HAROLD BAIM'S OVERSEAS TRAVEL COLLECTION

Caribbean Carousel

Registered: 25th August 1966
Duration: 24 minutes
Feet: 2250 feet
Board of Trade Certificate number: ​​​​​AFF030602
Produced for: United Artists
Production Company: ​​​​​Harold Baim Motion Picture Productions Limited

More Film Stills: ​at baimfilms.com (opens in new window)
Stream Online: at vimeo (password required)

Note on the SS Antilles:
On 8 January 1971, she struck a reef near the island of Mustique in the Grenadines while attempting to navigate Lansecoy Bay, a shallow and reef-filled bay on the northern side of Mustique.  On hitting the rocks the impact ruptured a fuel tank and she caught fire. All of her passengers and crew evacuated the ship safely to the island of Mustique and they were rescued by the Cunard Line′s Queen Elizabeth 2.  The burnt-out hulk could not be freed from the reef, so the ship lay there for several months, eventually breaking in half. Many years later she would be partially scrapped on the spot and moved just a few hundred yards to her final resting place in the channel off Lansecoy Bay.  

TITLE CREDITS:
CARIBBEAN CAROUSEL

Story told by: Kent Walton
Eastmancolor Cinematography by: Roy Pointer
Caribbean Research:  Arthur Jones
Assistant Director: ​ Bill Cartlidge Jnr.
Assistant Cameraman: ​Ken Macpherson
Sound Recordist: ​Cyril Brown
Produced by: Harold Baim
Directed by: Frank Gilpin
Copyright: Harold Baim Motion Picture Productions Limited

Topic list for the film:-

00:51.  Venezuela 
00:40.  Caracas 
02:50.  Curaçao 
02:58.   "A dash of pirate's rum" 
03:10.  Caracas -capital of Venezuela 
05:09.  On board SS Antilles 
05:40.  Barbados 
07:15.  On board SS Antilles - hat parade 
09:07.  Jamaica 
12:00.  Trinidad 
12:12.  Port of Spain, Trinidad 
13:02.  On board SS Antilles 
13:33.  Guadeloupe 
14:18.  Martinique 
15:35.  On board SS Antilles 
16:22.  Puerto Rico 
16:40.  San Juan capital building 
18:47.  Haiti 
20:50.  Port au Prince 
21:40.  Haitian liquor business

SCRIPT

In the early morning Caribbean sunlight a gleaming white liner waits to enter the harbour of Curaçao, thirty-eight miles off the coast of Venezuela and one of the group known as The Leeward Islands.    

First occupied by the Spaniards in 1527, it was one-hundred years later the island came into the possession of the Dutch and remained so almost without change until the present day.    

A first look at the islands of The West Indies particularly from an ocean liner is a thill of a lifetime. So completely different is this side of the world, where the sun seems to be more golden, the sky so much more blue and the sea so deeply ultra marine in colour.  

Our ship, Antilles, takes its berth in the harbour of the capital of Curaçao with its typical Dutch name of Willemstad, a town with a population of some 50,000 people.   

Oil refining is Curaçao’s chief industry and each day somewhere in the region of 350,000 barrels are loaded and shipped.   

Willemstad has been described as a bit of Holland in the Caribbean. Its gabled houses and quaint streets making it an exciting brew of Dutch, English, Spanish and French adventure, spiced with a dash of Pirates rum.   

This is the flag of our next port of call, Venezuela.   

Caracas, capital city of Venezuela. 6925 feet above sea level from the summit of the El Avila Mountains, a cable car descends to Caracas which nestles in a  beautiful valley formed by branches of the coastal mountain range   

The city itself stands 3000 feet above the sea and has a climate of perpetual spring.   Liberator of five South American republics the memory of Simon Bolívar is perpetuated in the square named after him.   

It is a pulsating modern metropolis where their heroes are never forgotten: a statue to those who fell in the war of independence.   

At the south-west corner of Bolívar Square is the Capitol Building.  A huge edifice built in colonial style and in the richly decorated interior and under its golden dome meets the legislative assembly of Venezuela.   

Time has run out once more and we take our last look at colourful Caracas where rose tinted spectacles are not needed.   

Each ship seems to carry with it its own national characteristics and the Antilles is no exception.   

It is a little bit of France that has become detached to take us to the paradise of sunshine and colour, which is the Caribbean.   

Barbados.  Another name to conjure with.   British Barbados with its governors house and Nelson’s statue in Trafalgar Square.   

Unique in its scenic variety and beauty, where in 1960 the late Princess Royal opened the largest building on the island the magnificent Queen Elizabeth Hospital.   

Barbados has a climate of 70 to 80 degrees all the year round;  romantic island of gracious leisurely atmosphere;  a lovely pace to live your days by.  

Plantation houses stand in magnificent grounds surrounded by waving fields of sugar cane.   

On her head she carries fifty pounds of fruit and vegetables looking like some extraordinary hat.   

Aboard our ship they compete for the prize given to the one with the most inventive turn of mind;  the best decorated hat made up from anything they can find lying around on deck, in the restaurants, or in the cabins.  Some of them are quite ingenious.   

The winner always wins but if she hadn’t won she would have eaten her hat, but the judge decided to and she took the cup.   

On our way to Jamaica, jewel of the Caribbean, life aboard proceeds.   

It’s either plunging into the pool or sizzling in the sun and the temperature in the pool or under the sun it’s just what any doctor would order.   

In surroundings like these even a drink can be an exotic experience. A rehearsal for the Planters Punch served beside another swimming pool, this time in Jamaica.  It is exactly as we had always  imagined it.  Not a detail is different, with its magnificent hotels surrounded by waving palm trees, brilliant flowers a sea almost as blue as the sky and sunshine of pure gold.  And they do the limbo the Jamaican way with a zest and rhythm like nothing you have never seen or heard before.   

Up a palm tree goes the boy and you haven’t eaten coconut until you’re had it direct from the manufacturer.   

In Trinidad they sell them in the streets and drink your health in coconut milk.   

Port of Spain is the capital of Trinidad, this is the office of the Prime Minister.    

The Queen’s Royal College.   Terrific Trinidad has a Legislative Council Building.   

Independence Square.   

A little bit of India fell out the sky one day and landed right the other side of the world, down Trinidad way. That is how the natives came to know about Chapati; pancakes with curried lamb.   

Aboard our ship again, nothing had to fall from anywhere to delight the appetites of the passengers.  French culinary art at its best by chefs who know every trick of the trade.    

Shaped like a giant butterfly floating on the blue Caribbean water, Guadeloupe is so prolific that everything grows in abundance.  Torrential tropical rains punctuated by bright sun from July to November causes the luxurious vegetation to flourish in this truly tropical island.   

Guadeloupe has changed very little since Columbus gave it its name in 1493.   

A statue to the Empresses Josephine stands on the island of Martinique, which was her birthplace.   

The wife of Napoleon Bonaparte was born in this enchanting French creole island.  It is an historians treasure house full of mementos of this famous Empress of France.   

In the middle of jungle country at a place called Rivière Salle is a church set in one of the strangest locations in the world.    

Though not the most captivating of the islands, here, summer is eternal.   

The home of the tantalising rhythm of the Beguine, Martinique was dropped like a star into the heart of the Caribbean.   

A life on the ocean wave is for sailors of all kinds, and under the caressing warmth of a West Indies sun, the passengers indulge themselves energetically.

The clay pigeon shoot needs an eagle eye as the targets spin through the air with the greatest of ease. Simple to put them up, but not so simple to bring them down and as the shuttle board brigade go into action, our magnificent ship nears Puerto Rico.    

The flag of the USA flies at the masthead   

Discovered ( by Christopher Columbus ) with a democratic government voluntarily associated with the the United States of America, the history of the island is rooted in Spanish tradition.   

Built of solid Italian marble, the Capitol building in the city of San Juan.   

San Juan, Puerto Rico, is within the tropics.  Spanish influence is everywhere with a perfect mixing with an American way of life.  Sugar, rum, tobacco and coffee are just some of the exotic products of this easy going paradise isle, where friendliness and a ready smile are all around you.   

The natives speak Spanish, learn English, and are American citizens.  They worship as people do everywhere.   

Construction of the El Morro Fortress began in 1539 and once housed no less than 400 guns.  So much importance was attached to this island by the Spaniards so very long ago.  It’s an impressive place and if stones could speak they would tell of all the coloured, chequered history of Puerto Rico one thousand miles south-east of Florida.   

We have reached Haiti and you can’t beat a band when it’s West Indian.   

Three coins in the Caribbean and the divers display their worth when they look for your money on the seabed.   

The water is crystal clear and they are well versed at charming the dollars, cents and centimes out of your pocket.   

All-a-shore-thats-going-ashore and in we go to have a closer look at another pearl in our Caribbean Carousel.   

The revolutionary regular rhythms, the vibrating virtuosity of the instrumentalists weave a spell which is hard to dispel.   

They call Haiti the heart of the Caribbean.  Port-au-Prince is its main city. At the cathedral of Notre Dame the people pray both inside and out. Most embrace the Roman catholic religion.   

A statue of Christopher Columbus without whose help this motion picture could never have been made.   

200 years ago a man called Louis Barbancourt left the town of Bordeaux in France and came to Haiti.  From the sugar on his plantation he distilled fine liquors.  Today the same family continue the tradition with flavours which range from Orange to Coffee, Mint to Apricot and Pineapple to Banana.  

Haitian folklore gives the craftsmen in mahogany and straw ideas for the decorative figures they create.  The air is fragrant with the scent of Jasmine and Mimosa: vibrant with the pulsating beat of African rhythms.   

The call of the West Indies is strong; islands which meets every mood match every dream. One dreams of them long after they have been left behind.

And we are once again on our ship bound for home.

[End Credit]

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