"...A BUNCH OF THE BOYS WERE WHOOPING IT UP AT THE MALAMUTE SALOON"
There's still a bunch of the boys whooping it up at the Malamute Saloon. But the chances are the shooting isn't coming from gunfighters. It's coming from TV cameramen, capturing the mood of Alaska for JEAN SHEPHERD'S AMERICA.
Robert Service fans, and everyone else interested in that frozen hunk of land that makes
Texas the second largest state, JEAN SHEPHERD'S AMERICA is on PBS.
Shepherd's jaunt to Alaska leads off with this piece of fantastic information: "Alaska, it just isn't like Cleveland."
One of the reasons that no one could confuse the two is immediately apparent. Shepherd is cracking his jokes directly in front of an enormous glacier. Now glaciers are not the sort of thing that appear on television every day. But when Jean Shepherd threatens to hurl his body against it to stop its further progress, you know you're seeing a television first.
Shepherd's Alaskan venture is full of strikingly original camera shots, and, of course, the inimitible Shepherd wit.
His technique is really a whole new approach to television, call it video-verite. The
point is spontaneous conversations, unplanned occurrences.
One such unrehearsed moment finds Shepherd questioning a leathery old gentleman from Nome. The man dwells on the romance of Alaska's bars, and you can't help loving it.
JEAN SHEPHERD'S AMERICA is another sensual essay with the camera's eye view the next best thing to being there.
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Music played during the show:
"Antarctic Symphony (#8)" Ralph Vaughan Williams
"Yellow Dog Blues" Sons Of The Whisky Rebellion
Shep did several of his radio shows talking about his trip to Alaska and talked about the newspaper in Nome. "The Nome Nugget" (See photos) |
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