Assembled from the General Newsreel Co.’s holdings, this issue of Yesterday’s Newsreel provides film clips of news highlights. The first segment shows the German invasion of France in 1940 including the assault on portions of the Maginot Line by artillery (:30). Parts of the shattered line are seen at 1:00 as German troops head towards Metz (1:46). These are mechanized forces supported by horses and infantry. At 3:55, French prisoners are seen walking to camps while German troops pass them with Panzers (4:10). At 4:34, scenes of Coney Island are seen as comedian Raymond HItchcock performs a benefit for a relief fund. Luna Park, the Coney Island park that burned, is shown. At 5:20, women eat hotdogs as part of a Coney Island ritual. At 5:40, New York comic Ray Hitchcock is seen again having fun with a camel. At 5:55, in the personalities segment, Annie Oakley is seen doing target practice and demonstrating her ability with a rifle. Percey Grainger the Australian composer is also shown at 6:20, and at 6:33 movie star Hope Hampton is shown at the beach. At 7:00 the 1930 Boston harbor disaster between the liner Fairfax and the tanker Pinthus, which exploded and sank. Finally at 8:00, the Flying Hutchinsons are seen posing with their pet lion cub. The film also shows the search for them by dirigible in Greenland, after their plane crashed there. In 1931, George, Blanche and daughters Kathryn and Janet Hutchinson became nationwide celebrities as the Flying Hutchinsons, when they visited the capitals of all 48 United States by air. Further fame came when ‘the Flying Family’ attempted an around-the-world flight the next year; their Sikorsky S-38 aircraft crash-landed off Greenland, and the family were stranded for several days before being picked up by a fishing trawler and transported to the United Kingdom. George and Blanche wrote two books about their adventures – The Flying Family in Greenland (1935) and Flying the States (1937) – and the family were pictured on cereal boxes and made appearances on stage and radio.
In 1939, the family attempted another around-the-world flight in a Lockheed Electra but it was cancelled due to the outbreak of World War II.
More about the Pinthus and Fairfax: Flaming seas of floating oil claimed the lives of 49 people when the passenger steamer Fairfax last night rammed and sank the tanker Pinthus. Both ships were nosing through a fog in Massachusetts Bay (Boston). The Pinthus, carrying 12,000 barrels of gasoline, was rammed amid ship and sank almost immediately in the fiery sea, carrying 18 of the crew with her. In the interval of a minute or two while the Pinthus still hung helpless in the bows of the Fairfax, oil-fed flames streamed over the latter ‘s decks. By a miracle the fire was extinguished, and very much battered, with a hole six feet by two feet in her prow, the Fairfax reached port just before noon today.
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