Minnesota, "Land of Plenty"

I'm a bit busy with overtime at work so my movie viewing has been a bit less. In trying to figure out what to blog about, I decided to dig out one of the Traveltalks box sets I've got and watch Minnesota "Land of Plenty, specifically picking that since it's one I don't think I've seen before and I've got a sister living out in Minnesota.

This is fairly typical for a Fitzpatrick Traveltalks short, especially those focused on the US while making shorts about Europe was out of the question during World War II (this one being released in 1942). It starts off with a panorama of farmland before telling us that Minnesota is supposedly known for its famous roads -- the only famous Minnesota road I can think of is the I-35 bridge over the Mississippi that collapsed a decade or so ago, long after Fitzpatrick died. Still, it's nice farmland.

The short having been released in 1942, there are a lot of references to things that were fairly new at the time but are now quite old, such as young governor Harold Stassen, who would become known for his quixotic presidential campaigns, or the recently completed Mayo Clinic in Rochester. There's mention of the iron mining in the northeastern part of the state, as well as the town of Hibbing, but obviously no mention of Bob Dylan who would have been but a baby at the time.

Still, Minnesota is probably best known for its lakes (there are over 11,000, not the "Land of 10,000 Lakes" the state is generally known as, Fitzpatrick politely informs us) and being the source of the Mississippi River, so we visit several lakes which gives the cinematographer the opportunity to photograph a nice sunset, as well as some human interest bits, here involving fishermen out on the lakes.

One other thing that showed up a lot in the Traveltalks shorts is the trope of the happy native. We see it a lot in the foreign shorts, with happy peasants dancing in traditional costume, or the parade of aboriginal peoples in the Latin American shorts. Interestingly, Fitzpatrick was able to find a reservation of Chippewa who were willing to be photographed for the short, and Fitzpatrick duly trots them out, including a cute moppet of a Chippewa, because God knows we have to have the native children too.

I love the Traveltalks shorts even though they engage in all sorts of tropes, and I'm glad that they're available on DVD now.