Stranger Than Fiction #26: Carrier Pigeons and Chicken Medicine

Is it worth your time?

If you have a soft spot for grainy, old-school curiosities, sure. It’s a breezy watch for anyone who likes feeling like they’re rummaging through an attic full of forgotten newspapers. But if you need a coherent story or anything resembling modern pacing, you will probably want to turn it off within the first three minutes. It’s not a movie; it’s a mood. 🎞️

The whole thing jumps around so fast it almost gives you whiplash. One second you're in Oregon watching a family send notes via bird, and suddenly you’re staring at a chicken pharmacy. I’m not even sure what a chicken pharmacy is, but it exists in this footage.

The pacing is just... chaotic. There's no build-up. There’s no payoff. It’s just here is a thing, and then here is a different thing. It feels a bit like watching someone channel surf on a television from 1940.

Odd little details

• That Portland family is way too serious about their pigeons. Like, dangerously serious.
• The desert menace segment in Maine makes no sense geographically, but who cares?
• The rolling candy shop looks like a fire hazard on wheels.

I couldn’t help but compare the sheer randomness here to something like Lilac, which at least tries to hold your hand through its story. This doesn't care if you're lost. It just keeps moving.

Charles E. Ford acts as our guide through this madness, and he has that classic, booming newsreel voice that makes everything sound like a major catastrophe. Even when he’s talking about candy, he sounds like he’s announcing the end of the world. It’s funny, in a way. Or maybe just exhausting. I can't decide.

Sometimes the film lingers on a shot of a street corner just a second too long. It starts to feel like you’re actually standing there, watching a bunch of people who have been dead for eighty years walk by. It’s a weird, ghostly feeling that hits you out of nowhere. 👻

I found myself wondering if this was the The Advisor of short-form documentary style—trying to instruct us on how to live, but failing so hard it becomes art. It definitely lacks the polish of something like The Woman Disputed, but that’s clearly the point. It’s raw, messy, and totally bizarre.

If you’re looking for a deep, academic breakdown of society, look elsewhere. If you want to see a guy try to sell medicine to a chicken, well, you found it. Stay weird, folks.