Land of Alaska Nellie (1939) User Reviews

Antique women's bathing suits . . .

[oscaralbert · 7/10 · 17 December 2015]

. . . and dead fish being reeled through public restaurant windows highlight LAND OF ALASKA NELLIE. One can see why SPORTS ILLUSTRATED did not have an annual Swimsuit Edition in the 1930s, as the three aquatic outfits dampened here resemble Godzilla so much that all the fish in the Resurrection Bay area are frightened to death. Nellie reels some of these into her kitchen to feed the cruise ship passengers, on her dangerously lenient interpretation of that infamous "Five Second Rule." When American President Warren Gamaliel Harding visited Nellie's, he enjoyed these dead fish so much (though he died of some sort of food poisoning shortly thereafter--see Gore Vidal's account in EMPIRE) that he had his secretary buy Alaska from Russia's Lenin (NOT the Beatle--they're spelled differently!). In just a few years this frigid territory turned a 2430% profit, says the narrator here, prompting Japan to make it the only part of the USA it targeted for successful occupation during World War II. After the War ended, the U.S. Congress designated this area as a state, so its national flag would come out even. I think that that was a stupid idea, since you need a passport to get into Canada (which motorists are forced to do in order to drive to Alaska). Since when should passports be required to drive from one part of America to another?!

Nellie Nellie Nellie

[SnoopyStyle · 6/10 · 26 September 2020]

This episode of Traveltalks sails into Alaska through the Inside Passage. They land in the small town of Seward named after the Secretary of State who negotiated the Alaska purchase which was referred to as Seward's folly. Three young ladies frolic in the cold mountain stream while a fisherman can't get a catch. There is a fur farm. There is also Nellie Lawing, better known as Alaska Nellie, who has many hunting stories. I'm not sure that Nellie is a personality to build around a Traveltalks episode. This is fine and would probably appeal to any game hunters in the lower 48.

Lusty Trout And Girls In Swimsuits

[boblipton · 7/10 · 26 September 2020]

James A. Fitzpatrick sends the Technicolor up to the environs of Seward Alaska to shoot pictures of bathing beauties, fox pups, mountains, and "Alaska Nellie" Lawing shaking hands with Fitzpatrick.

Between the beautiful photography and the excellence of the print that plays on Turner Classic Movies, this is one of the best of teheTraveltalks I have seen. Even Fitzpatrick's endless blather seems all right spoken over the stunning vistas.

Perhaps the Best TravelTalks

[Michael_Elliott · 30 September 2009]

Land of Alaska Nellie (1936)

*** 1/2 (out of 4)

I've seen dozens and dozens of entries in MGM's TravelTalks series but to date this here is without a doubt the best of the bunch. James A. FitzPatrick, and his Technicolor camera, heads to Alaska where we see one beautiful image after another. We see the streams flowing down from the snow covered mountain and we learn about all the great fishing there. These wonderful visions start the film off but we quickly move to Nellie Lawing, better known as Alaska Nellie. This woman was famous for living off the Alaska land all her life and she had pretty much done everything from a gold rush to dog sledding and even lived as a hunter, trapper and sheriff. We get to hear a few of her stories including one where she was chased by a bear, which led to her three middle fingers being crippled. We then see how big the bear was that attacked her. We see his skin because she shot the thing to death. We hear a couple other great stories including the fact that Presidents had even stayed the night at her resort. The one strange scene in the film is when we're shown some baby foxes and are then shown fox furs as the "future of the babies".

According to the narration for this piece, the region of Alaska has "thousands" of . . .

[cricket30 · 8/10 · 26 September 2020]

. . . "road houses." Now, that's very interesting--in a puzzling sort of way. At the time that LAND OF ALASKA NELLIE was released in 1940, the guy doing the voice-over here states that the population of Seward--apparently a major metropolis in this area at the time--was about 1,000. The implication here is that most area residents still lived in igloos. Why was this bailiwick so underdeveloped, one might wonder. An obvious answer to this query is that Alaska lacked roads. It's really hard to picture a place with "thousands" of "road houses" if it had but two or three roads of any length. Furthermore, a careful viewing of this travel promo will come up totally empty in regard to seeing any dedicated Gun & Ammo shops popping up on the Big Screen. Why would anyone consider moving North into a virtual ice box, IF they had to lug along a lifetime supply of ammunition to keep honing their Second Amendment skills?! So after watching LAND OF ALASKA NELLIE, please do not forget to support you local chapter of BANGS (Broke Americans Need Gun Stamps).