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How To Read A Map

This movie is part of the collection: Prelinger Archives

Audio/Visual: sound, B&W

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Reviewer: Spuzz - - December 21, 2008
Subject: Look! A Marsh!
Simplified instruction about map reading is on display here. I thought the maps were somewhat, um, crude looking? But we may be dealing with a different time here.. As well, these dont look like the regular road maps are used to.. I am guessing these were made for more professional use. Though even that is doubtful given the grade 3 demonstration shown here.

Reviewer: Wilford B. Wolf - - September 22, 2008
Subject: There's that fly again....
Cheaply made silent film from the mid to late 1930s depicting how to read a map. There are a few other examples from this era in the Prelinger collection of instructional films as late as 1940 shot silently; sound projector equipment hadn't quite trickled down to all in the educational segment, so there was still call for silent versions of films.

This particular film is about twice as long as it should be. Most of the information conveyed would be equally (and perhaps more effectively) conveyed in a book. The only thing that saves it is an impressive comparison of a map of the lower Hudson River Valley near Cornwall, NY, and shots from a hilltop overlooking the area that occupies about the last third of the film.

But on the other hand, there's a lot of very silly bits that are clear that the film makers were trying to justify using film to present the information. So, we get a lot of shots of close up of maps, a mechanical pencil and/or a magnifying glass pointing out the feature, and then cutting to mostly static shots of the real thing. It was also evident that the film makers wanted to make this as cheaply as possible; a fly can be seen clearly resting on the card indicating the symbol for a marsh, and then again on the map just after the "A town in the distance" card.

Useful for stock footage of upstate New York, or 1930s transportation shots, but otherwise dull.