On the disc Treasures from American Film Archives, you will find Cologne: From the Diary of Ray and Esther (1939) which gets my nomination for Best Amateur Movie Ever Made.
Ray Dowidat, the town doctor, made this thoughtful, highly crafted, little documentary about a small town in Minnesota.
It's a silent, very cleverly sub-titled, warts-and-all account in which the beguilingly bucolic atmosphere of Cologne is gradually but inevitably stripped away so that the viewer recoils in horror as the affectionate opening scenes give way to the quirky, the ironic, the dark, and finally the non-visualized "bitterness".
When all is sad and done, this American small town is no Andy Hardy stopover at all!
Ray Dowidat, the town doctor, made this thoughtful, highly crafted, little documentary about a small town in Minnesota.
It's a silent, very cleverly sub-titled, warts-and-all account in which the beguilingly bucolic atmosphere of Cologne is gradually but inevitably stripped away so that the viewer recoils in horror as the affectionate opening scenes give way to the quirky, the ironic, the dark, and finally the non-visualized "bitterness".
When all is sad and done, this American small town is no Andy Hardy stopover at all!