location choice?

i found this online:

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A Break From World War II: MGM Takes America to Mackinac Island
BY FRANK STRAUS
In the fall of 1947, American moviegoers had the chance to see ?This Time For Keeps,? a romantic comedy set on Mackinac Island and centering on Grand Hotel and its spectacular Esther Williams Pool. Hollywood studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer had chosen our Island as the place for 1946 location shooting because they already knew that usable film could be shot there. ?This Time For Keeps? was not the first wide-scale MGM release centering on Mackinac Island. Three years earlier, a weary nation, looking for distractions from World War II, was able to distract itself with the one-reel short, ?Mackinac Island? (March 1944).

A few of you reading this column will remember going to a movie theatre in the middle of the last century. Instead of being forced, like today?s ticket buyers, to watch a string of advertisements and previews of approaching films that will be released in the near future, back then a standard ticket holder would see a handful of onereel long filmed stories: typically, a cartoon and one or two newsreels might be included in the mix. In a few cases, these 10-minute ?shorts? were more popular than the full-length feature; a cartoonist and producer of one-reelers, Kansas City?s Walt Disney, moved to Hollywood and began to compete with the big studios.

Another producer of one-reelers was James A. Fitzpatrick. He had good relations with MGM, and his ?TravelTalks? were packaged up with MGM features. The late 1930s was the golden age of Technicolor ? think of ?Gone With the Wind? and ?The Wizard of Oz? ? and moviegoers around the United States were eager to see short travelogues narrated by a friendly-voiced man. (Rick Steves? work for PBS-TV carries on a similar tradition today.) December 7, 1941 spelled deep trouble, however, for Fitzpatrick?s TravelTalks. With the coming of war, much of the world became completely inaccessible; and for reasons of morale, it was no longer considered wise to try to encourage people to get in their cars and drive to places in the United States that wartime gas rationing would not allow them to get to in real life.

Fitzpatrick, in the early summer of 1943, had found that one answer to this dilemma was to take his camera crew to Chicago and load themselves onto the S.S. North American. The classic Great Lakes liner did not burn gasoline, and the wartime tourist could buy a berth on it with a good conscience, especially if MGM was telling him that this trip was really necessary. Following Fitzpatrick, the film watcher saw the Georgian Bay Line steamer heading northward onto Lake Michigan, accompanied by suitably romantic commentary.

?About 20 hours later, the impressive island of Mackinac looms into sight,? narrator Fitzpatrick boomed into his microphone, scolding himself for at first mispronouncing it ?Mackin- ACK.? Misapprehensions continued throughout the script; the state of Michigan had not yet hired a professional staff to set people straight about the history of Fort Mackinac, and the wellmeaning narrator told his patriotic listeners that ?during the War of 1812? the Fort ?was captured by the Americans.? It would have done very little good, during the year of D-Day, to tell the real story of how it had been the United States Army that had raised a white flag.

Closer to reality was Fitzpatrick?s praise for Mackinac Island?s decision to not only ban private motor vehicles, but limit traffic density with the aim of maximizing public quality of life. ?The only means of vehicular transportation is by means of carriages and bicycles,? the narrator reported happily, giving the ?short? a chance to transition into a 1892 love song, ?Daisy Bell/Bicycle Built For Two.? ?We hope traffic on Mackinac Island will continue to be as it is now,? Fitzpatrick pleaded, so visitors could ?relax in the semblance of yesterday.?

Watchers of MGM travelogues wanted some light facts to go with their Technicolor, and Fitzpatrick or his staff looked up the Island in the 1940 census. ?The village of Mackinac has a proud population of about 500 inhabitants,? he reported. Some of the 500 were unpaid co-stars. Islanders who see ?Mackinac Island? can look at blacksmith Herbert Benjamin swinging his hammer, and can see many familiar sights and buildings. Arch Rock frames blue Lake Huron, the Mission Church lifts its wooden spire, carts and bikes roll down Main Street, and a camera?s lens pans and scans over the length of ?that romantic institution,? Grand Hotel. The moviegoer is invited to imagine himself or herself ?sitting on the longest porch in the world.? ?May the Stars and Stripes continue to wave over it,? said Fitzpatrick. In 1944, any other fate would have been even more unthinkable.

Fifteen months later, America?s bloodiest 20th century war was over. ?Mackinac Island? not only played a role in spurring pent-up demand for travel to our Island in 1946 and following years; the film short itself appears to have played a small role in shaping Mackinac?s image of itself. A song was written for the travelogue, ?When It?s Lilac Time on Mackinac Island,? as a musical theme that could be woven in and out of the narration in all of its sumptuous soundtrack mon-aurality. Lilacs were already growing here in the 1940s, and the flower became even more popular as a theme in 1944. Five years after its release, nurse Stella King and her associates founded Mackinac Island?s Lilac Parade (now the Lilac Festival), knowing that outsiders and off-Islanders would already know that the lilac was the Island?s flower.

This writer does not know what the current copyright status is of ?Mackinac Island,? but today?s movie theatres do not show travelogues, and if you want to look for this film reel, you might be well advised to go to a widely used Internet free video streaming service.