Polish cavalry
Creator(s)
- Sam Bryan and International Film Foundation
- Julien H. Bryan (Producer)
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
Footage of Polish Cavalry soldiers. Cannot confirm location where this was shot, but Bryan references shooting these scenes in 1937. Scene with six Polish soldiers sitting down, looking at papers or maps and discussing something. Cut to soldiers loading cannons that look more like WWI artillery rather than WWII. They have wooden wheels, etc. Repeat of the horses rushing down the hillside, driven by soldiers, rather random/staged looking battle scenes, one of the soldiers is on a field phone in one of the MCUs. Followed by shots of tanks and more soldiers, this time wearing combat helmets rather than dress uniform hats. 01:12:27:15 LS, soldiers on horseback appear seemingly out of nowhere on a vast expanse of plane, they ride out of frame, and then we see a CU of a tank moving across some brush, MS, soldiers on horseback crossing a river or stream. Cut to LS of a cavalry regiment coming down another sandy hillside.
Note(s)
Detailed preservation notes from the film lab are available in Film and Video department files. Additional photographs are available in the USHMM Photo Archives.
Subjects
- GUNS
- POLAND
- ARTILLERY
- SOLDIERS/MILITARY
- UNIFORMS
- HORSES
- WEAPONS/ARMS
- MAPS
- BRYAN, JULIEN
- TANKS
- SOLDIERS/MILITARY (POLISH)
Places
- , Poland
Genre
- Outtakes.
- Film