NFR Project: 'Disneyland Dream'

 

NFR Project: “Disneyland Dream”

Dir: Robbins Barstow

Scr: Robbins Barstow

Pho: Robbins Barstow

Ed: Robbins Barstow

Premiere: 1956

35 min.

The home movie is one of the most common means of self-expression in America. As early as 1898, people were beginning to record their significant events and family portraits on film. It’s an amateur art form that almost anyone in America can find the resources to practice. (I used to work on a local broadcast TV show, “Homemovies,” that highlighted the artistic efforts of aspiring rookie filmmakers. The efforts ranged from fascinating to awful.)

One of the more extraordinary home movie efforts is highlighted here. Disneyland Dream is the brainchild of the enthusiastic dilettante Robbins Barstow, who plied his hobby in his off hours. In 1956, he and his family won a contest sponsored by the Scotch adhesive tape company, which awarded 25 families with a trip to the then-new Disneyland amusement park in Anaheim, California.

Read Liz Coffey’s excellent summation of this entry at the National Film Registry here.

The Robbins family were an extroverted bunch, unafraid to stage antics for the camera. This 35-minute epic covers everything from their entry into the contest to the trip itself. Their exuberant behavior is charming in a hokey kind of way; they react to winning the contest in slapstick manner. The film then shows them leaving for the flight to California, then traveling via plane.

Their vacation lasted almost a week; they document their trips to other Los Angeles-area attractions and then segue into their adventures in the Magic Kingdom. They visit Fantasyland, Adventureland, Tomorrowland, and Frontierland. This documentation of what was then considered the premier family vacation experience is a remarkable, giving us a slice-of-life record of an average American middle-class family at play in mid-century.

The NFR Project is one writer’s attempt to review all the films listed in the National Film Registry in chronological order. Next time: Forbidden Planet.