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.
At the time of the filming, Julien Bryan was working under contract for the International Relief Organization/UNRRA and tasked with capturing images of Europe rebuilding. The finished films were intended for an international [European] audience, often screened under the auspices of the US Department of State.
Pedestrians on Charles Bridge in Prague. Buildings and street in the Little Quarter. St. Vitus Cathedral. Scaffolding. Old Town Square. Statue of the Holy Crucifix and Calvary on Charles Bridge. Additional shots of statues, buildings, and streets in Prague. (03:50) INT shadow of man cranking the blade of a guillotine up. This scene was shot in the Pancraz prison in Prague postwar. Shadow of blade falling. Man demonstrates guillotine. CU two men in discussion. Man on hands and knees scrubs floor of large hallway with the silhouette of a man pacing in FG. Man sitting in cell with bars on the window. (06:44) Street in Prague with trolley going by. Storefronts. CU sign reads “YMCA KAVARNA JIDELNA VCHOD PASAZI.” CU sign reads “PRAZSKA YMKA.” Busy sidewalk in front of YMCA, several people enter. INT women seated with a row of men standing behind them, looking at booklets and framed portraits together. CU They bow their heads in prayer. Opening the book “BEYOND TRAGEDY” by Reinhold Niebuhr. Opening booklet “PIRAT SEDMI MORI.” Bookshelves. Setting up a chess board in a room, the small bust of a man and a portrait of philosopher Jaroslav Šimsa with black ribbon in BG. Brief shot of two women looking at a medal in a case. (15:25) Young man picks up cans from a windowsill. Men seen through an open window. INT man sits on a cot reading. Two men join him. CU the men discuss the newspaper and gesture to a portrait of Czech statesman Edvard Beneš on the wall. Man cuts and butters bread at a table in the room. Gesturing to photograph of philosopher Jaroslav Šimsa on the wall while eating bread. Men come in and out of room, talking.
Prague city; Czech prison; YMCA; Jaroslav Šimsa