Treasures from American Film Archives

Treasures from American Film Archives: 50 Preserved Films (2000)

• Number of discs: 4
• Number of Films: 50
• Date range: 1893-1985
• Total Run Time: 642 min (10.7 hrs)
• Narrator: Laurence Fishburne
• Booklet: 150-page book of program notes

Select reviews:

• Farnsworth, E (January 15, 2001). "Saving Orphan Films," NewsHour.
• Klein, J (May 27, 2005). "'Treasures' returns as sequel and encore," Chicago Tribune.

The films:
Disc 1

• The Original Movie (1922, 8 min.), Moviemaking in the Stone Age, told in silhouette animation.
• Early films from the Edison Company (1893–1906, 3 min.)
  • Blacksmith Scene (1893, 1 min.), the first commercially shown U.S. film
  • The Gay Shoe Clerk (1903, ? min.)
  • Three American Beauties (1906, ? min.)
• Princess Nicotine; or, The Smoke Fairy (1909, 5 min.), Special effects fantasy on the perils of smoking by J. Stuart Blackton
• The Confederate Ironclad (1912, 16 min.), Civil War adventure with original music score
• Hell's Hinges (1916, 64 min.), a tinted restoration of the William S. Hart western
• The Fall of the House of Usher (1928, 13 min.), An avant-garde retelling of the Poe tale
• From Groucho Marx's home movies (ca. 1933, 2 min.)
• Running Around San Francisco for an Education (1938, 2 min.), Election ad for a school bond issue
• From Tevya (1939, 17 min.), Excerpt from the Yiddish-language classic
• Cologne: From the Diary of Ray and Esther (1939, 14 min.), Portrait of small-town America made by the local doctor and his wife
• Private Snafu: "Spies" (1943, 4 min.), Irreverent Chuck Jones cartoon for servicemen, written by Dr. Seuss
• OffOn (1968, 9 min.), Psychedelic landmark by Scott Bartlett

Disc 2

• Paper Print Copyright Deposits (7 min.)
  • Star Theatre (1901)
  • Move On (1903)
  • Dog Factory (1904)
• The Lonedale Operator (1911, 17 min.), D.W. Griffith's race-to-the-rescue melodrama
• Her Crowning Glory (1911, 14 min.), Domestic comedy with John Bunny and Flora Finch, from Vitagraph Studios
• The Toll of the Sea (1922, 54 min.), an early 2-color Technicolor feature starring Anna May Wong, script by Frances Marion
• From Accuracy First (c. 1928, 5 min.), Western Union employee training film
• From West Virginia documentaries
  • West Virginia, the State Beautiful (1929, 8 min.), Amateur travelogue by Rev. Ottis Rymer Snodgrass
  • One-Room Schoolhouses (c. 1935, 1 min.), footage of one-room Barbour County schoolhouses
• From Early Amateur Sound Film (1936–37, 4 min.), By home movie enthusiast Archie Stewart
• Composition 1 (Themis) (1940, 4 min.), Stop-motion animation by Dwinell Grant
• The Battle of San Pietro (1945, 33 min.), John Huston’s stunning combat documentary
• Negro Leagues Baseball (1946, 8 min.), Footage of “Goose” Tatum and other greats
• Battery Film (1985, 9 min.), Experimental blend of documentary and animation by Richard Protovin and Franklin Backus

Disc 3

• The Thieving Hand (1908, 5 min.), comic fable told through stop-motion animation and special effects
• White Fawn's Devotion (1910, 11 min.), western by James Young Deer, the first Native American director
• The Chechahcos (1924, 86 min.), Klondike gold rush adventure, the first feature filmed entirely on location in Alaska
• From Japanese American Communities (1927–32, 7 min.), home movies by a Buddhist priest.
• From Rare Aviation Films (1928–36, 13 min.)
  • The Keystone “Patrician” (1928, 6 min.), Promotional film for a new plane
  • The Zeppelin “Hindenburg” (1936, 7 min.), home movies on board the LZ 129 Hindenburg
• We Work Again (1937, 15 min.), WPA documentary; includes 4 minutes of the only film of Orson Welles's legendary 1936 “Voodoo” Macbeth
• From La Valse (1951, 6 min.), George Balanchine’s choreography
• The Wall (1962, 10 min.). USIA documentary on the Berlin Wall
• George Dumpson’s Place (1965, 8 min.), Ed Emshwiller’s portrait of the folk artist and his world of found objects

Disc 4

• Peepshow Kinetoscopes (1894, 1 min.), Vaudeville acrobats
  • Luis Martinetti, Contortionist
  • Caicedo, King of the Slack Wire
• Interior New York Subway (c. 1905, 5 min.), trip on the new IRT filmed by Billy Bitzer
• The Land Beyond the Sunset (1912, 14 min.), slum kids dream of a better life
• I’m Insured (1916, 3 min.), cartoon by Harry Palmer
• Snow White (1916, 63 min.), the earliest film version; starring Marguerite Clark
• From Beautiful Japan (1918, 15 min.), travel-lecture film by Benjamin Brodsky
• From Rural Life in Maine (ca. 1930, 12 min.), home movies by Elizabeth Wright
• The News Parade of 1934 (1934, 10 min.), Hearst Metrotone News recap of the year
• Rose Hobart (1936, 19 min.), found footage; Joseph Cornell's obscure but entrancing surrealist collage classic
• The Autobiography of a 'Jeep' (1943, 10 min.), celebration of the indestructible World War II vehicle, narrated by the Jeep
• From Marian Anderson: the Lincoln Memorial Concert (1939, 8 min.), newsreel reconstruction of this key event in Civil Rights history

More Treasures from American Film Archives, 1894-1931 (2004)

• Number of discs: 3
• Number of Films: 50
• Date range: 1894-1931
• Total Run Time: 573 min
• Booklet: 200 page illustrated book with film notes and credits

Four feature films (over an hour in length) are included in this set; also: 46 short advertisements, documentaries, promotional and educational films, and some surprisingly good early experiments with color and sound.

Select reviews:

• Schwartz, L (January 4, 2005). "More Treasures from American Film Archives," Fresh Air.

The films:

Disc 1

• The Dickson Experimental Sound Film (ca. 1894, 15 sec.), two men dancing and a man playing a violin in front of a huge metal cone (the microphone for the wax cylinder the sound was recorded on)
• Buffalo Bill’s Wild West (all 1894, 1 min.)
  • Annie Oakley (?? sec.)
  • Buffalo Dance (16 sec.)
  • Bucking Broncho (?? sec.)
• The Suburbanite (1904, 9 min.), a polite comedy about the exploits of a middle-class family moving to the "burbs" of New Jersey
• The Country Doctor (1909, 14 min.), a D.W. Griffith short made for Biograph; a tale of a physician torn between his duty to family and profession; early performance by Mary Pickford
• The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1910, 13 min.), earliest known film adaptation
• Early Advertising Films, product ads for theater audiences (10 min.)
  • Admiral Cigarette (1897), by William Heise
  • Flash Cleaner (c. 1920)
  • Buy An Electric Refrigerator (1926)
  • The Stenographer’s Friend (1910)
• The Invaders (1912, 41 min.), Sioux and Cheyenne conflicts in Thomas H. Ince's early western featuring real Lakota Sioux
• The Hazards of Helen: Episode 26 (1915, 14 min.), an action-packed episode from the movie serial
• Gretchen the Greenhorn (1916, 58 min.), Dutch migrants who fall victim to a gang of counterfeiters; featuring Dorothy Gish, Elmo Lincoln and Eugene Pallette
• The Breath of a Nation (1919, 6 min.), Gregory LaCava cartoon on the first day of prohibition
• De-Light: Making an Electric Light Bulb (1920, 12 min.)
• Skyscraper Symphony (1929, 9 min.), Robert Florey’s avant-garde portrait of Manhattan
• Greeting by George Bernard Shaw (1928, 5 min.), first talkie of the playwright

Disc 2

• The Streets of New York (5 min.), Manhattan actualities
  • What Happened on Twenty-Third Street (1901, 77 sec.)
  • At the Foot of the Flatiron (1903)
  • New York City “Ghetto” Fish Market (1903)
• From Leadville to Aspen (1906, 8 min.), train hold-up film made for railroad-car theaters.
• The Teddy Bears (1907), an Edison short with impressive puppet animation
• Children Who Labor (1912, 13 min.), crusading melodrama co-produced by the National Child Labor Committee and the Edison company.
• Early Color Films (12 min.), different experimental color processes
  • From Concerning $1000 (1916)
  • From Exhibition Reel of Two Color Film (c. 1929)
  • The Flute of Krishna (1926), choreographed by Martha Graham
• Surviving reel of Lotus Blossom (1921, 12 min.), earliest known film from a Chinese American company.
• Theodore Case Sound Test: Gus Visser and His Singing Duck (c. 1925, 90 sec.), another synchronized sound experiment; remains a hoot.
• The Clash of the Wolves (1925, 74 min.), a Rin Tin Tin silent
• International Newsreel (1926, 13 min.)
• Now You’re Talking (1927, 9 min.), instructional cartoon on how to use a telephone.
• There It Is (1928, 19 min.), animation by the Inkwell Studios; absurdist comedy two-reeler by Charley Bowers (the great unknown silent movie comedian, stop-action animation innovator and rather surreal moviemaker)
• A Bronx Morning (1931, 11 min.), avant-garde documentary by Jay Leyda

Disc 3

• Rip Van Winkle (1896, 4 min.), a series of very short scenes adapted from a popular stage play starring Joseph Jefferson (an established stage actor since before the Civil War); produced and shown on mutoscope machines, a flip-card, peep viewer affair that lost out to projector presentation of films.
• Mr. Edison at Work in his Chemical Laboratory (1897, 30 sec.)
• Life of an American Fireman (1903- 6 mins), an Edwin S. Porter short
• Westinghouse Works (1904, 6 min.), on location in America’s largest factory.
• Falling Leaves (1912, 12 mins)
• Hollywood Promotional Films (1918–1926, 14 min.)
  • Teaser for Hands Up (1918)
  • From C-V News, newsreel story (1923) on the filming of Greed in Death Valley
  • Movie Lovers’ Contest (1926)
• De Forest Phonofilms
  • A Few Moments with Eddie Cantor (c. 1923, 7 min.)
  • President Coolidge, Taken on the White House Grounds (1924, 4 min), first talking political spot
• Inklings (1925, 6 min.), witty visual puns by Dave Fleischer
• Ernst Lubitsch's version of Oscar Wilde's Lady Windermere's Fan (1925, 89 min.) starring Ronald Colman
• Cockeyed (c. 1925, 3 min.), trick photographic views of Manhattan.
• Prologue from The Passaic Textile Strike (1926, 18 min.), docudrama by striking workers to tell their story
• Tramp, Tramp, Tramp (1926, 4 min.), follow-the-bouncing-ball sing along with Ko-Ko the Clown
• Zora Neale Hurston’s Fieldwork Footage (1928, 7 min.), scenes of the rural South filmed by the famed novelist
• Trailers for Six Lost Films (10 min.)
  • In the Days of Daniel Boone (1923)
  • The Silent Flyer (1926)
  • The American Venus (1926)
  • The Great Gatsby (1926)
  • Beau Sabreur (1928)
  • The Patriot (1928)

Treasures III: Social Issues in American Film, 1900-1934 (2007)

• Number of discs: 4
• Number of Films: 48
• Date range: 1900-1934
• Total Run Time: 738 min (12.3 hrs)
• Booklet: 200 page illustrated book with film notes and credits

Exposing abuse or lampooning reform, films in the early 20th century put a human face on social problems and connected with audiences in a new way. Topics include: prohibition, abortion, unions, atheism, the vote for women, organized crime, loan sharking, juvenile justice, homelessness, police corruption, immigration—in their first decades, movies brought an astonishing range of issues to the screen.

Select reviews:

• Corliss, R (October 16, 2007). "Treasures III: Social Issues in American Film, 1900-1934," TIME.
• Ellerson, L (October 16, 2007). "A Reality Check From a Century Past," ABC News.

The films:
Disc 1 – “The City Reformed”

• The Black Hand (1906, 11 min.), earliest surviving gangster film. Two members of a gang write a threatening letter to a butcher, demanding money, or else they will harm his family and his shop.
• How They Rob Men in Chicago (1900, 25 sec.), an elderly man is robbed in Chicago, but some money is left behind on his unconscious person. A policeman happens by, takes the money, and leaves the victim unattended.
• The Voice of the Violin (1909, 16 min.), a terrorist plot foiled by the power of music. Directed by D.W. Griffith and featuring Mack Sennett in a bit part.
• The Usurer's Grip (1912, 15 min.), melodrama arguing for consumer credit co-operatives.
• From the Submerged (1912, 11 minutes) - Drama about homelessness and slumming parties.
• Hope: A Red Cross Seal Story (1912, 14 min.), a town mobilizes to fight tuberculosis.
• The Cost of Carelessness (1913, 13 min.), traffic safety film for Brooklyn children.
• Lights and Shadows in a City of a Million (1920, 7 min.), a charitable plea for the Detroit community fund.
• Six Million Children are Not in School (1922, 7 min.), newsreel inspired by census data.
• The Soul of Youth (1920, 80 min.), William Desmond Taylor's feature about an orphan reclaimed for society through the court of Judge Ben Lindsey.
• A Call for Help from Sing Sing (1934, 3 min.) - Warden Lawes speaks out for wayward teens.

Disc 2 – “New Women”

• Kansas Saloon Smashers (1901, 1 min.), Carrie Nation swings her axe.
• Why Mr. Nation Wants a Divorce (1902, 2 min.), role reversal temperance spoof
• Trial Marriages (1907, 12 minutes), male fantasy inspired by a reformer's proposal. A man tries marriage to several women and finally gives up on matrimony entirely.
• Manhattan Trade School for Girls (1911, 16 min.), training impoverished girls for better jobs.
• The Strong Arm Squad of the Future (1912, 1 min.), a suffragette cartoon.
• A Lively Affair (1912, 7 minutes), comedy with women playing poker and child-caring men. The moral is that this is what to expect if women get the vote.
• A Suffragette in Spite of Himself (1912, 8 min.), boys' prank results in an unwitting crusader.
• On To Washington (1913, 80 sec.), news coverage of the historic suffragette march.
• The Hazards of Helen, Episode 13 (1915, 13 min.), Helen thwarts some robbers and overcomes workplace problems.
• Where Are My Children? (1916, 65 min.), Lois Weber's film against abortion brings in the issue of birth control as well, which is a bit confusing to modern audiences; Tyrone Power's father stars in this one.
• The Courage of the Commonplace (1913, 13 min.), a young farm woman dreams of a better life.
• Poor Mrs Jones! (1926, 45 min.), why women should stay on the farm; a woman works endless hard hours on the farm and believes her sister who lives in the city has a much a better life, until she visits her for a week and realizes that the grass is not always greener on the other side.
• Offers Herself as a Bride (1931, 2 min.), a woman comes up with a way to survive the depression.

Disc 3 – “Toil and Tyranny”

• Uncle Sam and the Bolshevik (1919, 40 sec.), anti-union cartoon from Ford Motor Company
• The Crime of Carelessness (1912, 14 min.), business version of the Triangle Factory fire
• Who Pays, Episode 12 (1915, 35 min.), lumberyard strike brings deadly consequences
• Labor's Reward (1925, 13 min.), surviving reel showing the American Federation of Labor's argument for buying union.
• Listen to Some Words of Wisdom (1930, 2 min.), why personal thrift feeds the Great Depression
• The Godless Girl (1928, 128 min.), Cecil B. DeMille's sensational film about girls' reformatories and his last silent picture.

Disc 4 – “Americans in the Making”

• Emigrants Landing on Ellis Island (1903, 2 min.), actual footage of the event
• An American in the Making (1913, 15 min.), U.S. Steel film promoting immigration and industrial safety
• Ramona (1910, 16 min.), Helen Hunt Jackson's classic about racial conflict in California as told by D.W. Griffith; stars Mary Pickford
• Redskin (1929, 82 min.), racial tolerance epic shot in two-strip Technicolor. Richard Dix plays Wing Foot, son of a Navajo chief who suffers heartache and prejudice before the film's happy ending with Wing Foot bringing peace between the Navajo and Pueblo peoples; about half the film features two-tone color using red and green filters; a technique already used in the 1910s but not often employed due to the extra work and expense. In "Redskin" colour is used only for the scenes showing the Navajo and Pueblo Indian people and their land.
• United Snakes of America (1917, 80 sec.), World War I cartoon assails home front dissenters
• Uncle Sam donates for Liberty Loans (1919, 75 sec.), very odd patriotic cartoon.
• 100% American (1918, 14 min.), Mary Pickford buys war bonds and supports the troops.
• Bud's Recruit (1918, 26 min.), brothers serve their country in King Vidor's earliest surviving film
• The Reawakening (1919, 10 min.), documentary about helping disabled veterans build new lives after the war
• Eight Prohibition Newsreels (1922–23, 13 min.), footage on raids along with various opinions about the effectiveness of Prohibition

Treasures IV: American Avant-Garde Film, 1947-1986 (2008)

• Number of discs: 2
• Number of Films: 26
• Date range: 1947-1986
• Total Run Time: 312 min (5.2 hrs)
• Booklet: 70-page book of program notes; forward by Martin Scorsese

Independent cinema from Bruce Baillie to Andy Warhol, artists who worked outside the mainstream and redefined American film are collected in this set. An array of films never before released on VHS or DVD with styles ranging from animation to documentary are showcased in this collection of classics and rediscoveries, selected from five of the nation's foremost avant-garde film archives.

Select reviews:

• Henderson, B (March 3, 2009). "Treasures IV: American Avant-Garde Film (1947-1986)," Slant Magazine.
• Lim, D (March 1, 2009). "Avant-garde film gems in 'Treasures IV' collection," The Los Angeles Times.

The films:

Disc 1

• Film No. 3: Interwoven (1947–49, 3 min.) - Harry Smith
• Notes on the Circus (1966, 12 min.) - Jonas Mekas
• Here I Am (1962, 10 min.) - Bruce Baillie
• Fake Fruit Factory (1986, 22 min.) - Chick Strand
• Odds & Ends (1959, 4 min.) - Jane Conger Belson Shimane
• Eyewash (1959, 3 min.) - Robert Breer
• Peyote Queen (1965, 9 min.) - Storm de Hirsch
• 7362 (1967, 10 min.) - Pat O'Neill
• Aleph (1956-66(?), 8 min.) - Wallace Berman
• Note to Patti (1969, 7 min.) - Saul Levine
• By Night with Torch and Spear (1940s?, 8 min) - Joseph Cornell
• The Riddle of Lumen (1972, 13 in.) - Stan Brakhage
• The End (1953, 34 min) - Christopher Maclaine

Disc 2

• Bridges-Go-Round (1958, 4 min.) - Shirley Clarke
• Go! Go! Go! (1962–64, 11 min.) - Marie Menken
• Little Stabs at Happiness (1959–63, 15 min.) - Ken Jacobs
• Chumlum (1964, 23 min) - Ron Rice
• Mario Banana (No. 1) (1964, 4 min.) - Andy Warhol
• I, an Actress (1977, 9 min.) - George Kuchar
• The Off-Handed Jape... and How to Pull It Off (1967, 8 min) - Robert Nelson, William T. Wiley
• New Improved Institutional Quality (1976, 10 min.) - Owen Land
• Hamfat Asar (1965, 13 min.) - Larry Jordan
• Necrology (1969–70, 11 min) - Standish Lawder
• Fog Line (1970, 11 min.) - Larry Gottheim
• (nostalgia) (1971, 36 min.) - Hollis Frampton
• Bad Burns (1982, 6 min) - Paul Sharits

Treasures 5: The West, 1898-1938 (2011)

• Number of discs: 3
• Number of Films: 40
• Date range: 1898-1938
• Total Run Time: 596 min (9.9 hrs)
• Booklet: 132-page book

A set celebrating the dynamic, gender-bending, ethnically diverse West that flourished in early motion pictures, including both narrative and nonfiction films; travelogues from 10 western states Kodachrome home movies; newsreels about Native Americans; and documentaries and industrial films about such Western subjects as cattle ranching.

Select reviews:

• Kehr, D (September 23, 2011). "The West, When It Was Still Wild," New York Times.

The films:
Disc 1

• The Tourists (1912, 6 min.), Mabel Normand runs amuck in Albuquerque’s Indian market.
• The Sergeant (1910, 16 min.), first surviving narrative shot in Yosemite.
• Salomy Jane (1914, 87 min.), Gold Rush tale with America's first Latina movie star Beatriz Michelena.
• Sunshine Gatherers (1921, 10 min.), canning California Del Monte brand canned fruits, in Prizmacolor.
• Deschutes Driftwood (1916, 10 min.), riding the rails along the Deschutes and Columbia Rivers.
• “Promised Land” Barred to “Hoboes” (1936, 2 min.)
• Last of the Line (1914, 26 min.), Thomas Ince's cross-cultural tragedy, with Sessue Hayakawa.
• The Indian-detour (1924, 16 min.), in the Southwest on a Fred Harvey Company motor tour.
• Native Americans in Newsreels (1921–1938, 5 min.), Indians Invade Nation’s Capitol and 4 other stories.
• We Can Take It (1935, 21 min.), Civilian Conservation Corps at work.

Disc 2

• Over Silent Paths (1910, 16 min.), daughter avenges her father’s murder.
• Life on the Circle Ranch in California (1912, 12 min.), cattle ranching in Santa Monica.
• Broncho Billy and the Schoolmistress (1912, 14 min.), America’s first cowboy star courts a pistol-packing schoolmarm.
• How the Cowboy Makes His Lariat (1917, 3 min.), Pedro Leon demonstrates the vaquero’s art.
• Mexican Filibusters (1911, 16 min.), intrepid woman does her bit for the Mexican Revolution.
• The Better Man (1912, 12 min.), Mexican bandit proves his worth.
• Ammunition Smuggling on the Mexican Border (1914, 41 min.), Texas sheriff reenacts kidnapping by revolutionists.
• Lake Tahoe, Land of the Sky (1916, 6 min.), travelogue celebrating the new auto road. Despite the title, the last two minutes feature the Historic Columbia River Highway and include the Mitchell Point Tunnel there.
• Mantrap (1926, 71 min.), wilderness comedy with Clara Bow and a woman-hating attorney; a Minneapolis manicurist who goes out West with one man and becomes involved with another; Victor Fleming
• From The Golden West (1938, 8 min.), oil wells, drive-ins, and more in Kodachrome home movies.

Disc 3

• Lady of the Dug-Out (1918, 64 min.), Al Jennings plays himself as a bank robber with a heart of gold; W.S. Van Dyke
• From Passing of the Oklahoma Outlaw (1915, 13 min.), Bill Tilghman reenacts his capture of the Wild Bunch.
• The Girl Ranchers (1913, 14 min.), comedy in which sisters inherit the Rough Neck Ranch.
• Legal Advice (1916, 13 min.), Tom Mix falls for a lady attorney.
• Womanhandled (1925, 55 min.), sparkling Gregory La Cava in which a modern ranch poses as the Old West to fool New Yorkers.
• Beauty Spots in America: Castle Hot Springs, Arizona (1916, 6 min.), Castle Hot Springs was a spa for the rich and famous.
• Romance of Water (1931, 10 min.), how L.A. got its water.
• A New Miracle in the Desert (1935, 1 min.), bringing Colorado River water to California.
• The West in Promotional Travelogues (1898–1920, 22 min.), tours in 7 states, including Seeing Yosemite with David A. Curry.