A Strange Little Trip: Going Places with Lowell Thomas, #26

Should you watch this?

Honestly, only if you’re into weird, dusty film archives or if you have a bizarre fascination with how golf balls were made during the Great Depression. If you’re looking for a plot, you’re in the wrong place. This is just a series of vignettes that don't really talk to each other.

It feels like stumbling onto a weird channel at 3 AM. One minute you’re watching someone pour liquid into a rubber core, and suddenly you’re on a boat in Arizona.

The weirdest part

The transition between the golf ball factory and Canyon Lake is just… non-existent. Lowell Thomas just pivots. It reminded me a bit of the frantic, disjointed energy you find in Screen Snapshots, Series 9, No. 12 where everything is just a collection of "stuff" rather than a story.

The segment on Olvera Street in LA feels like a staged postcard. Everyone is smiling a bit too hard. It’s picturesque, sure, but it feels like a movie set even when it’s supposed to be real life.

Some random notes I scribbled:

• The golf ball liquid core looked like maple syrup, which made me weirdly hungry.
• The camerawork on the lake is surprisingly stable for the time.
• Lowell Thomas sounds like he’s narrating a newsreel about the end of the world, even when talking about crafts.
• There’s a silence in the Arizona shots that feels heavy. It’s just water and rock, no music to tell you how to feel.

It’s a short watch. If you like this kind of thing, it’s a nice way to kill ten minutes. It’s definitely more interesting than watching Is Money Everything?, which honestly felt like a chore compared to the random imagery here. 🎞️

This film is a bit like a scrapbook found in an attic. You don’t know why the photos are together, but you keep flipping the pages anyway.