Seriously Moving Images

The first half of the above clip is a little two-scene, 50-second drama about a chef’s “secret” and a housewife who demands to hear about it. It was shot around 1937 in a cramped film studio at 1210 Burrard Street (at Davie) in downtown Vancouver. This was at the Film Exchange Building, where two local production companies shared office space with the representatives of American film distributors. (Even then, an extremely apt metaphor for the status of the Canadian film industry! But . . . I digress.)

This theatrical advertising trailer is one of many that would have been seen in Vancouver cinemas between about 1928 and 1939. They were advertisements produced on film for screening to movie audiences — an exhibition trend during the silent film era and well into the sound era. They were made for local distribution by the Vancouver firm Motion Skreenadz Ltd., which by 1937 was owned by Leon C. Shelly. This trailer, “WHY?,” demonstrates some progress in the Skreenadz product, since it was shot with synchronized sound on a studio set. The design of the piece, starting with an on-screen announcer and moving to a scripted dialogue with actors, represents a slightly more sophisticated approach than the even simpler structure of Skreenadz’s silent trailers. The BC Archives’ video master of “WHY?” was copied from a 35mm nitrate print loaned to the archives in 1987 by Lew Parry, the director of the trailer. Parry is shown at work on it in a fascinating production still from the shoot (below).

Pacific Evaporated Milk was (and is) a well-known product of the Fraser Valley Milk Producers’ Association (now Dairyland Canada).

On the source film reel, the Pacific Milk ad is followed by 47 seconds of edited silent footage of a fashion show, with women modeling expensive furs.  This footage may have been meant for another Motion Skreenadz advertising trailer, possibly being made to promote a Vancouver furrier such as Pappas Furs or G.L. Pop. The Art Deco frieze behind the models resembles some that used to be found in the current Hotel Vancouver.