YMCA; Prague

Identifier
irn1005174
Language of Description
English
Alt. Identifiers
  • 2003.213
  • RG-60.7128
Level of Description
Item
Languages
  • Silent
Source
EHRI Partner

Creator(s)

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

Street scenes, trolley, storefronts in Czechoslovakia. CU sign reads “YMCA KAVARNA JIDELNA VCHOD PASAZI.” Young men with a coach on a basketball court. CU coach demonstrates how to hold the ball. Young boys in an indoor pool. Boys sitting on the side of the pool cheering swimmers. SOME OVERLAP WITH FILM ID 2322 (03:30) Audience. Couple at head of room, camera and lights seen to the left. Woman stands and speaks. CU audience. They get refreshments. EXT Charles Bridge in Prague, stone arch at one end of bridge. St. Vitus Cathedral. CU statue. Man on ladder takes down a sign from the side of a building. Street, trolley moves towards the camera. Additional shots of streets and buildings in Prague. (08:23) CU guillotine blade falling, shadow of man. Men observing and discussing guillotine. Man on hands and knees scrubbing floor of large hallway with the silhouette of a man pacing in FG. Men and women gathered in a room with bookshelves, looking at a booklet together. Women setting up chess board. CU hands arranging shapes. Additional people enter the room and shake hands. Woman seated with row of men standing behind them, looking at booklets and framed portraits together. Photographs of young boys and a medal in a case. CU, Národní osvobození newspaper with photograph of philosopher Jaroslav Šimsa.

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.

Subjects

Places

Genre

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