This circa 1940 black-and-white travelogue takes us to the rugged, rainforested Central American country. The film opens on street scenes from the capital, San Jose (mark 00:23), a city “as modern as today’s airplane.” We see such structures as the National Theater (00:46) and the University of Costa Rica before visiting young girls picking coffee beans from plants (mark 01:30) and then follow the key product through its production cycle. A resident beautifully paints his ox cart at mark 02:50 before being attached to their beasts of burden and we visit a banana grove (mark 03:25), touted as the nation’s second most important industry, as they eventually are shown being loaded aboard ships for delivery to countries such as the United States. Mark 04:25 takes us to Alajuela, a province in northern Costa Rica that is the center of the sugarcane industry, and also see workers select cacao pods from which to harvest their cocoa beans (mark 04:44), and watch the manufacturing of abaca rope. We see scenes of orchids (the national flower) and their countless varieties, extinct volcanoes, and watch a car speed down the Pan-American Highway. There are bullfights (mark 06:13) and scenes of men women playing in fountains (mark 07:00) .“Clean as a porcelain cup; neat as a good housewife. That sums up the Republic of Costa Rica,” boasts the narrator as the film nears an end.

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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 http://www.PeriscopeFilm.com