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1949 Color Video of Exploring Southern Utah

• CATEGORIES: Features, videos This site contains affiliate links for which I may be compensated.
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This CJ-2A has the spare tire on the side and sports a Beck “ECONO” Model F3B-100 hardtop.

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The CJ-2A has the same hardtop, but for some reason it no longer has a side mount tire.

Frazier spotted a wonderful color video from 1949. Credit for the one-hour length film goes to Ray and Virginia Garner. As I watched it the first time I was struck by the quality of the cuts, the closeups and faraway shots, and the overall sense of a narrative, despite the lack of sound. A little research proved that this wasn’t Ray’s first video. He’s got a long resume that stretched back to pre-WWII. He and his wife Virginia continued filming for years, traveling around the world, and made films for NBC and ABC News.

LINK FOR VIDEO==> Check out the one hour video that starts near Moab and ends within Canyonlands National Park. The jeep section begins at the 15:30 mark and lasts the rest of the film. You’ll eventually realize that there are two green CJ-2As, though I didn’t see a scene that ever showed both together. If you know southern Utah at all you will really appreciate this gem.

Here’s the archived description:
Movie (color, no sound, 57 minutes, 33 seconds): a home movie by Ray Garner shows various scenes in the deserts of the American Southwest. Ray and Virginia Garner take a road trip in a wood-frame station wagon, camping in the desert of Utah and Arizona. Scenes include Arches National Monument, sand dunes, the La Sal Mountains from Arches, cactus and other vegetation, Monument Valley, wildlife (caterpillar, lizard, insects, scorpion, “Hassayampa legend” sign; car travel in the desert; camping; a windmill pumping water; men climb El Capitan (Agathla Peak) in northern Arizona; the couple in a motorboat on the Colorado River. jeep ride at Dugout Ranch and Canyonlands, San Juan County; petroglyphs at Newspaper Rock; dynamiting a boulder to clear a path for the Jeep; Chesler Park and the Needles area; Indian ruins (Beef Basin?); small planes land and take off at Chesler Park; installing climbing ropes on rocks in Canyonlands to access Indian ruins; Wedding Ring Arch in Salt Creek Canyon; Indian ruins and petroglyph (“All-American Man”) in Salt Creek area. Final sequence shows more natural arches.

 

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