Land of Orizaba (1943)
** 1/2 (out of 4)
Decent entry in MGM's "TravelTalks" series has James A. FitzPatrick taking a train ride from Vera Cruz to Mexico City, along the way telling us some history and letting us see some nice locations. We start off learning about the first railway that was built and get a brief bit of history about the Aztec Indians in Mexico City. Up next we learn about some of the items exported including pineapple, tobacco and the highly dangerous vanilla bean, which we're told is the most dangerous thing to try and raise due to so many conditions having to be right. From here we visit a resport in Fortin de las Flores, which we're told has the greatest swimming pool of anywhere in Mexico. We also learn that they love the gardenia flower and each room is full of them. From here we learn about a few churches including the Shrine of Guadalupe, which is perhaps the most famous due to a vision of the Virgin Mary. All in all this is a pretty decent entry in the series, which fans have come to expect. As normal, you get some terrific images in Technicolor that really sells the picture and FitzPatrick is full of nice stories about the history of the things we're looking at.