YMCA; music recital; rehabilitation of youth, Prague, 1946

Julien Hequembourg Bryan (1899-1974) was an American documentarian and filmmaker. Bryan traveled widely taking 35mm film that he sold to motion picture companies. In the 1930s, he conducted extensive lecture tours, during which he showed film footage he shot in the former USSR. Between 1935 and 1938, he captured unique records of ordinary people and life in Nazi Germany and in Poland, including Jewish areas of Warsaw and Krakow and anti-Jewish signs in Germany. His footage appeared in March of Time theatrical newsreels. His photographs appeared in Life Magazine. He was in Warsaw in September 1939 when Germany invaded and remained throughout the German siege of the city, photographing and filming what would become America's first cinematic glimpse of the start of WWII. He recorded this experience in both the book Siege (New York: Doubleday, Doran, 1940) and the short film Siege (RKO Radio Pictures, 1940) nominated for an Academy Award in 1940. In 1946, Bryan photographed the efforts of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Agency in postwar Europe. EXT, VS of Prague, large municipal building, trolley car passing through frame, etc. Prague prison guillotine shadow sequence; CU of a prisoner who scrubs the floor; recital hall in Prague, young men and women are gathered for a performance and social. VS of young boys and girls lining up for tickets, then VS, CUs of them inside a theater, laughing and smiling, watching a film? Stage show? VS, CUs of the children lauging and enjoying themselves during the performance. INT, VS, young men at a large cafeterias style table, eating,drinking and horsing around. Very lively, footage. Women setting up drinks and sweets for the boys. VS, posters, charts and graphs on the wall at the Polska YMCA. Music recital, woman plays piano, hand painted sign above stage reads: "E. Grieg 1845-1907, sulla Peer Gint, Trabka G. Bizel Puzon Walloinia Tuba, suita L'Artesienne". There is a large microphone at the piano, it looks as if the performance could have been recorded, although this footage is silent, and no known soundtrack exists. Pianist gets up, takes a bow, conductor introduces trumpet player, french horn player, and trombone player.