. . . and dead fish being reeled through public restaurant windows highlight LAND OF ALASKA NELLIE. One can see why SPORTS ILLUSTRATED did not have an annual Swimsuit Edition in the 1930s, as the three aquatic outfits dampened here resemble Godzilla so much that all the fish in the Resurrection Bay area are frightened to death. Nellie reels some of these into her kitchen to feed the cruise ship passengers, on her dangerously lenient interpretation of that infamous "Five Second Rule." When American President Warren Gamaliel Harding visited Nellie's, he enjoyed these dead fish so much (though he died of some sort of food poisoning shortly thereafter--see Gore Vidal's account in EMPIRE) that he had his secretary buy Alaska from Russia's Lenin (NOT the Beatle--they're spelled differently!). In just a few years this frigid territory turned a 2430% profit, says the narrator here, prompting Japan to make it the only part of the USA it targeted for successful occupation during World War II. After the War ended, the U.S. Congress designated this area as a state, so its national flag would come out even. I think that that was a stupid idea, since you need a passport to get into Canada (which motorists are forced to do in order to drive to Alaska). Since when should passports be required to drive from one part of America to another?!

Land of Alaska Nellie (1936)*** 1/2 (out of 4)I've seen dozens and dozens of entries in MGM's TravelTalks series but to date this here is without a doubt the best of the bunch. James A. FitzPatrick, and his Technicolor camera, heads to Alaska where we see one beautiful image after another. We see the streams flowing down from the snow covered mountain and we learn about all the great fishing there. These wonderful visions start the film off but we quickly move to Nellie Lawing, better known as Alaska Nellie. This woman was famous for living off the Alaska land all her life and she had pretty much done everything from a gold rush to dog sledding and even lived as a hunter, trapper and sheriff. We get to hear a few of her stories including one where she was chased by a bear, which led to her three middle fingers being crippled. We then see how big the bear was that attacked her. We see his skin because she shot the thing to death. We hear a couple other great stories including the fact that Presidents had even stayed the night at her resort. The one strange scene in the film is when we're shown some baby foxes and are then shown fox furs as the "future of the babies".