California Jaunt: 1935 Flight

This circa 1935 silent amateur reel, California, captures a family’s West Coast journey in jerky, black-and-white 16mm, deemed “only for home consumption” by Kate on August 1, 1955, who quipped, “It would not win an Academy Award!” It roams Monterey’s coastal cliffs, the Santa Barbara Mission’s Spanish arches, and traces "El Camino Real" with its mission bells. The finale follows a bumpy airflight “back home” from the West—likely San Francisco—to New York City, panning over landscapes from a DC-3’s window. A raw, personal travelogue of 1930s California charm and early air travel.