This fascinating, seemingly amateur-made film is entitled “Call of the Open Road” (1957). It was made by Hugh Randolph / Hugh Randolph Productions. (Randolph was a member of the SMPTE, Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers, a professional organization.) This movie, which also can be seen as a paean to the American road trip, is narrated by Mary Harker and John Barry, and features music “by Erickson”. Other credits are given for the soundtrack, which was recorded onto the print using a magnetic stripe (as opposed to via optical sound).

(0:20) Opening credits and shots of license plates (2:50) Wide shots of the New Jersey Turnpike and toll booth as cars drive by, motels and inns frequented by travelers, and close-ups of various state license plates (4:22) Driver training is shown at high schools introduce future drivers to safe driving. Cars are driven competitively through skill-based courses (5:05) Horses and cattle in the countryside to waves crashing on an unnamed beach as people fish and bring their boat in (7:20) A harvested corn field to yellow and red trees of the fall season lined up by the side of a road (8:38) Cars driving by for the American Hill Climb auto race on Eagle Rock Ave. in West Orange, NJ, an event that originally started as a test of different vehicles’ power and endurance as they climbed up a hill (9:52) Snowfall with trees in the background (10:41) Ice boats skimming the surface of a frozen lake (12:26) Close-ups of flowers blooming during springtime. Cherry blossoms in Branch Brook Park in Newark, NJ (13:19) People rest on the park’s grass and ride boats on the lake (14:05) Sailing into Tangier Island in Virginia, a small island comprised of descendants of colonial settlers (15:15) Front yards on the island serve as private cemeteries for the immediate families. Due to the size of the roads, locals commute on scooters (16:30) The remaining buildings of Deserted Island in Monmouth County, NJ, including shops, a furnace, and collapsed homes (18:27) Niagara Falls. Visitors stand around and view the scenery (19:32) A whirlpool after the river passes the falls. The Rainbow International Bridge leads into Canada (20:11) On the Canadian side with the Horseshoe Falls and a decorated plaza in Ontario (22:07) Lambert Castle in Paterson, NJ (23:00) Gingerbread Castle, based on a Grimm brothers fairy tale. Includes fairytale figures such as Humpty Dumpty on a wall (24:14) Gillette Castle State Park in East Haddam, CT (25:20) Philipse Castle in Westchester County, NY (26:10) The Gettysburg Battlefield. Various shots of Lincoln statues, memorials, battlefields, canons, and graveyards (28:15) The seaport of Mystic, CT, including churches, shops, the docks, and homes (30:17) The Charles W. Morgan ship, the last of an American whaling fleet that included more than 2,700 vessels (30:35) The Joseph Conrad, an iron-hulled sailing ship, originally launched as Georg Stage in 1882 and used to train sailors in Denmark (31:13) The Trolley Museum in East Windsor, CT that preserves trolleys from various American cities. Trolleys carry riders and drive across the tracks (32:50) The taillights of cars on an unnamed freeway illuminate the road as the sun sets.

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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