This silent, pre- WWII movie shows the harvesting of bananas at an American Fruit Company plantation in Cameroon, Africa. Unfortunately the name of the production company has been erased from the film (:10) so we don't know who made it but one can imagine from the font that it was made by the national German educational film service UFA. Cameroon became a German colony in 1884 (known as Kamerun) but after World War I, the territory was divided between France and the United Kingdom as League of Nations mandates.The film opens with shots of a plantation (:21). At :59 a steam tractor powers pumping equipment to irrigate the trees. At 1:30 water is moved through a series of pipes and trenches. At 2:00 workers assemble to harvest the fruit. At 2:33 bananas are cut away with a machete. At 2:50 hundreds of bananas are transported to a lean-to for storage. At 3:22 a train car is moved into position and loaded by hand. The harvest is covered with leaves to protect it from the sun and rain. At 4:30 the banana plant fibers are woven into strands to secure the load. At 5:00 an electric narrow gauge locomotive moves the product to a huge warehouse where thousands of bundles are stored. At 6:27 fruit is stripped from the peels in preparation for drying. At 7:50 dried bananas are packed for shipment. At 8:30 the dried snacks are loaded onto train cars.At 8:40 a small steam locomotive connects to the train cars and hauls them across a bridge (9:30). At 10:00 a switch is thrown. At 10:09 a sign says "A.F.C. Railway" (American Fruit Company Railway). At 10:20 the train rumbles through the jungle before arriving at the wharf. At 11:15 the unprocessed fruit is unloaded by hand and placed on a ship, the Pionier out of Hamburg. At 12:17 managers and crew wave goodbye to the departing ship. At 12:55 the arrival of the ship is telegraphed to Hamburg. At 13:21 the ship arrives in Hamburg and unloaded using a conveyer belt system (14:29).
We encourage viewers to add comments and, especially, to provide additional information about our videos by adding a comment! See something interesting? Tell people what it is and what they can see by writing something for example like: "01:00:12:00 -- President Roosevelt is seen meeting with Winston Churchill at the Quebec Conference."
This film is part of the Periscope Film LLC archive, one of the largest historic military, transportation, and aviation stock footage collections in the USA. Entirely film backed, this material is available for licensing in 24p HD and 2k. For more information visit [ Ссылка ]
