gymnastics

A Dutch newsreel including items on a dressage act with lions, tigers, and goats in Amersfoort, and about the fashion show “Cotton 1960” in Amsterdam, featuring creations by Dick Holthaus.

A Dutch newsreel including items on the Dutch artistic gymnastics championships, the animal hotel in Schiphol and a course for pedestrians aimed at older people.

Reportage about a military sport demonstration.

Soldiers give a sport demonstration in The Hague’s Houtrust Stadium. The film opens with a small group of men doing exercises on bridges, benches, beams and sawhorses. By the end of the film, the group has grown into a sizeable crowd in the middle of the stadium. The soldiers perform synchronized exercises.

Propaganda Film About the Dutch Military.

Holland neutraal (Neutral Holland) is this film’s subtitle, which was meant to show that the Dutch armed forces are very much prepared to guarantee the Netherlands’ neutrality in World War One. The more than 2.5-hour film was made by Willy Mullens in 1917, when other Western European armies had become numbed after three long years in the trenches. The footage in the Army and Navy Film depicts a relatively high-spirited mood, considering how the Dutch military had mobilized but not actually participated in the war.

Compilation film about Heerenveen.

Compilation of a few short items about the city of Heerenveen. The items were probably assembled in subsequent years by a distributor or exhibitor. We see:

• Footage of the carnival in Heerenveen. Much attention is paid to the assembled audience, who at the end of the item are invited to visit the Witte Bioscoop in Heerenveen. This film was presumably produced by this cinema. Local films like this one were often produced during the early years of film.

• Harness races in Heerenveen, and the horse market in Oudeschoot on Whit Monday.

Reportage about the gymnastics festival organized by the Hilversum Gymnastics Association (HGV), and the performance of the North Holland District of the Royal Dutch Gymnastics Federation on June 10, 11, and 12 in Hilversum.