Short travel film
Silent

Original film title in English: Post Travel Series No. 24 “Singapore”
Directed by Clyde Elliott
Produced by Post Film Company
Distributed by Pathé
Year of release: 1918
Film Locations: Singapore town, barber shop, street parade, fairs

 

Motion Picture News, 25 May 1918:
“Pathe Uses New Policy on Travel Series
By virtue of an important deal consummated between Pathe and the Post Film Co., of which Albert Redfield is president and treasurer and Clyde E. Elliott is vice-president and general director, release throughout the country of a new travel series will made by that distributing company in conjunction with daily newspapers.
Forty papers in the United States are parties to the contract, and as each film is shown in each city, a travel article corresponding appears in each newspaper. The subjects are in single reel form. The countries covered by the touring cinematographers are those with which most Americans are totally unfamiliar, hence should prove of paramount interest…”

[Our note: More than a decade later, Post Film Co.’s general director Clyde E. Elliott would be helming feature length “jungle” films made in Singapore and Johor; the very first feature-length Hollywood films made on location in Singapore – Bring ‘Em Back Alive (1932) with Frank Buck, Devil Tiger (1934) and Booloo (1938).]

Motion Picture News, 1 June 1918:
“As the finished development of a plan on which it has been working for the past two years, the Post Film Company, which has selected Pathe to distribute its series of fifty-two one-a-week one-reel travel pictures… These are said to be real travel pictures. When one travels to a foreign country, one does not spend all his time looking at rivers and mountains. He is interested in the natives of that country, their habits, their homes, means of transportation, dress, children, their chief industries, etc. This is actually what the Post Travel Pictures give one and in the most intimate possible manner…”

 

 

[Our note: The Post Travel Series consisted of 52 films released over 52 weeks. Singapore was featured in week 24.]

The Moving Picture World, 28 December 1918:
“Singapore is one of the strange and populous ports of the seven seas, and, during the war, has come into more than usual prominence. Post Travel Series No. 24, which deals with both the island and the city, is widely instructive and entertaining. Besides the curious native views of place and people, one is given an impressive idea of how greatly Britain has made this a most important port for her shipping.”

The Moving Picture World, 11 January 1919:
“SINGAPORE, (Post-Pathe). – An excellent travel subject, picturing life on the island and in the city of Singapore. This has a Chinese population, very largely, and some highly entertaining forms of native life are pictured. The barber shop, all street parade and entertainments of all sorts make interesting features.”

Reel and Slide Magazine, January 1919:
“The Singapore of Kipling, with its odd mingling of nationalities and its interesting native life, is shown in No. 24 of the Post Travel Series, released by Pathe December 22. One of the unusual views is of a “county fair”, in which quaint merry-go-rounds and other primitive devices are shown.”

Reel and Slide Magazine, February 1919:
“Singapore. Reel, 1; producer, Post Travel Film Company; exchange, Pathe; remarks: Post Weekly, Travel Series, Singapore. Street scenes, Malays and Chinese barber shop, trinket making, popular entertainments, ambulatory restaurants, stalking big game.”