• Short Summary

    Film reversal technique is used to show various farmyard animals walking backwards.

  • Description

    United States of America.

    Introductory intertitle reads: "Here's an odd fowl, that walks backward to go forward so she can look behind to see where she went!"

    M/S of a little girl who the narrator tells us is called Mary O'Connor (note: this is American author Flannery O'Connor as a little girl) from Savannah, Georgia (at least that is what it sounds like). Mary holds a chicken which she lifts onto her shoulder. C/U of the chicken as it walks backwards. Narrator claims that this is the only chicken in the world that walks backwards.

    It looks pretty realistic and then we see geese and ducks walking backwards too so it is presumably a camera trick using film reversal technique. Shots of cows and horses seeming to walk and trot backwards.

  • Tags

  • Data

    Film ID:
    1588.19
    Media URN:
    51137
    Group:
    Pathe sound pictorials
    Archive:
    British Pathé
    Issue Date:
    14/04/1932
    Sound:
    Sound
    HD Format:
    Available on request
    Stock:
    Black & White
    Duration:
    00:01:09:00
    Time in/Out:
    01:41:20:00 / 01:42:29:00
    Canister:
    PSP 732

Comments (1)

  1. Unknown user says

    Yes, this was Savannah. And, in fact, O'Connor's chicken DID walk backwards, which is why the newsreel people when there. The other animals walk backwards due to film reversal technique. (Mary) Flannery O'Connor raised fowl all her life, and especially peacocks and peahens.

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