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Castle Films – The News Parade

The March issue of Reel Deals gave an account of the DeVry Corporation, U.S.
pioneers of Audio-Visual Instruction. By chance, a prime example of the instructional
and public information film that DeVry supported has come to hand. It is also a prime
example of the News Parades edited by Eugene W. Castle and distributed from
Chicago to the burgeoning A-V user field.

BISMARCK SEA VICTORY

A neat little informational drawn from probably various newsreels of the time, loaded
too with home-front propaganda about the urgency of recruitment and armaments
production. This print is edge-marked as from 1943, double sprocketed, on a branded
Castle reel. With a header from the Zenith Cinema Service of Chicago, it is entirely
intact with no projection damage.

Silent, as were so many 16mm films then, there are 25 intertitles in ten minutes of film,
such as

• A Miracle of Management and Men!
• Cream of the Nation that Taught the World to Fly!
• Jap Armada Smashed!
• Tojo gets it Right on the Nose!
• Bombs Drop with Crushing Accuracy!
• American and Australian Heroes of the Bismarck Sea!

The film records the RAAF-USAAF air attacks which in March 1943 destroyed a
Japanese convoy of ships with 7000 troops intended to roll back the successful
Australian defence of the Kokoda Track and at last open the route to Port Moresby. All
the transport ships were sunk, along with four of the eight destroyers.

“General MacArthur Proclaims a Major Victory!” which was true: the battle destroyed
the enemy’s ability to function in mainland New Guinea.

Eugene W. Castle was right in there letting the folks at home know all about it.

David Donaldson, Adelaide