Thursday, May 28, 2015

Video suggested by Harry Kingston


Posted by Buckles at 5/28/2015 02:14:00 PM

5 comments:

Dick Flint said...

A fantastic film about heavy rain, deep mud, and some dramatically difficult work on Christy Bros. Circus! This was filmed on June 20, 1928, in Grafton, North Dakota, and is a home-made movie made only a couple of years after moving pictures could be made by amateurs. We owe a lot of thanks to the photographer who endured tough filming conditions—a true circus fan! I first saw this last October and put it on my Facebook page as I had never seen such a graphic film before.

28 May, 2015 19:14
Unknown said...

What a beautiful film. You don't see any pokes or prods here. You see how versatile the elephants are.

29 May, 2015 11:05
4pawfan said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
29 May, 2015 12:44
4pawfan said...

Would like to thank Buckles, Harry and Shaz for putting this film on the blog.

Dick is correct about Christy being in Grafton on June 20, 1928 according to my route cards.

It looks like they tried to get on the lot and gave up. You can see the canvas wagon being pulled down the street less the center poles being in their brackets and would guess they are still on the lot. The qrt poles piled up on the street is in a later shot. This wagon would load the canvas first with the qrt poles loaded on top of the canvas. The center poles would load on the outside brackets. In a couple of shots of other wagons, it looks like the side poles were never removed from their brackets on the side of the wagons.

There are a couple of shots of the manure sled being pulled to the street by a bull. One time with a load of stakes maybe, and later in the film with a roll of canvas.

It looks also like Sidney Rink working the bulls in a few of the shots.

The scene of the wagon being pulled out of the mud with three 8-up teams pulling and two bulls pushing is very rare to see on film.

Toward the end of the film, you will see the small girl feeding grass to an elephant and in the background are the qrt poles in the street.

Another early film on youtube is the 1938 Robbins Bros unloading in Ellsworth Maine.
You can Google " circus train being unloaded at ellsworth maine early 1930's "
This film has some local footage first, but the last half is the unloading of the show. As Mr. Flint has said, any of this early home made film work is very rare.

thanks again for sharing,
p.j.

29 May, 2015 13:46
Tony Greiner said...

Graton is where I joined Carson & Barnes #2 in 1978. I took the bus in, and stayed at a hotel that charged $5 a night before I joined the show the next day, coming out of Canda. It might have been the same lot, but it was dry when I joined.

30 May, 2015 00:09

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