Making a Library of Films

Manawatu Times, Volume 60, Issue 231, 1 October 1935, Page 10

Making a Library of Films

Somewhere in the furthest reaches of the city o'r. along the nearest sandy strip of New Jersey, a more or less mysterious gentleman described only as a "veteran enthusiast” may at this minute be engaged in burrowing into a scrapheap and pouncing upon a treasure for the evolving Museum of Modern Art Film Library (writes Milton Bracker in the "New York Times”), Simultaneously, in any of the sombre firm storage lofts within the city limits, an equally vague associate may be engaged in standing before a window, deftly fingering a strip of film between himself and the light and striving to identify it.. Iris Barry, curator of the library, considered these men as crosses between employees and fans, but upon their work, it was made plain, rested much of the hope of the library, which has just begun a development programme expected to last'from-two. to five years. The library was made possible by a grant from the Boekfsller Foundation. As the statement on the founding of the library put it, .“the film library will undertake to assemble, catalogue, and preserve as complete a record as possible, in the actual films, of ail type's "of motion pictures made in -this country or abroad from.'lßß9 to the present day and to exhibit the films at museums and colleges,” Thus the man at the windovz may ponder, as he pores over ■ a weathered strip, not “is this genuine Sevres or plain Jersey clay?” but "is this simply Mae Marsh going over the clifi again to escape the Fate Worse Than Death? Or is it reel thirteen of “The Iron Claw?” Three shown at what might be called a preview were: “'The Great Train Bobbery,” called the first American nrevie with a plot, made in 1903- the May IrwimJohn C. Pace ki£3, fifty feet of-film which ran 3,125 seconds in the late nineties and caused many in the audience to run a temperature; and “Joie ds Vivre,” a new animated cartoon ma'd6 in Paris, The’ train robbery seemed to prove pretty conclusively that in the palmy days when it was made, jerkiness, exaggerated posturing, and creeping backdrops to make trains “speed,” were "all part c£ the infant industry. No villain would dream of dying with out spinning around thrice; and m general, the audience, comprised large- j ly of men and women who daily pick the best of the modern films apart, had 1 to asrss that the cinema has pro£*?&SSSd« I