40 Years A-Growing

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXXI, 24 April 1937, Page 13

40 Years A-Growing

FILMS OF THE PAST LIVE AGAIN IN MODERN FILM LIBRARY

There is a library in New York Cil.y

they seemed strangely young to be "old-timers" at anything. Wall Disney was there, talking with old Colonel Sclig who made Hollywood’s first film. Mrs Thomas Inch was there, widow of the Thomas Inch who directed Mary Pickford long ago. Harold Lloyd, Mack Scnnett, Sam Goldwyn, Jesse Lasky and countless others were there. After dinner, old films, half forgotten even by those who had played in them, were shown. Memories came to life, the faces of friends long dead, came to life again. The audience laughed and cried, and victory was complete. To them it seemed novel but pleasant to learn that the work of their lives, and they had worked long and humbly, should be elevated to the rank of an art and put in a museum. Heart and soul the film industry was won over as they co-operated to make the film library a reality. Since then, many are the old-timers who have come to the library of the New York office: Lillian Gish who mentioned that Noel Coward made his screen debut with her in “Hearts of

where Ihc shelves are stacked with round metal cans filled with films—all the famous films from their beginning in 1895 to 1932. In the projection room of this library the unforgettable grace of Rudolph Valentino, the immortal Sarah Bernhardt, saucy Mickey Mouse, Pearl White, the Gish girls, all the old. old favourites of the flickering screen live again.

Here in one evening you can see the cinema grow from the blundering oncreel episodes that panicked the peepshow goers of 1900 to the million-dollar productions that have become an art in themselves, distinct from the legitimate theatre. The plan, of preserving films as historical data was hatched by officers of New York’s Museum of Modern Art. under the wing of Mrs John D. Rockfeller. Junr. In 1935 the Rockfeller Foundation granted funds that made available the founding of the Museum of Modern Art Film Library. How were the films to be found and obtained? Obviously the prime necessity was to gain the interest and the co-operation of the film industry, a

task about as difficult as gaining the interest of, say, the Cabinet. With the courage of pioneers, the curator, Miss Iris Barry (former London movie critic and founder of the London Film Society), and Mr John E. Abbott, director of the film library, packed up and advanced on Hollywood. It could hardly be deemed strange if this huge and bustling business could not find time for its forgotten films. The film industry is essentially interested in the films of to-morrow —above all in those actually in production at the moment. But Mary Pickford came to the rescue. To a huge party she invited all the pioneer film people she could find, and

the World”; that great director, D- W. Griffiths wiV. anecdotes and recollections; Bill Hart to talk of his famous pony, Pinto Ben; Eva Casanova, widow of Lou Tellegan, to see her husband and Sarah Bernhardt in “Queen Elizabeth.” She had never seen it.

Films turned up in the oddest ways. A stranger offered a Continental “Hamlet” with the great Danish actress, Asta Neiison in it. She had unearthed it in her hat closet. A young man contributed his collection of 3000 rare stills. It is thus a library of motion pictures has been made, a library that traces the actual birth and development of an art which preserves the social history of the past forty years.