Queen Mother's Visits to Canada & the United States (1939 & 1954) DVD

A compilation of selected newsreel footage of three Royal visits to North America.

The first film documents King George VI and Queen Elizabeth’s first trip to the New World. They leave England on May 6th 1939 on the SS Empress of Australia, a Canadian Pacific ocean liner; debark in Quebec and meet Canadian Prime Minister MacKenzie King and members of his government. They stop in Montreal then travel to Ottawa where the King reviews troops and the Queen lays the ceremonial corner stone of Canada’s new Supreme Court. They watch a horse race in Toronto then travel west, encountering some Indian tribes on the way to Vancouver.

The Royal couple then goes to Washington DC and is met by US Secretary of State, Cordell Hull; the King lays wreaths at the tombs of George Washington and the Unknown Soldier in Arlington, Virginia. The King and Queen go to New York City and are greeted by Governor Herbert Lehman and Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia before going to Hyde Park to meet President and Mrs Roosevelt. "Queen Mary’s Carpet" made in 1950 is a narration free tribute to the famous needlepoint carpet made by Queen Mary.

This short piece uses various footage of the Royal family at public and private functions filmed over a ten year period (synchronous sound). The next film chronicles the informal 1957 visit of Queen Elizabeth to the US. She and the Prince land at Jamestown, Virginia on October 17th 1957, and are met by John F Simmons, President Eisenhower’s representative soon after she debarks. The Queen then goes to New York and visits the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Empire State Building. She attends Columbia University’s Bicentennial Dinner and addresses the Banquet (synchronous sound). She visits the United Nations, Harlem, and speaks at the English Speaking Union Dinner (synchronous sound). The Queen Mother is flown to Washington DC, where she meets President and Mrs Eisenhower and Vice President Nixon then goes to the Smithsonian Institute and the National Art Gallery. She prepares to return to England on the SS Queen Mary and addresses the crowd (synchronous sound).

USA, 1939 & 1954, B&W, 37 minutes.

NTSC Region 0 encoding (Entire World)