62354 MIDWEST HOLIDAY 1952 TRAVELOGUE FILM CHICAGO LAKE MICHIGAN MISSOURI NEBRASKA WYOMING

This short 1952 travelogue, presented by Standard Oil Company and produced by Wilding Picture Productions, Inc., follows a road trip though the American Midwest by a Chicago reporter back from assignment in Europe. The film opens with a shot of a street and buildings in Chicago, IL, followed by the door to the Editorial Office of a newspaper. The reporter, Dale Bennett, returns from vacation an meets with his editor to discuss his vacation. Bennett drives his station wagon down a highway (02:10). Bennett swims in Lake Michigan, and then he watches beach cars (dune buggies) racing on the sand dunes of Lake Michigan. He walks into a woman painting at an easel on the beach. Bennett pulls into a Standard Oil gas station (03:30), where he buys a finished painting from the woman from the beach (Connie). He pulls up on the side of a road where Connie and her father are stranded with their car and trailer. Bennett gives the car a push start, but Connie’s dad leaves the car without putting it in park, and it rolls down the hill and off the road, crashing into a tree. Bennett pulls the trailer with his station wagon, and the trio arrive at Interlochen, MI. Kids play various instruments at a music camp (07:06). Connie and Bennett sit outside the trailer and chat. A bugler plays “Taps” at sunset with the lake in the background (09:18). Next, they visit Spring Mill State Park, IN, where they see an old water wheel. That is followed by a visit to New Salem State Park, IL featuring the restored old log buildings from the days of Abraham Lincoln (10:12). Viewers see a tugboat on the Mississippi River, a bridge taking the trio into Hannibal, MO (11:00) and the childhood home of Mark Twain, the War Memorial in Kansas City, MO and a view of the city’s skyline, the state capitol building in Lincoln, NE (11:47), Boot Hill Cemetery, and the oil derricks of Oklahoma City (12:20). From there, Bennett, Connie, and her father pass Pikes Peak in the Rocky Mountains next to Colorado Springs, CO. They drive through Rocky Mountain National Park (12:40), and they take in the views from an alpine lake. There is a good panning shot from Trail Ridge Road (13:18). Next, the film goes to Grand Teton National Park, where the rocky peaks loom over what appears to be Jackson Lake (13:40). They arrive at an entrance to Yellowstone National Park (14:48); footage shows Upper Yellowstone Falls, Old Faithful (15:20), and a black bear next to a road. The ride horses at a dude ranch in Montana and fly fish on a river. Viewers see a wheat field in Montana (16:30), as well as several combine harvesters as they drive through the field. The film shows shots of Mount Rushmore (17:03), South Dakota’s Badlands, and another wheat harvest (in North Dakota). The next place they visit is Minnesota’s Itasca State Park (17:43) with its massive pine trees. Kids play at the headwaters of the Mississippi River. Viewers see the Mesabi Iron Range where iron ore is mined (18:07), Duluth and its port on Lake Superior, and a scenic overlook from a Wisconsin highway featuring a lake. A boy and his dog push off from a dock in a canoe (19:05). The trio see more sights, including small falls on Wolf River, Wisconsin Dells, and a dairy farm. The film then shows the entrance to the Iowa State Fair (21:18): Connie and Bennett walk around the grounds, ride a Ferris wheel, and watch a livestock show. Bennett pulls his station wagon and Connie’s trailer into her hometown, a small midwestern town. The film cuts back to the newspaper editor’s office, where Bennett shows his editor Connie’s paintings of the Midwest (23:58). The film concludes with a shot of Bennett and Connie at a bandstand performance at a park in Connie’s hometown.

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