers are shown hawking their wares at mark 24:20 along side streets as “a city of the present and the past” coexist. “This is South America,” the narrator concludes starting at mark 25:45. “Primitive and sophisticated. Rugged and elegant. Strange and familiar. Yesterday and tomorrow. South America, continent of contrasts."
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This film is part of the Periscope Film LLC archive, one of the largest historic military, transportation, and aviation stock footage collections in the USA. Entirely film backed, this material is available for licensing in 24p HD, 2k and 4k. For more information visit www.PeriscopeFi...
1 окт 2024
