This Canadian two-reel documentary was an Oscar nominee (albeit in the Live Action Short Subject category) and is even favourably reviewed in the "Leslie Halliwell Film Guide". While opening in a contemporary setting, we are eventually taken back by narrator Pierre Berton to the days of his father as a prospector in the 1898 Klondike Gold Rush. Interestingly, while the modern footage is captured by a moving camera, the past is effectively represented via a succession of stills – relating the trials and tribulations of the people who came from afar to make a fortune but who, we are told, sometimes lost it after a while or even lost interest in pursuing it further once they settled in a community that would soon thrive and become an established city! All in all, the film makes for a vivid and nicely-detailed look at the pioneering spirit. Incidentally, co-director Koenig was featured as an actor in Norman McLaren's Oscar-winning short NEIGHBOURS (1952), which I watched a day prior to this one.
Review of City of Gold
