Pan Am India is a 1960 promotional travel film produced by MovieToNews, Inc. Sorry it’s not in English but I think you can get the idea anyway!
The short documentary is about travel to India in 1960 via Pan American Airways and documented the unique culture, architecture, and daily life of Indian residents. The narration of the film is in Japanese (?). The film featured lovely, eye-catching clips, including: one of a man resembling Gandhi (mark 0:25), then starting at mark 1:33, an aerial view of a busy square in Mumbai, formerly Bombay, followed by a red double decker bus, a man on an ox cart, an impressive sized temple, a traffic policeman with a stop sign, and several large buildings. The film also highlights more busy streets in Mumbai with bicycles, cars, trolleys, buses and pedestrians both young and old walking on foot. There are shots of a colorful outdoor market where a street vendor is selling his ware to a man (mark 2:48), then several people on a boat gliding in a river. There’s also shots of people washing, praying and meditating in a river, then a man sitting on an elephant who playfully splashes him with water (mark 3:05).
At mark 4:12, an elephant is helping men move logs to build a dam. In the next scene at mark 4:36, tourists happily ride an elephant covered in a distinctive red covering. A man is seen riding an elephant down the street and then the camera cuts to an ornate building at mark 5:05. Inside the same building, we see the beautiful interior. Several more scenes follow starting at mark 5:25 of men making a variety of pottery, ivory and shaping a vase by hand. Starting at mark 6:26, three people are standing around a table looking at beautiful sari. The woman is wrapped with a blue sari. At mark 7:13, we see a group of Indian women dancing in a circle wearing different color saris and decorated head veils. The film cuts to a large group of school children at mark 7:50 as they begin to march down a field. At mark 8:10, a large crowd is seen sitting on a bleacher watching royal guards holding flags ride by on horses. Several more scenes later, we see soldiers marching in formation wearing red turbans at mark 9:20. Starting at mark 10:56, the film comes to an end with shots of the ivory colored Taj Mahal as tourists and visitors enjoy the beautiful monument.
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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 and 2k. For more information visit http://www.PeriscopeFilm.com
