James A. FitzPatrick

James FitzPatrick, a camera crew and a crowd at Bondi Beach, Australia, in 1951.

James Anthony FitzPatrick was born in Shelton, Connecticut. After completing training in dramatic arts, he worked as a journalist. In 1916, he began his film career by starting the Juvenile Film Company in Cleveland, producing comedy shorts featuring children, years before similar series such as Our Gang and The Little Rascals.[2] However, the series was not a success, and by 1921, FitzPatrick was working as a writer/director for Charles Urban's Kineto Company of America, working on a series titled Great American Authors that featured profiles of famous American writers.[3] However, Kineto folded in 1924, and in 1925 FitzPatrick established his own company and began two concurrent series: Famous Music Masters—dramatized shorts about the lives of famous composers—and Songs Of. The films were distributed worldwide, and some were later synchronized to sound.[4]

In 1930, FitzPatrick began filming travel documentaries for British and American markets.[5][6] Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer distributed the series under the title FitzPatrick Traveltalks. Beginning with 1934's Holland in Tulip Time, the Traveltalks were filmed in Technicolor, and the series was among the earliest regular vehicles for color film in the American film industry. After FitzPatrick left MGM in 1954, he produced a similar series for Paramount Pictures titled Vistavision Visits for another year before retiring.

FitzPatrick died at the age of 86 in Cathedral City, California.

FitzPatrick created nearly 300 films in a career that spanned five decades. His approach was somewhat similar to that of Charles Urban in that his travelogues concentrated on architecture and landscape rather than on people. FitzPatrick also relates to Urban in his advocacy of color, which he first employed in Charles Gounod (1928), a film in the Famous Music Master series.[4]

With the advent of television, Hollywood began to reduce its reliance on short subjects, and many shorts departments began to close. FitzPatrick owned his own unit and managed to survive longer than did many internal studio units. FitzPatrick Pictures produced only five features, three of which were intended for release only in the UK. The last film, Song of Mexico (1945), was released by Republic Pictures.

The Traveltalks films are often shown on the Turner Classic Movies channel as filler material between features.

On his 1958 Parlophone record The Best of Sellers, Peter Sellers performed "Balham, Gateway to the South", a parody of Fitzpatrick's travelogues.[7]

In 1960, FitzPatrick was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.[8]

In 2016, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment released the entire series of shorts in a three-volume DVD-R set titled Fitzpatrick Traveltalks. Individual shorts may also be found as extras on DVDs of Warner Bros. films of the period:

• Los Angeles: Wonder City of the West is on the DVD of Sylvia Scarlett
• Cherry Blossom Time in Japan is on the DVD of China Seas
• Paris on Parade is on the DVD and Blu-ray of An American in Paris
• Modern New Orleans and Old New Orleans are on the DVD of The Toast of New Orleans
• Cavalcade of San Francisco is on the DVD of Go West
• Glimpses of Florida is on the DVD of Lady Be Good
• Looking at London is on the DVD of The Three Musketeers
• Glimpses of California is on the DVD of Till the Clouds Roll By
• Chicago, the Beautiful and Night Life in Chicago are on the DVD of In the Good Old Summertime
• Roaming Through Michigan is on the DVD of Three Little Words
• Romantic Riviera is on the DVD of Easy to Love
• Land of the Taj Mahal and Ancient India are on the DVD of Kim
• Land of the Taj Mahal is on the DVD of The Prisoner of Zenda (1937 and 1952 dual-disc version)

• James A. FitzPatrick at IMDb 
• James A. FitzPatrick at the TCM Movie Database