Full text of "Moving image review"

NORTHEAST

HISTORIC

=LM

Moving image Review

ISSN 0897-0769

Winter 1988 - winter 2007

Karan Sheldon
6 Frothingham Street
Milton, MA 02 186
207 266-0477

Northeast Historic F i { m

MOVING

IMAGE

REVIEW

A Personal Welcome
To Our Readers.

Moving Image Review, published twice a
year, will provide news and information
about projects and ideas designed to
preserve northern New England cultural
heritage on film and videotape. We hope
you will enjoy the newsletter, will con-
tribute to it, and join in Northeast Historic
Film's mission of learning and preserving.

Working with NHF in the past year as
President of the Board, I have been visited
by some welcome ghosts from my Maine
childhood. During the winters of 1945 and
1946, 1 harvested ice on Lake Pen-
neseewassee in Norway, Maine. A recent
donation to NHF of an ice harvesting film
shows the viewer that other world, those
other times. I found I could recite the
names of the tools, and probably could
even do the work again. But then I
remembered the temperature and the
wind.

Recently, we have been looking at some
wonderful footage shot in Cherryfield in
1938. One by one, individuals face the
camera, some bold, some shy. The people
are backed by the town's gas station, its
grocery store, houses, schools and vehicles.
At first, the film evokes an album of still
photos, then as the images build with
unexpected intensity, they involve you
with the town's heroes and its hopes for the
future.

In the six minutes of this film there is
an immense amount of information about
the life of a small Maine town. Why the
film was made is not yet known, but we
hope to learn more about it and to locate
other similar films worthy of study and
contemplation.

My role as President of the Board of
NHF is a gratifying one for me. I'm pleased

at the chance to participate in preserving
our past and bringing back to life moving
images that would otherwise be lost and
forgotten. I welcome you as a friend of
NHF, and hope that your involvement
with our organization will be equally
rewarding for you.

David C. Smith

David C. Smith is Professor of History and
Cooperating Professor of Quaternary Studies
at the University of Maine, Orono. Dr. Smith
is a Maine native whose recent work includes
the Yale Univ. Press biography of H.G.
Wells, Desperately Mortal, a book in pro-
gress on World War II letters and in 1988, a
project on Rudy Vallee.

Dedicated to the Preservation of
'Northern New England
Motion Picture

Winter 1988

Local TV Collections Go National p. 2

Passamaquoddy Tribe Sees Long-Lost Film. p. 3
Executive Director's Report p. 4

IRS awards tax-exempt status to NHF
Maine State Museum's New Video
Installation p. 5

A talk with museum director Paul Eivard
Arts Commission Awards Grant p. 6

Funds for conservation of a film collection
Silent Film Fills "The Grand" p. 8

Reconstructed Way Down East premieres

in New England

Moving Image Review is a semiannual
publication of Northeast Historic Film, Blue Hill
Falls, Maine 04615. David S. Weiss, executive
director, Karan Sheldon, editor.

photo: WAB1

Election Night at WABI in 1962: First an NBC
and now a CBS affiliate, WAEl has seen
continuous ownership by the Hildreth family;
it's now a member of the Diversified Com-
munications Group. The general manager is
George Gonyar.

Two Decades Of
TV Film To Be Preserved:

Maine's largest and oldest broadcast
collection.

WABI-TV, the Bangor Historical Society
and NHF are cooperating to save and
make accessible to the public an estimated
300 hours (roughly 650,000 feet) of uni-
que 16mm film containing news, sports
and commercials. The film was shot by
Maine's first TV broadcaster, WABI-TV in
Bangor, between 1953 and 1974.

The footage had not been seen since it
was put onto reels after airing on nightly
news broadcasts. It has recently been

(continued on pg. 2)
Page 1

National Conference

Held for
Local Television
News Archives.

The American Film Institute's National
Center for Film and Video Preservation
in October, 1987, sponsored the first
national conference on local television
news. It was attended by representatives
from more than 50 archives, historical
societies and television stations.

The conference was hosted by the
State Historical Society of Wisconsin
and funded by the National Historical
Publications and Records Commission.

David Weiss, executive director of
Northeast Historic Film, represented
NHF's Bangor Historical Society/
WABI-TV Collection. Other New
England archives present were WGBH-
TV Boston, Boston University and the
Christian Science Monitor.

The conference was organized
around the concepts of the ideal and
the real. Presenters proposed ideals for
preservation and cataloguing. Par-
ticipants countered with their ex-
perience in the real world. Sessions
were oriented toward practical matters
such as film and videotape preserva-
tion, newsgathering technologies,
copyright and inventory control.

The value of archival TV. George
Talbot, director of the State Historical
Society of Wisconsin, stated in the con-
ference's keynote speech that "local
television is a vast mass of ordinariness.
Therein lies the biggest threat to its
preservation, and the most important
reason why it must be preserved." Local
TV portrays an accurate picture and
valuable record of the ordinary texture
of life in our society.

The October conference marked a
beginning in more clearly defining an
archival field. Now, fundamental ques-
tions must be answered such as how
much television material exists and how
to encourage preservation of today's
broadcasts. H

(WABl-TVcontinued 'from pg. 1)

transferred to NHF's temperature and
humidity controlled vault, and is the sub-
ject of a preservation effort with major
materials costs and countless hours of
detailed cataloguing.

Widespread public use expected. The
potential for enjoyment, educational and
even commercial use of this resource is
enormous. Towle Tompkins, WABI-TV
program manager, predicts: "\bu'll find
University of Maine students utilizing the
collection for projects, and not just jour-
nalism or broadcasting students." He ex-
pects commercial use of film footage as
well, for example, inclusion in documen-
taries and corporate productions.

photo: V'ABI

Cultural significance cited. Robert
Croul, president of the Bangor Historical
Society, stresses the cultural significance
of the film. He presided at a gala event
sponsored by the Society in November,
"Memories Made in Maine," highlighting
the post-war years. NHF's 15 -minute
compilation of television clips from the
50s fascinated viewers who watched Presi-
dent Eisenhower receive a Penobscot
salmon, the WABI-TV studios 30 years
ago, jets at the now closed Dow Air Force
Base, and commercials, one of them
advertising blouses for $2.99!

WABI-TV donates video transfers.
WABI-TV has generously committed
staff and technical services for the
transfer of the film footage to videotape.
Towle Tompkins stated that the station is
pleased to donate its resources. "As
television stations become more aware of
the history of their medium, they will
try to preserve it and educate audiences
about it," he commented. H

NHF Conducts Search EDI
Maine-Made Motion Pictures.

Northeast Historic Film is undertaking
the first comprehensive survey of profes-
sional and significant amateur film and
videotape shot in Maine. We are collect-
ing information on all works known to
have been filmed or taped in the state,
whether or not they physically exist today.
This information will be made available
to researchers, educators and filmmakers,
and will result in a significant gain in
knowledge, and awareness, ultimately
leading to further preservation.

The earliest known surviving Maine
motion picture film shows 15 seconds of
a man standing in a dory pulling lobsters
out of a trap. It was made in 1902 by the
American Mutoscope and Biograph
Company, and is preserved at the Library
of Congress.

From the time this fragment of mo-

Page 2

tion picture history was shot to tonight's
television news, thousands of film and
videotape records by and /or about
Maine people have been made in the
state, and are of interest to the region.
Dramatic, industrial, informational and
amateur, they are stored in libraries,
closets, attics, garages, barns and
basements. Some are available for ex-
hibition, most are long forgotten.

By gathering information about film
and videotape, NHF can begin to piece
together the moving image history of this
region, and make strides in ensuring the
preservation and physical accessibility of
footage that still exists.

If you have information about film or
videotape that you believe should be in-
cluded in our survey, please return the
form on page 7, or call NHF at (207)
374-2736. H

NHF Gratefully
Acknowledges Support.

Two executives with a personal interest in
New England and regional film preserva-
tion have taken the lead in supporting
NHF.

Paul Gelardi, president of Shape
Video Inc. , Biddeford, Maine, one of the
country's largest producers of injection
molded products and videocassettes,
donated videotape stock. NHF uses the
tape for reference copies.

Rick Nopper of Beckett Corporation,
Lionville, Pennsylvania, donated im-
printed archival labels for film cans and
videotape boxes. Beckett's archival labels
are used by, among others, the Library of
Congress and the Smithsonian Institu-
tion's Human Studies Film Archives.

In addition to these donations in
kind, many hundreds of individuals
made financial contributions at NHF
summer 1987 screenings. We would like

to thank all those who helped us get off
to such a great start, and special thanks

to:

The celebration of Maine's centennial in 1920 in Deering Oaks Park, Portland, was covered by
an as yet unknown cinematographer, and also in this photograph from the collections of the
Maine Historical Society.

Maine Arts Commission

Maine Humanities Council
Corporate donors

Bar Harbor Banking and Trust
Company

Boston Light & Sound, Inc.

M.A. Clark Florist

The Knowles Company
and to:

The Ellsworth Historical Society

Marilyn Gass

Mrs. Phyllis Hodgkinson

Robert L. Jordan

Ed and Sally Lupfer

Dr. and Mrs. Ned Kendall

Mr. and Mrs. PH. Sellers.

Passamaquoddy Tribe Sees
Long-Lost Film.

Penobscot and Passamaquoddy Indians
dance in traditional dress in a unique,
high quality 1920 film recently returned
to Maine.

Wayne Newell, a planner with the
Passamaquoddy tribal government, says
that the film is a very valuable record of
activities and artifacts of more than 60
years ago.

Newell is undertaking the task of an-
notating the film with information
gathered from area residents. Besides the
interest of today's costume makers, "the
children are fascinated by it," he
discovered. His own teenagers, all of
whom are dancers and participate in
traditional dances, were very interested to
see the 1920 event. "They've never seen
anything that old," said Newell, "not
about us, anyway."

A single nitrate print of the film was
discovered in storage at John E. Allen,
Inc. , in New Jersey. In order to preserve
the film during the summer of 1987,
Northeast Historic Film made ar-
rangements to transfer the film to safety
stock and return a copy to Maine in time
for a screening at Portland's Maine
Festival in August. H

Pag

Executive Director's Report.

IRS awards NHF tax-exempt status.

During 1987, the Internal Revenue Ser-
vice declared NHF a non-profit
organization serving the public welfare
with its mission of preserving and mak-
ing available northern New England
film and video. The continuation of this
tax-exempt status, however, and thus the
continuation of NHF itself, depends on
NHF's ability to demonstrate that it is a
"publicly supported organization." This
means that at least one third of our
operating budget must come from in-
dividual contributions.

The exemption from Federal income
tax under section 501(c)(3) of the Inter-
nal Revenue Code makes NHF eligible
to apply for grants from charitable
foundations.

In addition, individuals and cor-
porations are notified that, in the
unmistakable prose of the IRS: "Donors
may deduct contributions as provided in
section 170 of die Code. Bequests,
legacies, devises, transfers or gifts are
deductible for Federal estate and gift tax
purposes if they meet the applicable pro-
visions of sections 2055, 2106, and 2522
of the Code."

Because we do not have a develop-
ment office, NHF is unable to make ex-
tensive calls or send out mass mailings
requesting support. We depend on our
Moving Image Review readers to con-
tribute generously and to pass the word
along to interested friends and
acquaintances.

David S. Weiss
II

This r:

identif

repress

tio:a'.

authoi

issued

gat ion

ternat

porati

J INTE;

Not Gc od UnlrAB

photo: Daniel M. Maher, Jr.

The young Daniel Maher, Sr.'s, International
Newsreel I. D. card, 1924. Maher covered
events for various newsreel companies all over
Maine and eastern Canada.

Mary Astor in her second film, a Holman Day production. From outtakes in the Everett Foster collects

NHF Collections Grow
Steadily During 1987.

Increasing awareness of NHF goals and
efforts resulted in a gratifying flow of
motion picture contributions. Through-
out 1987, materials came in by the single
can and by the diousands of feet.

Major donations include the Everett
Foster Collection, with two 1920-21 two-
reelers made in Maine by novelist and
filmmaker Holman Day, as well as
Foster's own productions made over a 15
year period in die state. NHF also re-
ceived the nitrate film of Mr. and Mrs.
Daniel Maher, Jr. , produced by Daniel
Maker, Sr., one of Maine's newsreel
pioneers between 1919 and 1933.

A sampling of other additions to our
archives includes:

16mm family films from Philip J.
Abbott oi Eastport, Maine, which in-
clude summer colony life in Harpswell
(1926-28).

The Robert M. Hume, Sr., Memorial
Collection, 23 reels of 16mm film from
1930 to 1950, was donated by James B.
(Ben) Hume of Dover-Foxcroft. Hume
was superintendent of the Great North-
ern Paper Co. mill, and his footage
depicts early logging technology.

A film of Cherryfield in 1938 came
from the Cherryfield-Narraguagus
Historical Society. NHF is preserving the
original 16mm footage, and has made
copies of this local record available for
Cherryfield residents to study and enjoy.

Everett Johnson of South Pordand
contributed his 16mm b&w film, Cut-
ting Ice, which shows ice harvesting in
what is now an urban area adjacent to
Rte. 295 in Pordand.

A rare 1915 Hearst-Selig newsreel
story, which shows a saboteur's attempt
to blow up the Vanceboro bridge con-
necting die U.S. and Canada, was
donated by Elizabeth low. Cooperative
preservation is taking place with the
University of California, Los Angeles.

Constance Seavey donated film of
Mt. Desert Island activities, winter and
summer 1926, and other film from her
father's collection. Her father ran several
theaters on Mt. Desert in the 1920s.

Page 4

1916 Bluebird Film
Found in Barn

The Musem of Modern Art Department
of Film, New York, recently received the
only surviving copy of the 1916 Bluebird
feature, The End of the Rainbow,
directed by Lynn Reynolds, who later
directed Tom Mix films.

Alice Witham Boothby of Sebago
Lake, Maine, discovered the five reels in
her house's corn chamber an attached
barn while preparing the property for
sale.

Boothby 's father, Harold G.
Witham, an inventor and electrical
engineer, owned and operated theaters
in Sebago Lake Village, Steep Falls,
Hiram, and East Sebago between 1915
and 1929.

NHF, as part of its effort to assist in
preservation of film in the region,
handled the Maine appraisal of the film
and delivered the nitrate to New York for
preservation in October, 1987.

Eileen Bowser, curator of the MOMA
Department of Film, noted the impor-
tance of inter-institutional cooperation
and suggested that Maine audiences
might enjoy seeing the film once the
safety copy was made.

Mrs. Boothby 's recollections of her
father's business were useful to NHF, as
we seek information on film exhibitors
from relatives, collectors and anti-
quarians who can shed light on film
distribution and audiences in the region.
Written records are of particular interest.

Further Reading

p. 2
p. 2

p. 3

p. 4
p. 5

p. 6
p. 7

Moving Image Review is a semiannual pub-
lication of Northeast Historic Film, Blue Hill
Falls, Maine 04615. David S. Weiss, executive
director, Karan Sheldon, editor.
ISSN 0897-0769

and this film collection is the largest
known surviving in Maine.

To fund the project, $175,000 will
need to be raised over three years. The
project has received $63,380, including
$33,720 in donated and pledged services
and products. Major gifts came from
Sawyer Management Services, $10,000;
Diversified Communications, $5,000;
the Maine State Library, $5,000;
N.H. Bragg & Sons, $3,000; Amoskeag
Co., $900; Bangor & Aroostook RR,
$900; Prentiss & Carlisle, $750; the
Bangor Daily News, $500; and from
individual contributors.

To complete the project, Northeast
Historic Film must raise $111,620 from
corporate and individual donors,
government and private foundations.
Members of the advisory board would
be happy to talk with anyone interested
in further information. Call David
Weiss, executive director of Northeast
Historic Film, 207 374-2109.

Pag

Executive Director's Report
NHF Welcomes Members

The board of directors voted in August to
open membership in Northeast Historic
Film to the public. Since founding in
1986, NHF has both served and been
supported by the public. Now, by becom-
ing a full-fledged membership organiza-
tion, we believe we are opening the door
to further participation by supporters,
colleagues, and individuals with an inter-
est in New England culture.

In the earliest days of NHF, as the
founders tested what seemed a radical
new concept for an organization an
archives dedicated to northern New
England moving images the possibi-
lity seemed remote that members would
be found in quantity. Now, however, the
many people who have responded to
NHF programs, who have sought out
NHF and used its services, and who sup-
port cultural preservation suggest that pub-
lic membership is an appropriate step.

There are six categories of member-
ship, each designed to suit a particular
constituency of NHF and to support the
mission of the organization:

Regular Members, $25 per year, will
receive a subscription to Moving Image
Review, notice of screenings and events, a
special telephone number for access to
the moving image databases, and discount
on purchase and rental of materials dis-
tributed by NHF.

Educator/Student Members, $15 per
year, receive all regular membership bene-

Fairgoers stop by the NHF booth at the Maine Festival, Portland in July, 1988.

fits. This category is open to those in-
volved in teaching or enrolled in school at
any level. One of NHF's chief goals is to
encourage the use of moving image mate-
rials in teaching, and to support students
interested in film and videotape in many
areas of study.

Nonprofit Organizations, $35 per year,
will receive all regular benefits of mem-
bership, plus additional copies of Moving
Image Review on request, and reduced
rates for consultation and professional
services.

Friends of NHF, $250 per year, will
receive all benefits of regular member-
ship and, in addition, a privilege card
which will admit two people to any NHF-
sponsored screening or event, plus listing
in the roster of friends.

Corporate Members, $100 per year, will
receive the benefits of regular members

and, in addition, will receive a business
listing in Moving Image Review and in all
programs.

Founding Member, the premiere cate-
gory of membership, is $1,000. Founding
Members share our belief that moving
images of northern New England are a
valuable resource. They are willing to
make a major commitment to help NHF
ensure the preservation and use of this
resource. This inner circle of supporters
of the organization receives all benefits of
regular membership, and is invited to
special previews.

Membership at any level is an oppor-
tunity to become involved with the pres-
ervation and enjoyment of our moving
image heritage. I encourage you to join us
by filling out the enrollment form at the
end of this issue. H

Grants In Action

In the second half of 1988, NHF re-
ceived two grants, including NHF's first
American Film Institute/National
Endowment for the Arts preservation
program grant.

The AFI/NEA grant for 1989 in
the amount of $1,000 will go toward
transfer of nitrate film shot around
Maine by newsreel photographer
Daniel Maher in the early 1920s and
1930s. Included is footage of a 1933
Bangor, Maine, National Recovery Act
parade. It represents a visual census of
area businesses, as proprietors and their

employees pass in review carrying signs
identifying shops, restaurants, groceries,
insurance companies, clubs, along with
decorated floats, one of which carries
Mr. Depression and Miss Prosperity.
Also to be preserved is a 1920 aerial
survey of Portland, Maine's largest city,
and its environs; Maine Catholics
(1924); Lucerne winter and summer
(1928); and Gordon Silver Black Fox
Ranches (1924).

The second grant NHF received
was from the Maine Community
Foundation's Maine Expansion Arts

Fund. The award of $3,000 will go
toward a project called "The Movie
Queen: The Art of Community
Expression in Film." The project will
focus on two films made in 1936 with
the identical title: The Movie Queen.
Both were made in coastal Maine: one
in Lubec, the other in Bar Harbor. Both
versions of The Movie Queen have the
same plot: a young woman arrives by
boat, tours the town and receives gifts,
is the subject of kidnap attempts and is
eventually rescued. The roles are all
played by local people. For this project,
NHF will obtain oral histories of
participants, as well as preserve the
films and carry out screenings in the
respective communities. H

Page

One Hundred Years Ago
The Moving Image

by Stephani Boyd, Archives Manager

Northeast Historic Film
How did motion picture come to be?
What kind of entertainment did it
replace? In celebration of the centennial
of the projected motion picture, Moving
Image Review will regularly offer a look
at film technology and the regional con-
text of popular culture a century ago.

The last five generations grew up
with the motion picture actuality, doc-
umentary, short subject and home
movie. At Northeast Historic Film, we
believe that the familiarity and accessi-
bility of film conspired to let the pres-
ent generations take the medium for
granted. In fact, one hundred years of
motion picture history could be entirely
lost without the preservation field's
archivists and activists, who in turn
depend on an interested and involved
public.

The year is 1889, and Rochester
inventor George Eastman announces

The Houlton Opera House in the 1890s.

photo: Frank Dunn

HAYMARKET THEATRE

let WC*T MADISON Sr

CHICAGO

photo: Franklyn Lenthtll, Boothbay Theatre Museum

]ames O'Neill appeared on stage in Portland in
The Count of Monte Cristo in 1889. His perfor-
mance in the play was captured by Edwin S. Porter
in 1912 and that film can be found in the Paper
Print Collection at the Library of Congress.

that the roll film he's worked on for five
years is available for sale.

In Menlo Park, New Jersey, photo-
grapher William Kennedy Laurie Dick-
son convinces his boss Thomas Edison
to place his first order for Eastman film.

Dickson works on film projection
and sound synchronization experiments
while Edison vacations over the
summer. In October, Dickson presents
"The Wizard" Edison with a sound-
synchronized film projected on a screen.
Edison will ultimately abandon Dick-
son's Kinetophonograph system, dis-
missing sound and projection as frills.

While projected film is said to have
been born in 1889, its exact birthdate,
birthplace and parentage are actually
uncertain. Much of Edison's claim to
fathering the form must be shared with
Dickson and many others throughout
the world whose work with moving
images was advancing during the same
years.

Thomas Armat of the United States
and the Lumiere brothers of France are
just a few of the others film historians
will honor as originators of the motion
picture. Likewise, scholars continue to
debate which year deserves to be called

the 100th birthday of the motion
picture.

Meanwhile . . .

in Northern New England
Cut to Maine in 1889. Here, as else-
where, vaudevillians and variety acts are
making the rounds of community halls
and opera houses. The Bangor Opera
House season includes acts such as
General Tom Thumb and the Royal
Alhambra Variety Company. The
McGibeny Family of Portland, Oregon
perform music and character sketches in
Maine halls including the Portland
Theater and the Alameda in Bath.

American and British road compa-
nies bring stage plays such as Dr. Jekyll
and Mr. Hyde. It plays at the Houlton
Opera House and is "not liked" by the
Aroostook Times. A production of
Uncle Tom's Cabin plays to good
reviews at Norombega Hall in Bangor.
According to a newspaper advertise-
ment, its attractions include,
"Moving Steamers from the Mississippi
River," "Cotton Picking Scenes," "A
Pack of Bloodhounds," and "A Trick
Donkey."

(continued on pg. 7)

Page 3

Our Collection Grows

Hundreds of hours of film and video-
tape, plus dozens of equipment dona-
tions arrived at NHF in the last half-
year. Many thanks to the more than 40
individuals, organizations and families
who furthered the cause of moving
image preservation with donations, de-
posits and loans.

Here are some samples:

From the Bangor & Aroostook
Railroad: a 1956 film in 16mm,
Assignment in Aroostook, which was
coproduced with the Limestone Air
Force Base, showing the life of a family
transferred there. This look at
Limestone was particularly interesting
given the concern this fall that the base
might face closure as part of the
national cutbacks. The B&A collection
includes preprint materials and copies
of other locomotive footage: Big Muscle
and Giants of the Roundhouse.

From Tom Nelson at Prentiss &
Carlisle: Modern Logging Operations at
Tombegan Forest, (1958) in 8mm.

From Robert Chaffee, stepson of
Westbrook Van Voorhis (the voice of
The March of Time): 16mm prints of a
number of March of Time titles,
significant to NHF because producer
Louis de Rochemont was a New
England native.

From the Instructional Systems
Center, University of Maine: a number
of Maine-related films not otherwise
held in the collection, including River
Run, Maine's Harvesters of the Sea,
Maine at the Big E, It's the Maine
Sardine.

From Henry Barendse and the
family of Meyer Davis: a significant
home-movie collection on deposit.
Meyer Davis, the well-known band-
leader, was active with his camera
from 1926 to 1974. The family is
shown in Bar Harbor, Newport, Lake
Placid and Jamestown. Perhaps most
interesting are the scripted and inter-
titled amateur dramas. They document
a type of recreation that preceded the
motion picture culture as sometimes
elaborate amateur theatricals and
tableaux.

From the National Film Archives
at the British Film Institute: new
35mm prints of two Holman Day

two-reelers, My Lady O' the Pines and
Brother of the Bear (both featuring
the young Mary Astor), along with a
1909 Vitagraph one-reel film, starring
Jean the Vitagraph Dog, The Sailor's
Sacrifice. Ours are the only copies of
these works on this side of the
Atlantic.

From the independent filmmaker
Abbott Meader: samples of his work
from the 1970s and 1980s, including
prints of Spem in Alium, Stretching
Out, Portrait of Harriet Matthews,
and Deep Trout.

From Maine's Washington County:
16mm film shot by Dr. Howard Kane
between 1929 and 1945, on deposit
from James Marsh of Prout's Neck.

Also from Washington County:
1930s 16mm home movies from
Joanne Willey of Cherryfield.

From Earle Fenderson, projection-
ist and retired film directo at Port-
land, Maine TV station WGAN: sev-
eral 16mm films of Portland and a
35mm nitrate film of a football game

between the University of Maine and
Bowdoin College produced by the Port-
land Evening Express.

Fenderson donated equipment, as
did Howard Peabody, the School for
International Training, and Tony
Jonaitis.

NHF was able to assist two fellow
archival organizations by passing on
film finds that did not conform to
NHF collection criteria. With the help
of Susan Dalton of the American Film
Institute, a number of boxes were sent
to the Archives of the Factual Film in
Ames, Iowa.

And staffer Tony Jonaitis located
two unique, unpreserved films, The
Romany Rye, written and produced by
Stanner Taylor, and In the King's Ser-
vice (1915), written by Conyers Con-
verse, produced by the Selig Polyscope
Co., with Thomas Santschi. These two
films were received for preservation
by curator Eileen Bowser of the
Museum of Modern Art, New York. H

Jean the Vitagraph Dog stars in the The Sailor's Sacrifice, directed by Lawrence Trimble in 1909.
This film was shot on the Maine coast and is remarkable because (a) it is the earliest drama made
in Maine in our collection, and (b) the dog digs clams.

Page 4

The Strand,
East Corinth, Maine

Valerie Felt McClead's grandparents ran
the Strand Theatre in East Corinth,
Maine, from 1916 to 1932. In 1974,
with the help of her grandmother, Ida
Adair McGraw, who became the
Strand's pianist when she married John
McGraw in 1920, Ms. McClead wrote a
history of the town and the theatre.
McClead's sources included more than
30 people who had attended the
Strand (in three successive buildings),
the business records of her grandfather,
and her grandmother's letters and
memoirs. What follows are excerpts
from "A History of The Strand Theatre
in East Corinth, Maine 1916-1932,"
M.A. Thesis, University of Maine,
Orono, copyright Valerie Felt McClead.

East Corinth, a farming community,
was relatively self-sufficient during the
early 1900s due in part to geographical
remoteness and limited methods of
transportation. For the most part,
recreation was membership-oriented in
such organizations as the Grange, Odd
Fellows, Masons, Rebeccas, Epworth
League and Ladies' Social Circle.

The structured discipline of the
churches in East Corinth, through the
years, had solidified a unification of atti-
tudes and beliefs that were handed
down from one generation to the next.
Pearl Buswell: "Churches didn't
approve of silent movies. Probably
attributed to the fact that their parents
didn't attend the movies, and therefore
they didn't. The movies were
condemned."

When the United States entered
World War I in 1914, lifestyles of many
American families were altered consid-
erably because of financial hardships.

John H. McGraw, who was to
become the manager of the Strand
Theatre, carefully weighed both the pos-
itive and negative aspects of entering
the movie exhibition business. On Janu-
ary 13, 1916, it was reported, "H.B.
Morison has leased his building known
as the Free Baptist Church to the
McGraw Bros., who will open a moving
picture house the last of the month. The
pictures will be held twice a week."

The success of the regular shows
hinged on the punctuality of the
Penobscot Central Railroad. If the trol-

BOOKD

KfHOPKAN \NI> AMl;mrA> AT I'HAl: I II INS

Sret 0tatf Amusement

ENTtRPRISES
EXCLUSIVE STATE RIGHT KKA I

B BU1LDINC;. PORTI.AM

pholoi: Vtlerie Fell McClead

Ida Adair McGraw andjohn McGraw,
around 1916, and business corres-
pondence from a supplier to the
Strand, East Corinth, Maine.

Portland, Lt. Apr. 23rd. 1J17.

*r,

Bat Corlnu ,
Dear Sir:-

We are In receipt of your Aheft* for amount $125.00 (One Hundred
and Twenty-fire Dollar*) a part payment on #5A Power's Moving
Flctuee Inrlune (new).

Your WA Bashine will ^o forward then.Truetlns e-rorythlns will be

ley was late, the movies were not
shown, for generally the exchange
shipped the films to East Corinth on
the day they were to be exhibited.

By 1925, the Strand was in a build-
ing built expressly for showing films,
complete with projection booth, balcony,
a furnace in the cellar, 260 folding theatre
chairs, one Powers 6A moving picture
machine, and an upright piano. Ben-
jamin McGraw operated a single lane
bowling alley in the basement of this
theatre and a candy concession in the
lobby opposite Fred Clement's barber
shop, also in the same building. In the
event the films did not arrive as adver-
tised for a particular evening, dances or
boxing and wrestling matches were
organized as substitute forms of
entertainment.

From 1916 to 1924 a significant
change occurred in the variety and types
of films exhibited at the Strand. The
management became more eager to
contract the costlier, higher quality
popular films, and also films of an edu-
cational nature. With the addition of
weekly newsreels, a visual and descrip-
tive up-to-date commentary was shown
on world and national events.

Ida McGraw. "People learned from
the movies because they saw how other
people lived and that is always educa-
tional. The newsreels gave them news
about different parts of the country.

"Many of the films of from 1916 to
the 1920s gave the people, especially the
younger group, a desire for better
things. An urge to make something of
their lives, as they saw the results of
some of the mistakes made by others.

"In the films shown there was as a
rule the good side of the story as well as
the bad side, and the results. Seeing is
believing . . ."

Almost forty years after the theater
closed, a regular moviegoer spoke to Ms.
McClead about the way in which the
outside world was brought to East
Corinth.

Ivan Willett: "They had pictures of the
jungle and war pictures. I remember see-
ing one picture on the war in the Philip-
pines, and the first machine gun that
they ever had. . . They had a few pictures
on the African pygmies. . . they visited
the headhunters in some of the films;
of course, they were the headhunters
that had reformed.

(continued on pg. 6)

Pag

Exhibition Report

Northeast Historic Film's mission to
promote broad public exposure to the
many kinds of film and videotape made
in northern New England puts NHF
staff members in a variety of exhibition
settings. Throughout the summer of
1988 David Weiss, Karan Sheldon and
Tony Jonaitis held screenings at Rotary
meetings, workshops, historical society
gatherings, arts and agricultural fairs,
. . . and even in cinemas.

For the second year, NHF was
invited to participate in the Maine
Festival in Portland, where, despite
record-breaking heat, the NHF booth
gained exposure to an estimated 5,000
people over a three-day period. A
Holmes projector and Pathe camera
from the Daniel Maher collection, and a
tripod on loan from Mrs. Thomas
Clements attracted visitors. Many stayed
to watch selections from the archives
and talk about regional moving image.

The newly renovated Midcoast Arts
and Media Center, in Waldoboro,
Maine, was the site of two screenings.
In July, NHF ran a program of 16mm
industrial and documentary films called
Working Down East. And in August,
Henry King's 1921 feature, The Seventh
Day, premiered with English intertitles
translated from the Czechoslovakian
and piano accompaniment by Karen
Dickes of Ellsworth.

The Seventh Day is a drama
about New York City flappers who
come to Maine on a steam yacht. The
only surviving copy had the original
English intertitles translated into Czech.
In a project with the Museum of
Modern Art Department of Film, with
funding from the Maine Arts
Commission and the Knowles
Companies, NHF translated the
intertitles back into English.

A 16mm workprint was shown for
the first time in July at the East Bluehill
home of Mrs. Frederic E. Camp, who
hosted the preview for friends. The
score was performed by Fritz Jahoda
and compiled by the Bagaduce Music
Lending Library of Blue Hill from their
extensive collection of silent film music,
the Maine music collection, parlor music
and popular song.

Temperature extremes seemed to be
the norm in 1988, and in October, NHF

staff endured icy blasts at the Fryeburg
Fair on the Maine-New Hampshire
border. This is one of the largest
agricultural fairs in New England.
Enthusiastic, if chilly, visitors stopped
by NHF's semi-open space adjacent to
the fair's museum to watch material
ranging from 1920s industrials to works
in progress. Especially popular were:
1906 Trout Fishing, Rangeley Lakes
from the Paper Print Collection, Library
of Congress, several ice cutting films
from Maine donors, and From Stump to
Ship: A 1930 Logging Film.

In October, Railroad Square
Cinema in Waterville, Maine, hosted
two nights of silent Maine films which
included the first public screening of
Holman Day's My Lady O' the Pines
and The Sailor's Sacrifice. The feature
was The Seventh Day, accompanied by
Mary Cheyney Gould, Bagaduce Music
Lending Library founder and music

director.

Each event provided an opportunity
for NHF staff to meet the public, and tc
collect information for an ongoing
research project on Maine theaters.
Many people annotated a list of cinemas
in Maine, from Addison to York. The
list now identifies over 300 cinemas
known to have operated in the state.
The database is being compiled from
many sources: business registers, direc-
tories, photos and postcards.

NHF is grateful to Franklyn Len-
thall of the Boothbay Theatre Museum
for his generous loan of images. The
accuracy of the theater database depends
on such help. NHF welcomes personal
recollections of the cinema experience
as well as business records, programs,
posters and flyers. We are particularly
interested in information from family
members of theater owners and
managers. M

THE STRAND (continued from pg. 5)

"In the war films people learned
something of what war was like. Some
of the pictures of the Civil War and the
Spanish War we'd get a glimpse of
what they were like and from reading
. . . had a pretty good idea of what war
was like.

"There was a lot of loose living
shown in the movies after the war but
the idea was to educate the people to
what was going on ... ."

As he draws the Civil War and the
Spanish American War together in a

single sentence, Willett seems to indi-
cate that film whether drama, docu-
mentary or newsreel was most signifi-
cant in its ability to bring home issues
and situations foreign to the everyday
life of East Corinth.

In exploring the role of the theater
in the community and the meaning of
motion picture to the people in and
around a small town, Valerie McClead
extends our appreciation of the medium.
Too few such studies have been
undertaken. H

Page 6

100 YEARS (continued from pg. ))

Yankee theater, which focused on
regional character, has flourished since
the Civil War. Lewiston Music Hall
presents a "New Comedy Drama of
Realistic Yankee Life Down East." The
play, Old Jed Prouty, revolves around
the colorful title character who hails
from Bucksport, Maine.

Just as so-called Yankee theater is
popular in the south, Civil War plays
emphasizing the Old South are popular
in the Northern states. An advertise-
ment in the Aroostook Times warns,
"Do Not Be Misled. Watch and Wait

NHF Gratefully
Acknowledges Support

Thanks for financial support from:

American Film Institute/ National
Endowment for the Arts

Maine Community Foundation/
Maine Expansion Arts Fund

Corporate Sponsors:
Amoskeag Co.
Bangor & Aroostook RR
Bangor Daily News
N.H. Bragg & Sons
The Knowles Companies
Prentiss & Carlisle
Sawyer Management Services

and to:

Ted Bermingham

Dorothy Bromage

Mrs. Frederic E. Camp

William Cross

Mrs. German H. H. Emory

Mr. and Mrs. William G. Foulke

Nina Gormley

Robert Jordan

Mr. and Mrs. Edgar Lupfer

Mary Martin

Robert Mclntire

Howard Peabody

Mr. and Mrs. Louis Rabineau

Christopher R.P. Rodgers

Mr. and Mrs. P.M. Sellers

Richard Shaw

Dr. and Mrs. David C. Smith

Wayne Travis

jack Wiggins

Patricia Winter

for the Supremely Big Show. The Only
Colored Dramatic Company in Exis-
tence! Fresh from their Halifax and St.
John Triumphs. The Hyers Sisters
Comedy Company in their Successful
Moral Comedy, Out of Bondage. Not-
withstanding the Extraordinary expense
incurred for this engagement, prices will
be 25, 35 and 50 cents."

Tickets for these types of live shows
generally range from 35 to 70 cents.

Fast Forward

Penny Peep Shows and Nickelodeons
The first films will cost from a penny

to a nickel in Maine and throughout
the country. This will be far cheaper
than live entertainment, and images
such as dancing girls and battling box-
ers can be seen again and again.

The proliferation of nickelodeons
in 1910 will overlap with the decline
of live entertainment, especially
vaudeville. In fact, some penny arcades
featuring entertainment will become
known as "Automatic Vaudeville."

The Bangor Opera House has been
showing motion pictures since 1899.
The city's first movie theater, The

(continued on pg. 8)

Further Reading
Entertainment and Early Film

Before Hollywood: Turn-of-the-Century
American Film, edited and published by
John Anbinder, texts by John L Fell and
others. New York: Hudson Hills Press
in Association with the American Fed-
eration of Arts, 1987. The book includes
a variety of essays and programs from
an exhibition curated by Jay Leyda and
Charles Musser.

The Movies Begin: Making Movies in
New Jersey, 1887-1920, Paul Spehr,

Newark: Newark Museum, 1977. A his-
tory of early filmmaking, focusing on
the work of Edison and others in New
Jersey.

Film History: Theory and Practice,
Robert C. Allen and Douglas Gomery,
New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1985.
Pages 193-212 cover local film history
with an emphasis on community
resources for research.

Are you a member of Northeast Historic Film?

We invite you to join! This is your last issue of
Moving Image Review unless we hear from you.

I would like to continue receiving Moving Image Review. Please enroll me as a member
I would like to give a gift membership at the _ level.

D
D

I Please write "gift" and the recipient's name and address.!

Annual Dues

D Regular Member $25 D Corporate Member $100

D Educator/Student $15 D Friend of NHF $250

D Nonprofit Institution $35 D Founding Member $1000

AfUiiMi

City

Stf

7ip

Phone

Please make check payable to:

Northeast Historic Film and send check to:

Northeast Historic Film, Blue Hill Falls, Maine USA 04615

D Please check if this issue was incorrectly addressed, and fill in correct address above.

NHF ts a tax-exempt 507 Icl <3> organization; dues and contributions are deductible to the extent aUotttd kj lair.

P * g* 7

photo: Maine Historic Preservation Commission

The Gaiety, Vaudeville and Motion Pictures, Bangor, Maine, ca. 1909.

NORTHEAST HISTORIC FILM

[ BLUE HILL FALLS. MAINE. USA 04615 (207) 374-2736 |

NONPROFIT ORG.
US POSTAGE PAID
Blue Hill Falls, Maine
04615
Permit *2

ADDRESS CORRECTION REQUESTED

100 YEARS (continued from pg. 7)

Nickel, will be built and opened in
1906. The Gaiety Theatre in Bangor
will combine live vaudeville with short
films, as will theaters throughout the
nation. In 1911, the Bangor fire will
destroy these two theaters, but three
others the Graphic, the Gem and
the Union will take their place.

Films are shown in northern New
England by the turn of the century,
and producers send crews here to
shoot feature films. But it will be
many more years before any motion
picture production company, most of
which are centered in the New York
area, will trickle down east and make
Maine home base. By the early 1920s,
more films will be made and shown
here, and some of the halls which
have only occasionally shown films
will be converted to movie theaters.

Vaudevillians and variety per-
formers will try to make the change
into motion pictures. Although few
ultimately succeed, the early forms of
popular entertainment will contribute
talent and narrative material to the
fledgling film industry.

Maine will serve as a location for
North Woods films, a genre of lum-
berjacks, hunting guides, Canadian
mounties and Yukon miners, borrow-
ing heavily from two of the stage's
most popular dramatic forms: melo-
drama and farce. The Edison Company
and others such as Pine Tree Pictures,
the Holman Day Company and Dirigo
Pictures reenact the old forms in
scenic Maine locations to create short
films and features that are distributed
worldwide.

In 1989, with film's beginnings
100 years behind us, Maine remains
the setting for a variety of motion pic-
ture projects. However, the northern
New England community audience, once
brought together in storefront theaters,
is now for the most part dispersed. H

Northeast Historic Film

MOVING

IMAGE

REVIEW

Dedicated to the Preservation of
Northern New England
Motion Picture

Maine's TV Time Machine

Executive Director's Report p. 2

Louis de Rochemont p. 3

by James Petrie
100 Years Ago: Vermont p. 4

by Stephani Boyd

Paul Atwood p. 5

Fast Rewind Conference p. 5

Exhibition Calendar p. 6

Membership and Order Information p. 7

Moving Image Review is a semiannual pub-
lication of Northeast Historic Film, Blue
Hill Falls, Maine 04615. David S. Weiss,
executive director, Karan Sheldon, editor.
ISSN 0897-0769

A sample from the Bangor Historical
Society /WABI television preservation
project is now available on VHS video-
tape. The tape, called Maine's TV Time
Machine, offers a glimpse of Maine life
from 1953, when TV first came to the
state, through the early 1960s.

Overview of the collection

Designed to introduce the collec-
tion to the public, the tape contains
segments from local programs, inter-
views, news stories, sports and com-
mercials. It includes such notables as
Senator Edmund Muskie, President
Eisenhower receiving the first Penob-
scot River salmon of the 1953 season,
and Richard Nixon campaigning in
Maine.

Fascinating local footage

There is footage of a soap box
derby, dancing at a pre-dawn hunter's
breakfast, and civil defense drills.

Commercials for Life Pack survival
rations for the family bomb shelter, the
Kelvinator Food-a-Rama and the
Gadget Master salesman recorded live
in the WABI-TV studio in 1955 will
beguile you.

"The collection is an important
resource for both the serious historian
and the resident of the region with an
interest in the development of the
community," says Robert Croul,
president of the Bangor Historical

fbolo: WABI-TV

Do you remember TV in the 1950s? Relive the 1950s and early 60s with the WABI Television
Preservation Project. Order your videocassette copy of the first compilation now for just $24.95.
Or, call to arrange a presentation and have the behind-the-scenes story of the preservation project
related by a member of the NHF staff. 207374-2736.

Society, which will also be distributing
the tape. "These films are a vital supple-
ment to the artifacts and documents at
the Bangor Historical Society."

Proceeds from the sale of the half-
hour tape will support the preservation
of the original 16mm television film.
To order, see page 7.

Executive Director's Report

NHF Distribution News

NHF Gratefully Acknowledges Support
Join this illustrious group Become a Member of NHF!

This summer's issue of Moving Image
Review brings news of significance to
Northeast Historic Film, and we
hope to you. For the first time, we are
putting major resources into the distri-
bution of northern New England
material on videocassette.

Why? Because NHF is a small or-
ganization with a large mission, not just
to collect and preserve moving images
of the region, but also to make our
collections available to you. You've told
us you want New England videotapes
you can enjoy at home. "May I have a
copy of your catalog? What else do you
have available?" are the questions we
hear most often in person, by letter and
on the phone.

Region Needs Outreach

We feel that a grassroots distribu-
tion approach is needed in northern
New England one that makes viewing
possible in homes, schools, museums
and historical societies. The region is
too vast and sparsely populated to
attract huge audiences to public show-
ings. One option for increasing out-
reach is to take advantage of videotape
technology. Creators of the material
will benefit from increased awareness of
their work, and so will our users.

Distribution Just Starting

At present, the list of programs
NHF distributes is short. With your
support, the list will grow. Your con-
tributions will help us locate, and make
available, films and videotapes that
would otherwise be impossible to
obtain.

This effort won't happen overnight.
To duplicate and package even one title
takes capital, and NHF, a two-year-old
nonprofit organization, doesn't have a
lot of that.

Northeast Historic Film is not a
production house. We're not a video
store or a circulating film library. Think
of us as an "activist archives." We
provide preservation services, and then
make the results of our work available
to you to be seen, enjoyed and used.

Stay in Touch, Join NHF

We hope to hear from you. And if
you haven't already, do join NHF now.

Corporate/Associate Members

Astro Electric Co., Roy Gauthier
Ernest and Kathryn Gross
Max Media, Orono, ME,

Robert Mclntire
Virginia Morgan
Howard B. Peabody
Resolution Video, Audio & Film

Production, Burlington, VT,

William Schubart
VPFilm & Tape, Portland, ME,

Dan Osgood

Dr. and Mrs. Stewart Wolff
WoodenBoat Magazine, Brooklin, ME,

Jon Wilson

Regular Members

Linda J. Albert

Joan Amory

Jean Barrett

Deirdre Barton

Henry Becton, Jr.

Curtis Beach

Lynne Blair

Michel Chalufour

Valerie Cunningham

Eric Flower

Richard A. Hamilton

Margery J affray

Jeffjaner

Robert L. Jordan

Dr. Susan. A. Kaplan

John J. Karol, Jr.

Stephen Lindsay

Betty Ann and Donald Lockhart

Michael Mathiesen

Valerie Felt McClead

Mr. and Mrs. Russell C. McGregor

Bruce Meulendyke

John O'Brien

James A. Phillips

Sally Regan

One of the many benefits of member-
ship is a 15% discount on purchases.
Another benefit is the knowledge that
you are contributing directly to the
development of NHF cultural
preservation activities.

David S. Weiss
Executive Director

Dr. and Mrs. Edward Kendall

Bernard F. Roscetti

Mr. and Mrs. P.M. Sellers

Shan V. Sayles

Jennifer Sheldon and Ian Gersten

Mr. and Mrs. Julian Stein

Robert and Kathryn Suminsby

Philip Veilleux

Vern and Jackie Weiss

Virginia W. Whitaker

Wendy Wincote

Betty Winterhalder

Nonprofit Organizations

Abbe Museum

Bangor Historical Society

Cherry field-Narraguagus Historical

Society

Cole Family Foundation
Alicia Condon and Bill Gross
Indiana Historical Society
Maine Film Commission
Maine Medical Center
Maine State Library
New Hampshire Historical Society
Prime Resource Center

Educator/Student

Daisy Kelley
Sanford Phippen
Susan Stires
Joan Sullivan
Virginia W. Whitaker

NHF Statement of Purpose

The purpose of Northeast Historic
Film is to preserve, and make avail-
able to the public, film/videotape of
the northern New England region.
This purpose will be carried out by
activities including, but not limited
to, a comprehensive survey of
moving image resources of interest to
the people of northern New Eng-
land; the preservation of film/tape
through restoration, duplication,
providing of technical guidance and
vault storage; a touring program to
bring materials to audiences through-
out the area; and the establishment of
a study center, including resource
materials and reference copies of
motion picture films and videotapes.

Louis de Rochemont
in New England

by James Petrie

James Petrie, who first worked for Louis
de Rochemont in 1947, donated equip-
ment to NHF which was used by the de
Rochemont and Petrie production
companies, including a "bug-eye"
Moviola editor and a Moviola UD 20
CS. NHF commends Petrie for the
scrupulous manner in which he main-
tained the equipment, and for his
kindness in donating and documenting
the equipment. Here are some excerpts
from his narrative.

James Petrie:

The unprecedented format of The
March of Time, in which "reenact-
ments" of news events were used, is
said to have originated in Portland,
Maine, in 1915, when the young self-
appointed newsreel cameraman, Louis
de Rochemont, persuaded a U.S.
Marshal to reenact the recent jailing of a
German saboteur. This unique film
footage was sought after by the major
newsreel companies and thus launched
Louis de Rochemont into the business
of filmmaking.

NHFs Copy of 1915 FUm

In 1987, Elizabeth Low gave NHF the
only known surviving copy of any film
of the German saboteur, including the

railroad bridge he attempted to destroy
in Vanceboro, Maine. From here, our
interest in de Rochemont took off. It is
not known whether the Low version
was shot by de Rochemont or a camera-
man from a rival newsreel company.

de Rochemont's Feature Films

In later years, de Rochemont made a
number of feature films, some of which
could be described as didactic real-life
fiction. He used New Hampshire set-
tings because, he said, they gave credi-
bility to his stories. Lost Boundaries
(1949) introduced race issues in the story
of a black doctor who passed as white.
Whistle at Eaton Falls (1951) is a tale
about union and management in a
small-town plastics factory.

James Petrie:

The bug-eye and the UD 20 CS editing
machines were used during the de
Rochemont years of film-making, quite
a number of which pertained to New
England itself.

The bug-eye was from LdeR's base-
ment workroom at Blueberry Bank,
Newington, New Hampshire. This
machine and its accessories came to
light when it was offered to me for the
assembling of workprint footage filmed
in Portland in 1953. This machine had
been previously used by LdeR for
working on dailies and picture assem-
blies long before my time with de
Rochemont.

It was not until LdeR formed his
East Coast production organization,
Louis de Rochemont Associates, in

This Moviola donated by
James Petrie is in excellent working condition.
An electric motor and leather belts power the
35mm tabletop machine.

New York City in 1947, that I became
affiliated with him, being taken into the
fold as locations scout for the making of
The New England Story.

Although I did not have occasion to
witness his use of the bug-eye during
this time, I am sure he may have done
so, for he was known to have kept an
open eye on the doings and perform-
ances of his cohorts in the field.
Whether he supervised from Newing-
ton or New York City, one was quite
aware that whatever had been done
would be seen through the Moviola
viewing glass.

This would also be true pertaining
to the series of 36 geography films, The
(continued on page 5)

Further Reading

Louis de Rochemont and non-fiction film

photo: Virginia de Rochemont

Louis de Rochemont ca. 1914 in Winchester,
Mass.

The March of Time, 1935-1951,
Raymond Fielding, New York: Oxford
University Press, 1978. Background to
de Rochemont's career, with useful
bibliography, filmography and index.

The American Newsreel, 1911-1967,
Raymond Fielding, Norman: Univer-
sity of Oklahoma Press, 1972. Over-
view of newsreels, including an account
of the de Rochemont Vanceboro bridge

exploit.

The Historian and Film, edited by Paul
Smith, King's College, London,
Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1976. Essays on film, including
William Hughes on "The evaluation of
film as evidence," and Jerry Kuehl with
a producer's point of view on historians
and documentary.

Page 3

One Hundred Years Ago
The Moving Image in Vermont

by Stephani Boyd, Archives Manager,
Northeast Historic Film

How did motion picture come to be?
What kind of entertainment did it
replace? In celebration of the centennial
of the projected motion picture, Moving
Image Review regularly looks at film
technology and the regional context of
popular culture a century ago.

In 1889, a few months after Thomas
Edison and his assistant William
Dickson were experimenting with pro-
jected images, the residents of Burling-
ton, Vermont crowded into the Opera
House to watch projected still images of
Pennsylvania's Johnstown flood.

This vivid advertisement in the
Burlington Free Press suggests the
audience's anticipation:

100 Realistic Dissolving Views or
SIGHTS AND SCENES in this Valley of
Death and Destruction illustrating better
than tongue or pen can describe the ruin
and desolation the like of which is unpar-
alleled in history since the destruction of
Herculaneum and Pompeii.

Remember these pictures are not the
work of imagination, but actual photo-
graphs taken on the spot, before during
and since the flood, and are shown by a
2000 Candle Power Light, through a
double oxyhydrogen stereopticon upon a
screen 20 feet square.

A graphic and thrilling description will
be given by A RESIDENT who will tell
his thrilling story in his own way.

Full orchestra will be in attendance to
enliven the entertainment.

Ticket prices were 15, 25, and 35 cents. A
review of the event the next day said "a
number of our citizens" had attended,
and that the entertainment was a "very
interesting" one.

By 1 897, some presentations at the
Howard Opera House were accompa-
nied by Edison Vitascope short films
such as Runaway in Park, Tribulations
of Love, and Bathing at Rockaway
Beach. Tickets were 10, 20 and 30
cents cheaper than play tickets.

The road show and the projected
image were again combined in Stereop-
ticon shows such as the one by Profes-
sor Henry P. Van Liew, Pd. M., called

"Flashlight Revelations" in Burlington #** ws a*** (MM*

in 1900. Segments included Slums of Interior of the Howard Opera House, Burlington, Vermont, circa 1890.

New York by Flashlight, "a chaste,
thrilling, realistic presentation of all-
night slum rescue work" that "could
not be described on paper."

The moving image's appearance in
Vermont, as elsewhere, was foreshad-
owed by theatre productions which
were made into films a few years after
the technology became available. Uncle
Tom's Cabin, a book and play includ-
ing a Vermont setting, was made into a
film in 1903. Its author, Harriet Beecher
Stowe, lived in Vermont in her later
years.

From Plays to Movies

Popular productions of plays helped
"set the stage" for presentations of
movies in the theaters that- had once
been for live entertainment exclusively.
Many early films were adaptations of
stage plays, and proprietors hoped that
fans would go to the filmed versions.

Movies were shown at the Barre
Opera House, the Harte Theatre in
Bennington, the Chandler Music Hall
in Randolph and others.

Vermont Film Production

Although little research on the first
Vermont films is available, and we
suspect there were far earlier produc-
tions, we know that there was activity
by at least 1916 when the Progressive
Party in Vermont produced A Vermont

Romance with local actors as a way to
raise funds.

The film was shot in Burlington by a
New York cameraman, Ernest Powell.
Actors hailed from Waterbury, Middle-
bury, Manchester, Lyndonville, Ben-
nington, Richford, Burlington, Hard-
wick and Barton. The film premiered at
Burlington's Majestic Theater.

Moving Image Studies

Regional film history is significant
for understanding the role of moving
images as the most powerful media of
our century. Film history is not just
New York or Hollywood. It is in every
town and state that movies touched,
whether through production or exhibi-
tion.

Much of New England's rich
cultural heritage has been captured by
film, video and broadcast television.
And much is known about the develop-
ment of media technology. But there
are "miles to go" and years of research
are needed before the field can claim
knowledge of moving image history, or
of entertainment and the audience in
New England or in America as a whole.

Thanks to:

Q. David Bowers, Wolfeboro, New

Hampshire
Professor George Bryan, Royall Tyler

Theatre, University of Vermont
Franklyn Lenthall, Boothbay Theatre

Museum, Boothbay, Maine
Michael Sherman and Peggy Abbott,

Vermont Historical Society
Nadia Smith, Special Collections,

Bailey-Howe Library, University

of Vermont.

Paul Atwood: Fiddling
for The Birth of a Nation

Paul Atwood of Brewer, Maine, barn-
stormed with The Birth of a Nation in

( 1918-19. "We played all over the state,"
he recalls, "including Orono, Houlton
and Augusta." The other orchestra
members are all gone now, but included
Francis Shaw on drums, Knute Ring-
wold on piano, and Fred Bowman on
clarinet.

"In the 1920s our orchestra opened
the new Bangor Opera House, and
played there the first two weeks. We
were in the pit and there were five acts
of vaudeville plus three reels of moving
pictures."

Atwood's memory of films in
Bangor goes way back. "The first pic-
ture I saw that had music was George
Washington 's Minstrels. It was a movie
with a talking machine mounted behind

. the screen."

The musician's union, he said, was
against canned music, and against
Victrola parties, but what could you
do? "We didn't think too much about
it, it was just a way of life. I played six

. nights a week for dances and social
gatherings.

"Around 1917, the manager of
Bangor's Bijou, Stephen Bogrett, had a
wife who was a soprano. She came out
on stage between reels after the an-

. nouncement, 'One minute please for a
change of reels.' People used to go
down just to hear her sing."

Recalling playing for The Birth of a
Nation, Atwood says the scores were
complicated. "A great many of them

"Fast Rewind"
Conference

were presented in script. The scenes
were numbered with cues, and it was
quite a job to keep an eye on the screen
and watch the conductor.

"The drummer in particular had a
tough job," he stated, "with all the
battlefield music and guns firing." Nev-
ertheless, everyone was paid the
same a fixed union rate, plus expenses.

Some of the theaters Atwood played
were as memorable as The Birth of a
Nation, which, according to Atwood,
"filled the house every night." Atwood
remembers, "That theater in Presque
Isle was named after a horse. The
Braden was named after John R.
Braden, a famous race horse. I went up
there in 1923-24, and they brought the
horse right out on stage that night."

LOUIS DE ROCHEMONT (continued from pg. 3)

Earth and Its Peoples, two of which
were filmed in the local New England
environs: Maine Harbor Town, in

' Camden, Maine, and A US. Com-
munity and its Citizens, Milford,
Connecticut.

There were eight March of Time
stories made in New England, including
Summer Theatres, Skowhegan, Maine,

' October 18, 1935; Fisheries, March 13,
1936; Passamaquoddy, September 2,
1936; and New England's Eight Million
Yankees, Exeter, New Hampshire, July
1941.

James Petrie's Work

Petrie's career with Louis de Rochemont
included screen credits on Lost Bounda-
ries, Whistle at Eaton Falls, Walk East
on Beacon, Windjammer and other
films. He was a partner in the produc-
tion company Potter, Orchard & Petrie,
Inc. Petrie's filmmaking career began in
the U.S. Navy. He went on to become
director of photography, editor, director
and producer.

Academics and archivists gathered in
Rochester, New York, for a conference
called "Fast Rewind: the Archaeology
of Moving Images," May 4-7, 1989.

Organized by Bruce A. Austin,
Wm. Kern Professor in Communica-
tions at Rochester Institute of Technol-
ogy, the conference covered technol-
ogy, preservation and the use of moving
images from the points of view of
teachers, researchers, producers and
archivists.

Northeast Historic Film cofounder
Karan Sheldon and Stephani Boyd,
archives manager, attended.

Importance of Amateur Film

Sheldon participated in a panel
called "The Family Movie," with Brian
Lewis of the CBC, Jeffrey Ruoff,
University of Iowa, Robert Wagner,
Ohio State and filmmaker Alan Berliner
of New York. Sheldon explained NHF
collection criteria for amateur film. The
NHF collection contains amateur
material from 1916 on, with particular
strength in 16mm b&w film from the
1930s.

Inside View of Our Culture

Home movies by northern New
England creators, she said, can reveal an
otherwise elusive "inside" view of the
culture over time.

NHF Seeks Amateur Film

NHF seeks donations of northern
New England material with the
following characteristics:

A single creator covering a long span of
time with surviving annotation such as
the Meyer Davis Collection (1926-1974).

A single community filmed by multiple
creators offering a varied perspective,
such as the various portraits of
Cherryfield (pop. 986).

Rare ethnic or cultural coverage.

Business, crafts or professions covered in
depth.

The work of an individual whose home
movies can be annotated, and whose
moving image work would not otherwise
be archived.

Call or write NHF for information on
preserving amateur film and videotape.

Exhibition Calendar

T*1

NHF Presents:

Woodsmen and River Drivers

Premiere, with discussion.

Saturday, June 10.

Kimball Hall

Univ. of Maine, Machias

Showings on the hour, 2-5 p.m.

The Seventh Day

A presentation in honor of moviegoers, projectionists and accompanists. Danny
Patt, who first accompanied silent films here in 1922, will play the Bagaduce Music
Lending Library score.

Wednesday, August 2, 7:30 p.m.

Town Hall

Union, Maine.

Selections from the Archives

August 12-14

Maine Festival

Deering Oaks Park

Portland, Maine.

Way Down East

D.W. Griffith's 1920 masterpiece. Reconstructed by the Museum of Modern Art
with live musical accompaniment. For tickets in advance call 207 667-8919 or
207 374-2736.

Sunday, August 20, 7:30 p.m.

The Criterion Theater

Bar Harbor, Maine.

Archiving Workshop

September 8
Catamount Arts Center
St. Johnsbury, Vermont
Call Deborah Sessions, 802 223-8742

Selections from the Archives

September 22-24
Common Ground Fair
Windsor Fairgrounds
Windsor, Maine

Selections from the Archives

October 1-8

Fryeburg Fair

Fryeburg, Maine

photo: American Heritage Center,
University of Wyoming

Miss Lillian Gish in Way Down East

The purpose of NHF is to preserve,
and make available to the public,
moving images of the northern New
England region.

All But Forgotten:

Holman Francis Day, Filmmaker

Chronicles career of 1920s Maine author
and film producer Day, whose credits
include
Northwoods
dramas such
as My Lady
of the Pines
with Mary
Astor. Pro-
duced in 1977
by Everett
Foster under
a Maine Arts
Commission grant; won a silver medal at the
International Film & TV Festival of NY and
aired on the PBS system. Narrated by film
historian James Card. 30 minutes.

$24.95/NHF members $19.95.

The How and Why of Spuds

A detailed look at 1920 potato farming in
Aroostook County, Maine, when the pri-
mary power was horses. Produced by the
U.S. Department of Agriculture.
10 minutes.

$20/NHF members $17.

From Stump to Ship:
A 1930 Logging Film

The most complete look at the long-log
industry includes felling trees in winter with
cross-cut saws, the spring river drive, and
work in a steam-powered mill. Original
1930 script spoken by humorist Tim
Sample. Project won the American Associa-
tion for State and Local History award of
merit. 28 minutes.

$29.95/NHF members $24.95.

Page 6

ieocassettes Now Available

Researchers, teachers and students
are invited to request reference
copies, .uul to visit NHI ; to work
with hundreds of hours of film,
videotape .uid associated materials.

NHF reaches many people through
public presentations. And now, our
outreach includes New England
moving images on videotape for
home and school use.

Cberryfield, 1938

Springtime views of a small Washington
County (Maine) community. A short, but
complete and affecting view which includes
the businesses, the school, and many

:cics such as cutting wood,
training oxen. 6 minutes.

$20/NHF members $17.

Woodsmen and River Drivers

'Another day, another era. "

WABI-TV

STUDIOS

Unforgettable individuals who worked for
the Machias Lumber Company before 1930
share their recollections of a hard life.
Completed in 1989, a project of Northeast
Archives of Folklore and Oral History with
funding from the Maine Humanities
Council and Champion International.
30 minutes.

$29.95/NHF members $24.95.

Earliest Maine Films
Drawing a Lobtter Pot ( 1 901 ) is the

earliest surviving moving image known to
have been shot in Maine.
Logging in Maine ( 1 906) shows men
working to prevent a logjam on a river.

Trout Fishing, Rangeley Laket (1906)
shows arrival by train and steamer and
guests in three-piece suit* catching trout,
minutes total.

$20/NHF members $17.

IT
Sh

Maine's TV Time Machine

A compilation, just completed, from the
Bangor Historical Society /WABI collection from Maine's oldest TV station. Sample* from
the 1950s and early 1960s: television news, sports and local commercial*. Narrated by
veteran radio and TV journalist George Hale. 34 minutes.

$24.95/NHF members $19.95

All But Forgotten

24.95

19.95

The How and Why of Spuds

20.00

17.00

From Stump to Ship

29.95

24.95

Cherryficld, 1938

20.00

17.00

Woodsmen and River Drivers

29.95

24.95

Earliest Maine Films

20.00

17.00

Maine's TV Time Machine

24.95

19.95

Merchandise total
Check method of shipment

D c . . _ , _. Tax: ME residents add 5%
Special Fourth Cuss mail: no charge

D First Class Mail: add $2.40 per tape Shipping and handling'
1 1 Overnight: add $12.50 per tape Videotape Total

Videotape Order Form

Item name

Regular prift each Member'} price each Qty. Tout

Are you a Member of Northeast Historic Film? Please join us.
Receive the benefits of membership including Moving Image Review,
discounts on purchases and presentations, and notice of screening and events.

LJ Yes! Please enroll me as a member. LJ Please note my order above.

Annual Due*

D Regular Member $25 Q Corporate/ Associate Member $100

D Educator/Student $15 D Friend of NHF $250

D Nonprofit Institution $35 Q Founding Member $1000

D I would like to give a gift membership at the

level.

(Please write 'gift * and the recipient 's name and address in the blank space belov. )

Name _
Address

City

Phone _

State

Zip

Please tout videotape order, membership and gift (as applicable). Make check payable to:
Northeast His tone Film and tend check to:
Northeast Historic Film, Blue Hill Falls, Maine USA 04615

NHF it a tax-exrmpi Ml (t) ()) orfamj triem Dmes a*4 (MfrifcrtMi art JffuctM* to ikt

P * g e 7

photo: Tom Stewart

Newell Beam: *l am proud I'm a woodsman. Yes, I know what to do in the woods. '

NORTHEAST HISTORIC FILM

1 BLUE HII.L FALLS. MAINE. I'SA 0461 5 (207) 374-3736

NONPROFIT ORG.
US POSTAGE PAID
Blue Hill Falls, Maine
04615
Permit *2

ADDRESS CORRECTION REQUESTED

Woodsmen and River Drivers
"Another day, another era."

"When I first went into the woods up
Machias River, I was 1$. Oh, that's 65
years ago when I was up there. First
year I didn 't know too much about the
logging woods. I soon learned. "

The intensity of life working in the
Maine woods before 1930 is shared by
Newell Beam and other veterans of the
Machias Lumber Company. They are
the last of many generations of New
England woods workers who used
hand tools, horses and water power to
turn trees into lumber often sent to
New York and other urban areas. Beam
and his colleagues appear in Woodsmen
and River Drivers, a documentary
presented by Northeast Historic Film.

The woodsmen are vivid communi-
cators, conveying the viewer into a van-
ished way of life. Consider spending
the winter with 30 men in a remote
woods camp with no electricity, work-
ing from pre-dawn until after dark, six
days a week.

The program grew from a recon-
struction of a 1930 amateur film by the
president of the Machias Lumber
Company, who spent a year recording
his business.

The reconstruction, From Stump to
Ship: A 1930 Logging Film, was quickly
accepted as a part of the Maine history
curriculum from elementary school to
university level. The film has been dis-
tributed widely and won the award of
merit from the American Association
for State and Local History.

To add to the original resource, Dr.
Edward (Sandy) Ives, director of the
Northeast Archives of Folklore and
Oral History, gathered the recollections
of more than 25 woodsmen and river
drivers. The stories of selected individu-
als are told in Woodsmen and River
Drivers.

A project of Northeast Archives of
Folklore and Oral History, Dept. of
Anthropology, Univ. of Maine, funded
by the Maine Humanities Council and
Champion International Corp., Woods-
men and River Drivers is available on
videocassette from Northeast Historic
Film (see page 7). Call 207 374-2736 for
information on a presentation for your
historical society or other organization.

I Northeast Historic I i I m

MOVING

IMAGE

REVIEW

Dedicated to the Preservation of
Northern New England
Motion Picture

Winter 1990

Executive Director'* Report .
History and Home Movies,

Patricia Zimmcrmann....
100 Yean Ago: New Hampshire

by Strpham Boyd

Summer Events

Grant* in Action

The Movie Queen _. ____.

p.2

P3
P<

,p.5
,p.6

,p.8

Archiving Home Movies

Moving Image Review is a semiannual pub-
lication of Northeast Historic Him, Blue
Hill Falls, Maine 0461 S. David S. Weiss,
executive director, Karan Sheldon, editor.
ISSN 0897-0769

A regional archives collects and pre-
serves material that is significant to its
geographical area. From the start,
Northeast Historic Film has taken on
the task of preserving amateur films and
videotapes that record the life of the
Northeast in detail and from
perspectives nowhere else available.

A New Field

Amateur moving image material has
not been widely collected in the U.S., so
there arc few people curating it. No
wonder it presents many diffi-
culties to the intrepid curator.
Physical preservation is difficult,
because many film and tape for-
mats arc obsolete and laboratory
facilities are scarce and expensive.

Direct to Computer

NHF in 1990 will become one of the
first film archives to catalog directly
onto computer, generating paper rec-
ords from printouts. There arc no field-
wide standards for describing home
movies. We describe film by geograph-
ical location and visual content with a
growing list of terms including children,
boats and boating, logging, dancing,
religion, agriculture and holidays. The
terms come from Library of Congress
subject headings with some regional
adaptations, for example, addition of
the term "maritime."

Fascinating Content

NHF has been able to find and safe-
guard a significant amount of amateur
film, going back to the early teens.
There's wide variety, from plays, pic-
nics and outings to records of passenger
rail, steamships, fishing (seining, dip-
ping, hand lining, fly casting), and
family and institutional activities grand
and humble.

The Public as Source

Not surprisingly, the public has not
thought much about the value of home
movies, and individuals usually haven't
regarded their own films as of potential
interest outside the immediate family.
Increasingly, they arc, and NHF en-
courages the submission of amateur
material for evaluation.

.\mtttnr film
trnvet At \ortbeAU
Hulonc Film in
gAft>Agt cjnt Jtnd tagtr
CAnnttn. thopping fart, four* of All
kindt, *nd bAtitrti The (Urn thtt Arm-et
in these conuinen it Aging, fragile And
ituuiUy *npro/ettjl>lr Such film it nnuiUy
HnttfHt nd frrterved novhrrr rlsf U> think the
many people tt-fco *ndrn:*nd it) tmporuncr And
donAtt film And funds for in prttervAnon.

Executive Director's Report

Join These New Members of NHF!
See Page 6 for Details.

Management Study
Over the summer, the University of
Maine's Bureau of Public Administra-
tion undertook a detailed evaluation of
NHF's management and planning. We
are grateful for their expertise. The
study is part of our strategic planning
process, and has proved both reinforc-
ing of past decisions and helpful in
defining tomorrow's goals.

As we look to the future we see
further building of the collections,
continued interaction with educators,
preservation professionals, producers
and others and more participation by
volunteers. We will continue to work to
safeguard our moving image heritage
and make it available, not just for future
generations, but for you.

Volunteer Program

One way to make preservation work
for you is to become a volunteer. The
program is designed to encourage parti-
cipation, even by those who can't come
to Blue Hill. There are openings for
volunteers to:

Q Review tapes and films and help
catalog them.

3 Assist planning and preparation

for public events.
Q Record recollections on audiotape

and/or transcribe audio into type.

Q Help care for NHF's growing
equipment collection.

Q Use computer skills for word
processing and data entry.

For more information on how you can
get involved, call 207 374-2736.

Our Third Anniversary

With this issue of Moving Image
Review we mark the third anniversary
of Northeast Historic Film. We wel-
come a seventh board member to
Northeast Historic Film, Lynda Tyson,
of Northeast Harbor and Tyson &
Partners of Bangor. Charlie Tyson, her
husband and partner, joins the program
committee. His able hand has helped
guide Moving Image Review since its
first issue.

Thanks to the many members who
joined in 1989, our first membership
year. In 1990 we are offering a selection

Founding Members

Paul & Deborah Gelardi
Karan Sheldon & David Weiss

Friends of NHF

Milbridge Theatre, David & Sue Parsons
Ed Pert

Corporate/Associate Members
Hammond Lumber Company,

Donald C. Hammond
Tyson & Partners, Lynda & Charles Tyson
Mrs. Joanne Van Namee
Allene& Joel White

Regular Members

Peter Anderson

James E. Austin

Paul & Mollie Birdsall

Richard Bock

Bob & Dot Broadbent

Lynn Cadwallader

Mrs. Frederic E. Camp

Robert Carnie

Gary Cobb

Art Collier

Celeste DeRoche

Clarence R. DeRochemont

Ann-Marie Duguay

Carroll Faulkner

John Gfroerer

Jim Goff

Nancy Gray

Charles Hesse

Stanley Howe

Douglas H/Ilsely

Thomas F. Joyce

Ernest Knight

Rep. Theone Look

Lily Marston

William Materne

Andrew Mazer

Francis S. Moulton, Jr.

Lee Murch

Richard Obrey

Guy & Dianne Poirier

Robert Porter

Charles Pritham

of NHF postcards to all new and
renewing members. They're an ideal
way to stay in touch with friends while
helping spread the word about NHF.

David S. Weiss
Executive Director

M. Prittie

Karen Rhine

Chris Roy

Nancy Sheldon

Sally Smith

Mr. & Mrs. Charles Thompson

Mrs. Henry Walter

Seth Washburn

Robert Whitney

Carter Wintle

Frank A. Wood, PhD

Karen Wyatt

Harry Zinn

Nonprofit Organizations

Calais Free Library, Marilyn Diffm
City Theater Associates, Keith Peeler
Curtis Memorial Library
George Stevens Academy, Bonnie Copper
Harvard Film Archive, Vlada Petric
Mantor Library, David Olsen
University of Maine, Augusta, Library

Educator/Student Members

Miss Rosemary Anthony

Phil Gonyar

Cora Greer

Kevin Hagopian

Scott Herring

Dr. T. Johnson

Sharon Merrill, Guy E. Rowe School

Alan Morse

Dr. David Richard

Paige Roberts

William Taylor

Carla Turner, Windham Real School

Dr. Richard E.G. White

Carolyn Wiley I

NHF Statement of Purpose

Page

History and Home Movies:
An Interview with Patricia Zimmermann

Patricia Zimmermann is associate
professor of cinema and photography,
Roy H. Park School of
Communications, Ithaca College,
Ithaca, New York.

Zimmermann: The history of home
movies is a history of technological
diffusion from a very specialized mar-
ket in the early part of the century,
widening over the decades to a more
consumer-oriented family market.

Who made home movies?

Z People who had expendable
income, with access to equipment
and processing. The largest concentra-
tion has been in urban areas, partic-
ularly in the Northeast. People got
information about home movies from
camera stores in the downtown urban
areas in the 1920s and '30s. And from
The New York Times, where home
movies were written about in the
society pages.

What is the relationship of home
movie-making to travel?

^ Generally speaking there are two
principal uses of amateur film:
Amateur photography increases with
the birth of a child, and the other usage
is travel. There is a long tradition of
using photography and film to record
travel to other places. You'll see lots of
shots taken from cars, pans of the ocean
or the mountains, and there's a real
sense of collecting images as though
they're souvenirs as though the
camera can get more of it than you
could.

Travel film coincides with the rise of
the automobile, and the two technolo-
gies mix together: The automobile gave
people mobility and increased
vacationing.

People tend to film what I call "the
exotic other." For example, I would
guess in Maine people filmed lobster
traps and lobstermen from a distance.
"The exotic" is an indicator that you
were somewhere and life was different.

Who is preserving amateur film, and
what are they collecting?

ZLast year I was a research fellow at
the Smithsonian Institution in the
Human Studies Film Archives. They
archive ethnographic film and amateur
film of places that have changed for
example, home movies shot in Cam-
bodia, evidence of people and places
you couldn't see any longer. Their
collection spans 1900 to the present.

That archives collection is an
incredible record of the third world,
and the way first world people of
certain wealth and power image the
third world.

Who else is archiving amateur
material?

I've done research at George
Eastman House. They have an
enormous document archives, including
amateur and trade magazines. Eastman
House in the last few years has in-
creased its interest in saving travelogues,
and when amateur material comes their
way they attempt to keep it.

The Bishop Museum in Hawaii has
apparently initiated a campaign to get
more amateur film because there was
quite a lot shot there during World War
II. They're trying to document
Hawaiian life.

What's sad, I believe, is that more
archives aren't involved, because this
material will just be lost. Most archives
have limited space and they have other
priorities.

What do you think of regional
archiving?

Much of it has to be regional
because I think that what is inter-
esting about amateur photography and
film is how regionally based it is. It's
about people in a particular time and
socioeconomic place.

Where do you think film scholarship
is going?

The range of people interested in
media is bigger than anyone ever

Pl Print Plainl,

16mm film boxes like this one were sent for
processing and returned to home movie-makers
all over America. Where are your family films?

imagined. People are studying industrial
films, as well as amateur production and
all the regional film production that no
one knew about.

There is a movement among cultural
historians to look at history from
below. This has meant looking at the
history of women and labor unions and
farmers. And there's been a move
toward regional history.

People Making History

In film history there's been a similar
shift toward examination of American
media culture beyond the dominance of
TV and Hollywood film. Study of
home movies is an aspect of this, look-
ing at the way normal everyday people
who aren't trained make their own
history. Home movies are powerful
documents of the way people lived at a
certain point in history.

Consider women's history and
questions like, "What were women's
lives like in the 18th and 19th centu-
ries?" To answer, historians went to
archives and looked at letters.

Equivalent of Diaries

The 20th-century equivalent is
home movies. I think of them as private
family documents. They are the visual
equivalent of diaries, and that's one
reason I think they need to be
preserved.

Further Reading

Reel Families: A Social History of the
Discourse on Amateur Film, 1897-1962.
Patricia R. Zimmermann. In press. H

Pag

One Hundred Years Ago:
The Moving Image in New Hampshire

by Stephani Boyd, Archives Manager,
Northeast Historic Film

One hundred years ago, an arguably
short-sighted decision by Thomas
Edison resulted in the temporary
primacy of coin-operated peep shows
over movies projected onto screens.
Eighteen-ninety was the year between
the first known projection of film onto
a screen by Edison's assistant William
Dickson, and Edison's patents applica-
tions for his Kinetograph camera and
Kinetoscope peephole viewer in 1891.

Edison decided that small, individu-
ally operated viewers provided greater
image clarity than did projection onto
large screens, one reason for the estab-
lishment of coin-operated viewing
machines throughout the United States
in the 1890s.

Whereas in 1990 we have "home
entertainment centers" complete with
our own machines for movie viewing
and music listening, in the 1890s and
early 1900s people had to go out to
view moving images. Thus the creation
of arcades in commercial areas and
transportation hubs.

Automatic Vaudeville

One example of this phenomenon
was Canobie Lake Park in Salem, New
Hampshire. It was built in 1902 by the
Massachusetts North East Railway Co.
to encourage the public to use its street-
cars on weekends. The development
included an "Automatic Vaudeville"
building, which probably contained
peep show machines.

Among the peep show machines the
park still owns and runs is the Muto-
scope, a machine that competed with
Edison's Kinetoscope. The machine has
a hand-cranked rotating drum with
photo cards mounted on it that flip in
sequence, providing the illusion of a
moving image.

Women and Snakes

Park marketing director Wayne
Ulaky says sequences available for
viewing in 1990 include a beautiful
woman sashaying through a room, and
a snake eating a rodent.

Jim Blanco, manager of the loka
Theatre in Exeter, New Hampshire, has
seen the machines in action. "You used
to put pennies in them, and now you
put in dimes," he said. "Even teenagers
who listen to AC/DC like them."

By 1915, many coin-operated
moving image machines were replaced
by chairs when entrepreneurs realized
they could make more money by
operating only one machine at a time
for a roomful of paying customers. So
much for Edison's 1890 assumptions.

From Mutoscopes to Multiplexes

In 1990, Mutoscopes are still being
built and operated as novelties, but
movie theaters are endangered as
resources are directed toward the
production and distribution of home
videotapes and VCRs. Movie theaters
are being demolished, converted or
replaced by new theaters devoid of
ornament or character.

Images in use throughout the 100
years of motion picture history are
being lost as is their context, i.e., the

ftrcade

environments in which they were seen.

Going, Going, Gone

According to Jim Blanco, four New
Hampshire theaters were lost in the last
year or so: the Amherst Street and
Vitaphone theaters in Manchester and
part of the Colonial in Portsmouth
became parking lots, and the Latchis in
Keene was gutted for condominiums.

Exeter's loka Theatre, which Blanco
manages, was built in 1915 as a movie
and vaudeville house. It is scheduled to
close soon, largely because film dis-
tributors would rather book multiple
films into multiscreen theaters than one
film into an independent theater.
Package booking practices make it
harder for small theaters to get popular
films, and therefore, large audiences.

A group from local Phillips Exeter
Academy has tried to rally support for
the theater, but no adequate solution
has yet been found.

Blanco believes that much more
than architecture is lost when a theater
is destroyed. "Anyone who has seen
Ben-Hur only on television has seen
about 40 percent of it," he said. "It's
like looking at the world through a
window from 20 paces back."

In 100 years, has the art of
moviegoing come and gone?
Thanks to:

Jim Blanco, Exeter, NH
Q. David Bowers, Wolfeboro, NH
David Cook, Games Manager, Canobie Lake

Park, Salem, NH

Wayne Ulaky, Marketing Director, Canobie
Lake Park, Salem, NH

photo: Q. David Bovert,

Canobie Lake Park exhibition hall, ca. 1902.

Page 4

Summer Events * 1989

Silent Film
Returns to Union

The Union Historical Society hosted
screenings of Henry King's 1921 feature
The Seventh Day in the old town hall in
Union, Maine, on August 2, 1989.

In the afternoon Dr. Richard Kahn,
a member of the Maine Humanities
Council, chaired a retrospective session
with members of the Union community
who had participated in the showing of
silent films in the hall. Danny Patt, who
grew up in Union, shared his recollec-
tions along with Ross Howes, projec-
tionist, and more than half a dozen

Danny Patt, pianist,
began hii career in the
early 1920s accom-
panying silent film.

1 \-

individuals who remembered attending
the films with family and friends.

Community at the Movies

The discussion gathered valuable
information on the community's rela-
tionship to film. Movie-going was
regular and important in Union, almost
to the exclusion of other group activi-
ties, including church. Isabel Abbott
recalled having to act ill to get out of
going to a film showing one Christmas
Eve so that she could stay home and
play with a new doll.

Accompanist Danny Patt

In the evening, Patt played the piano
for two screenings of The Seventh Day,
with selected Pathe newsreel stories.
The house was full for both shows.

In 1924, at the age of 12, Patt had
taken the job of accompanist for the
weekly films. He also played once a
week in Warren and Thomaston,
Maine.

The 1989 audience was diverse and
enthusiastic. Many young people had

Projectionist Ross Howes and moviegoer Jesse
Hilt meet by the original Powers projector at
Union town hall for The Seventh Day, a
presentation in honor of moviegoers,
projectionists and accompanists.

never before seen a silent film, and
some of their elders remembered having
fun pelting Danny Patt with peanuts
before the sound era put the town hall
movie show out of business.

The Historical Society was an excel-
lent and well-organized host, supported
by many local sponsors and the Maine
Humanities Council.

Dr. Edward Ives, internationally known
oral historian, (left) greets woodsman
Newell Beam on June 10 at the University of
Maine, Machias premiere of Woodsmen
and River Drivers. The 1989 documentary,
produced and distributed by NHF, was
introduced by project director Ives.

The NHF booth at the Maine Festival For k
the third straight (and rainiest) year, NHF W
appeared at this popular arts event.

Way Down East, reconstructed by the Museum of Modern Art, was shown to a
crowd of over iOO on August 20 at The Criterion Theater in Bar Harbor, Maine.
The event was sponsoredby the Bar Harbor Banking and Trust Company. NHF
board member Pam Wintle talks with pianist Glenn Jenks ofCamden, who is in
a dramatic mode following his performance of the score.

At the Great Cranberry
Library, filmmaker David
Westphal (left) speaks with
Robert Browning. Westphal
organized the August
screening of a 1930s home
movie. The detailed look at
island life, starring Mr.
Browning, was warmly
received by a full house.

(conttmttd on page 6)
Page }

Summer Events

(continued from pg. 5)

Archival to Agricultural

NHF gave an archiving workshop
for the Vermont Historical Records
Advisory Board with funds from
NHPRC at Catamount Arts Center, St.
Johnsbury, Vermont in September.
From October 1-10 staff occupied ex-
hibit space close to two oxen at the
Fryeburg Fair in Fryeburg, Maine,
showing videotapes in the Farm Mu-
seum to several thousand visitors to the
largest agricultural fair in Maine.

Other events: in July, screenings of
Woodsmen in Blue Hill and Rockport,
Maine, and a preview from the Maher
Collection in Lucerne, Maine; Septem-
ber, presentations in Kennebunkport
and Bangor; October, events at the
Abnaki Ski & Outing Club in
Augusta, the Women's Literary
Union, Portland, and at Bates College,
a screening of The Seventh Day with
accompaniment by Danny Patt.

At the Common Ground Fair in Windsor,
Maine, the NHF booth occupied a space in the
exhibition hall and was awarded a blue ribbon
for most educational exhibit by a jovial
gentleman in a top hat. We appreciated the
award and the friendly crowds.

Grants in Action

NHF is grateful to these public and
private granters in the state who make
our work possible:

The Maine State Library's incen-
tive matching grant program for preser-
vation of unique state historical and
library research material donated $5,000
for continued preservation work on the
Bangor Historical Society /WABI
project. The television film preservation
project has raised $92,000 to date, and is
gaining visibility with educators,
business people, producers and archi-
vists. Revenue from the introductory
videotape, Maine's TV Time Machine,
supports the project. The tape, available
by mail from NHF, is selling well at
area retailers including Mr. Paperback
and Shop 'N Save stores.

The Joan Whitney and Charles
Shipman Payson Charitable Founda-
tion, in its first year of operation, gave
$2,000 to NHF toward the preservation
of maritime-related material in the
BHS/WABI collection.

The Maine Arts Commission
Regional Arts Program gave $250
toward the exhibition of Way Down
East at the Criterion.

The Maine Community Founda-
tion's Maine Expansion Arts Fund

awarded $3,000 for the planning phase
of Ralph Stanley, A Reverence for
Wood, a film to be produced by David
Westphal and Gunnar Hansen. Further
funding is needed in preparation for
their film on the work of the Southwest
Harbor wooden-boat builder.

Final reports have been submitted or
are in progress for these 1988/89 grants:
the Maine Arts Commission-funded
preservation and outreach work on The
Seventh Day; the Expansion Arts-
funded project The Movie Queen (see
page 8); and the American Film Insti-
tute/National Endowment for the
Arts preservation grant for work on the
Daniel Maher collection. H

Join
Northeast Historic Film

New in 1990! A gift packet of postcards
for all new members and renewals. It
contains striking images from regional
motion pictures: 1920 Maine Centen-
nial, The Seventh Day, The Rider of
the King Log and Bozo! Eight post-
cards, two of each.

Q Regular members, $25 per year,
receive a subscription to Moving
Image Review, notice of screen-
ings and events, and discounts on
materials distributed by NHF.

Q Educator/Student Members,
$15 per year, receive all regular
membership benefits. This cate-
gory is for teachers and students at
any level.

Q Nonprofit Organizations, $35
per year, receive all regular bene-
fits of membership, plus additional
copies of Moving Image Review
on request and reduced rates for
consultation, presentations and
professional services.

Q Associates (Individuals) and
Corporate Members, $100 per
year, receive the benefits of
regular members, and in addition,
special recognition in Moving
Image Review and programs.

Q Friends, $250 per year, receive all
benefits of regular membership
and, in addition, a privilege card
which will admit two people to
any NHF-sponsored screening or
event, plus listing in the roster of
Friends.

Q Founding Members, $1,000 per
year, the premier category of
membership. These members are
making a major commitment to
ensure the preservation and use of
the NHF resource, and receive all
benefits of regular membership
and invitations to special previews.

Look for announcement of special
items in 1990, including new T-shirts
and videotapes. Membership at any
level is an opportunity to become
involved with the preservation and
enjoyment of our moving image
heritage.

Your dues are tax-deductible to the extent
allowed by law.

Page 6

Videotapes of New England Life

The purpose of NHF is to preserve, and make available to the public, moving
images of the northern New England region. NHF reaches many people
through public presentations. Researchers use database information and ref-
erence copies of film and tapes in our growing collection of unedited material.
And now, we offer New England videotapes for home and school use.

All But Forgotten:

Holman Francis Day, Filmmaker.

Career of 1920s Maine author and film producer
Day, whose work included Northwoods drama
My Lady of the Pines with Mary Astor. 30
minutes.

$24.95/NHF members $19.95.

Around Cape Horn

Capt. Irving Johnson aboard the Peking in 1929.
37 minutes.

$29.95/NHF members $24.95.

Cherryfield, 1938

Springtime views of a small Washington County
(Maine) community. A short, but complete and
affecting view. 6 minutes.

$19.95/NHF members $16.95.

Earliest Maine Films
Drawing a Lobster Pot (1901)
Logging in Maine (1906)
Trout Fishing, Rangeley Lakes (1906)
Total 22 minutes.

$19.95/NHF members $16.95.

From Stump to Ship:
A 1930 Logging Film

The most complete look at the long-log industry.
28 minutes.

$29.95/NHF members $24.95.

The How and Why of Spuds

A detailed look at 1920 potato farming in
Aroostook County, Maine. 10 minutes.

$19.95/NHF members $16.95.

Legends of American Skiing
1849-1940

Archival footage and modern interviews com-
prehensively define the sport. 78 minutes.

$39.95/NHF members $34.95.

Maine's TV Time Machine

A compilation of TV from the 1950s and early
60s from the Bangor Historical Society /WABI
collection. 34 minutes.

$24.95/NHF members $19.95.

Mt. Washington 1852-1908,
Among the Clouds

Life at the top: the hotels, newspaper and
building of the cog railway. 30 minutes.

$24.95/Sorry, no member discount.

An Oral Historian's Work
with Dr. Edward Ives

Skills and techniques of a successful oral history
project demonstrated by a world's authority. 30
minutes.

$60/NHF members $47.50.

Ride the Sandy River Railroad

Newly transferred, silent (with titles) from early
1930s two-foot-gauge railroad. 30 minutes.

$29.95/NHF members $24.95.

The Ways at Wallace and Sons
and The Bank Dory

Coasting schooner/o^n F. Leavitt and her New
England shipbuilders. The Bank Dory docu-
ments the building of a Nova Scotia dory. Total
58 minutes.

$29.95/NHF members $24.95.

Woodsmen and River Drivers,
"Another day, another era"

Unforgettable individuals who worked for the
Machias Lumber Company before 1930 share
their recollections of a hard life. 30 minutes.

$29.95/NHF members $24.95.

Yachting in the 30s

Weetamoe, a 1930 film of the Herreshoff-built J
boat in the 1931 transatlantic and Fastnet races
and other short films. Total 45 minutes.

$24.95/NHF members $19.95.

Membership and Order Form

Ordered by

Name

Address

City

State _

Ship to (if different from above)

Zip

Name

Address

City

State _

Zip

Northeast Historic Film, Blue Hill Falls, ME 04615 USA

Videotape name

Price

Qty.

Total

D Special Fourth Class mail: no charge Videotape subtotal

D First Class Mail: add $2.40 Tax . M res idents add 5%
plus $1 each additional tape
O Overnight: add $12.50 Shipping and handling

plus $3 each additional tape

Payment Method
\ I Check or money order make check payable to Northeast Historic Film

D Visa D MasterCard Credit card tt

Questions? Call Libby Rosemeier at (207) 374-2736

Membership/ Specify level, please:

TOTAL

\ Institutional purchase order tt
Expiration date

Credit card signature

Page

The Movie Queen of Lubec, Maine, and the hero were reunited for an evening of film and
recollection in September 1989 through a project underwritten by the Expansion Arts Fund of the
Maine Community Foundation. Thanks to coordinator Helen Burns, shown here between heroine
Evangeline Morrison and hero Jimmy Simmonds. Inset: The Orange River Jazz Band.

NORTHEAST

HISTORIC

FILM

BLUE HILL FALLS MAINE
USA 0461 5 (207)374-2736

ADDRESS CORRECTION REQUESTED

The Movie Queen

Community Art/

Group Memory

In August 1936 twenty-year-old
Evangeline Morrison played the role of
a young woman returning from Holly-
wood to her coastal Maine hometown.
Her performance was captured in The
Movie Queen, Lubec.

Fifty-three years later, Morrison's
recollections prompted a Lubec
audience to talk about the old Eagle
Theatre, "dish night," and actresses
who stashed silver dollars in their
stockings. Such recollection was further
evoked by the screening and by the
music performed by the Orange River
Jazz Band.

Itinerant Director

Mrs. Morrison and Jimmy Sim-
monds, the hero, often participated in
community theatricals and were happy
to be selected by an itinerant director,
Miss Margaret Cram of Boston. Cram
visited Bar Harbor, Eastport and Lubec
in the summer of 1936, in each town
staging a musical and shooting a short
film of local merchants and a comic
kidnapping story.

Social History Value

Although the technical quality of
The Movie Queen, twenty minutes of
16mm film, makes widespread distri-
bution unlikely, the Lubec and Bar
Harbor films are important visual
records for those interested in social
and economic change. Unfortunately,
the Eastport film is still lost.

The project, formally subtitled "The
Art of Community Expression in
Film," fit NHF's archiving and research
missions well, incorporating physical
preservation of unique 16mm films with
oral histories focusing on entertain-
ment, community discussion and public
exhibition. Preservation work was done
by John E. Allen, Inc., Park Ridge, NJ.

The Lubec audience was enthusias-
tic about the screening and discussion,
reinforcing our belief at NHF that film
is one of the best mechanisms for look-
ing at a community and promoting
discussion of the past and present.

ft Northeast Historic Film

MOVING

IMAGE

REVIEW

Dedicated to the Preservation of
Northern New England
Motion Picture

Summer 1990

Executive Director's Report p.2

The Film Foundation:

Interview with Robert Rosen p.3

100 Years Ago p.4

The Collections p.5

Our Lives in Our Hands p. 8

Moving Image Review is a semiannual pub-
lication of Northeast Historic Film, Blue
Hill Falls, Maine 04615. David S. Weiss,
executive director, Karan Sheldon, editor.
ISSN 0897-0769

Going to the Movies

Going to the Movies is a project of
Northeast Historic Film which begins
in the summer of 1990. It focuses on
how films were seen in Maine in the
silent era, before 1930. It is the first
project to engage a broad public aud-
ience statewide in the experience,
research and analysis of the social
history of motion pictures.

National Film Scholarship

In August, NHF, with nationally
known film scholars, will open a series
of silent film screenings accompanied
by live music in places where silent
films were shown in Maine. Advance
tickets are suggested for all events call
(207) 374-2736.

August Events

The City Theater in Biddeford on
August 3 is the first stop. Tom Gun-
ning, whose award-winning PhD dis-
sertation was on Biograph films, will
introduce and moderate the program,
which will include a cartoon, newsreel,
and Henry King's Maine-made 1921
feature, The Seventh Day.

On August 4, there will be two one-
hour shows at the Maine Festival,
Cumberland Fairgrounds, emulating
the earliest itinerant exhibitors.

Film & History

Professor Douglas Gomery of the
University of Maryland will present the
program on August 16 at the Camden

Opera House and on August 18 at the
Lincoln Theatre, Damariscotta. Gom-
ery's book, Film History: Theory and
Practice, provided a basis for construct-
ing this project around the role of
movies in communities. He says,
"Going to the Movies offers a wonder-
ful blend of historical analysis and audi-
ence participation, and will foster a
greater understanding of the humanities
through film and history."

continued on page 3

Acme Theatre and Pavilion. Wimhrop. Me.

Going to the Movies: A Social History of
Motion Pictures in Maine Communities,

funded by the Maine Humanities Council,
grew out of the Union Historical Society
screenings and community oral histories
and from the reconstruction and scoring of
The Seventh Day with support from the
Museum of Modern Art and the Maine
Arts Commission.

Sponsors: The Knowles Companies,
Resolution, Inc., The Bangor Daily News.

fholo: Lcnthall Collection, NHF

"Going to the movies was more than simply watching films. The movie theater was a social center
that provided a unique, often neighborhood, atmosphere. This is an aspect of film history that has
only begun to penetrate the history hooks. " -Tom Gunning, film historian

Page 1

New President Elected

NHF Members

At the April annual meeting Dr. David
C. Smith, Bird & Bird Professor of His-
tory, University of Maine, was warmly
thanked for his service as founding
president from 1986 to 1990. NHF's
newly elected president is Paul Gelardi,
president of E Media, Kennebunk. "I
accept the appointment with pleasure,"
says Gelardi. "My two years as a board
member have been rewarding and fun.
My whole family has enjoyed it as they
have become involved in the fruits of
NHF's labor.

"I applaud the current efforts of
Hollywood to preserve feature films,"
he continues. "However, unless we
want to be defined purely by what is
expressed in features, we must commit
to preserving images and sound of real
life captured by amateurs, independ-
ent artists, educators and the television
camera."

Executive Director's Report

There are many people to thank for the
continued existence of NHF, especially
these volunteers: Judy McGeorge, who
assisted with Franklyn Lenthall's book
collection and with various software
quandaries; Keith Goodrich, who is
graduating from College of the Atlantic
and saw us through another busy
summer; Lucille MacQuinn, computer
whiz; and Tony Jonaitis, long-distance
volunteer. Special thanks to past and
present staff members Stephany Boyd,
Mark Austin and Libby Rosemeier.

Members Count

Since the beginning of the year,
members of NHF have been sending in
their renewals, and I'm pleased to re-
port a high rate of renewal, along with
much-appreciated words of
encouragement.

Among our new members
we note geographical breadth and a
growing number of educators and
libraries. The interest of archivists,
educational media specialists and
librarians is essential as we plan pro-
grams and distribution.

All our members help the continued
growth of NHF. We look forward to

As an independent nonprofit organiza-
tion, NHF depends on its members.
You help us set priorities, you pass the
word about the significance of cultural
preservation, and your dues help keep
us operating. Please join and renew!

Founding Members
Deborah 8c Paul Gelardi
Karan Sheldon & David Weiss

Friends of NHF

Robert A. Mclntire, MaxMedia
David & Sue Parsons
Ed Pert
Robert Saudek

Corporate/ Associate Members

Ernest & Kathryn Gross

Donald C. Hammond, Hammond Lumber

Company
Virginia Morgan
Mr. & Mrs. Howard Peabody
Peter & Ann Sheldon
Dr. David C. Smith
Thomas Hammond & Son
Lynda 6c Charles Tyson
Mrs. Joanne J. Van Namee
WCVB Creative Services
Joel & Allene White
Pamela Wintle
Dr. & Mrs. Stewart Wolff

Regular Members

Philip J.Abbott

Joan Amory

Peter Anderson

Larry Audet

James E. Austin

Jean Barrett

Deirdre Barton, Weatherbird

Rev. & Mrs. Curtis Beach

James Bezanson

Paul & Mollie Birdsall

Lynne K. Blair

Richard Bock

Richard Bradley

Bob & Dot Broadbent

Frederick E. Bryan III

Raymond Burnham

Lynn Cadwallader

Mrs. Frederic E. Camp

providing the programs you want and
need: regional moving images that
teach, entertain and inspire.

Robert J. Carnie

Michel Chalufour

Gay Cobb

Art Collier

Cecil Crosse

Clarence R. deRochemont

Peg Dice

Ann-Marie Duguay

Carroll Faulkner

Joseph Filtz

Roy Gauthier, Astro Electric Company

Ian Gersten & Jennifer Sheldon

John Gfroerer

Jim Goff

Nancy Gray, Harraseeket Inn

Charles Hall

Susan Henry, Resolution Video

Charles Hesse, College of the Atlantic

C.A. Porter Hopkins

Stanley Howe

Douglas Ilsely

Margaret L. Jaffray

Hillary Stowell James

Jeffjaner

Robert Jordan

Thomas F. Joyce

Dr. Susan A. Kaplan, The Peary-MacMillan

Arctic Museum
John J. Karol, Jr., Apertura
Ernest Knight, Raymond Casco Historical

Society

Stephen Lindsay
Betty Ann & Donald Lockhart, Perceptions,

Inc.

Rep. Theone Look
Valerie Felt McClead
Lily Marston
William M. Maternc

Member list continues on page 6

NHF Statement of Purpose

David S. Weiss
Executive Director

Page 2

The Film Foundation:
An Interview with Robert Rosen

by Jean T. Barrett
a Los Angeles-based free-lance writer and NHF member

Robert Rosen is Director of the UCLA
Film and Television Archive in Los
Angeles. This year, he was named Chair
of the Archivists Advisory Council to
the Film Foundation. The Film Founda-
tion is an alliance of eight filmmakers
President Martin Scorsese and members
Woody Allen, Francis Coppola, Stanley
Kubrick, George Lucas, Sydney Pollack,
Robert Redford and Steven Spielberg
united to further the cause of film
preservation.

What is the state of moving image
preservation as we enter the 90s?
ID osen: There's good news and
-*-V. there's bad news. The bad news is
that there's a crisis, if you look at the
scope of the preservation task, with
more than one hundred million feet of
unique nitrate film in the vaults of
archives, plus materials that are being
held by production companies. We also
have vast problems to confront with
film color fading, video preservation,
television news preservation, as well as
local materials.

The good news is the producers
have become increasingly conscious of
the importance of preservation, because
they've come to realize that their film
vaults hold corporate assets, of use in a
whole array of ancillary markets.

Moreover, with the public, the word
"preservation" has become much more
favorably viewed, as a result of the
high-profile restorations of such films
as Napoleon, Becky Sharp and
Intolerance.

A third reason for optimism is the
creation of the Film Foundation the
creative community taking a much
more active, militant role on behalf of
preserving the moving image heritage.

Tell us about the Film Foundation.

The goals of the Film Foundation
are several. One is to serve as an
intermediary between the major nitrate-
holding archives and the media indus-
try, in order to get preservation work
done, and in order to find the financial
support for that partnership. Secondly,
it will deal with general preservation
issues, including color film restoration,

independently produced film, and
others. The Foundation also has an
interest in helping to dramatize the im-
portance of preservation by supporting
high-profile public events that celebrate
the completion of preservation work.

What are the most urgent tasks of the
Film Foundation right now?

J The initial thrust is around the
A^. area of commercially produced
feature films. However, the Film
Foundation's members are enthusiastic
supporters of all areas of preservation,
including television and local archives,
and hope to work in a coordinated way
with those in the field involved in many
areas of preservation.

How does the Film Foundation set
priorities?

1) The Board of Directors members
-^. are activists; they're not just
names on a letterhead. But they also
know that they have to take their lead
from the field. In establishing priorities,
in deciding how the work will be
accomplished and what standards of
preservation are appropriate, they are
looking toward the Archivists Advisory
Council, which consists of admini-
strators from the five major nitrate-
preserving archives.

How will the Film Foundation be
funded?

Initially, much of the funding will
come from the commercial film
studios. But we are here to help the
preservation field, not to compete with
the field in looking for money. We're
not out to pre-empt already existing
activities, but to complement them.

Do you see encouraging signs for the
future of moving image preservation?

TJ I am very encouraged by the
J^. springing up, all across the
country, of specialized archives reflect-
ing the region, and reflecting special
kinds of audiovisual materials, such as
local television news. I'm also encour-
aged by their desire to work together,
as reflected by the amazing growth of
the Film and Television Archives

Advisory Committee. What was a
handful of institutions only a few years
ago, now is nearly 100 entities that
gather together for conferences.
When people ask if there's an
American national archive, like the
Swedish Archive in Stockholm or the
Soviet Archive in Moscow, the answer
is that the American national archive is
not in one place. It consists of a plural-
ity of geographically dispersed and
philosophically diverse organizations
that work in concert and cooperation
with one another. The American
production of moving images is so vast
that it's only by all of these organiza-
tions finding their appropriate role and
working together that it will be saved.

What can NHF members do to
support moving image preservation?

~n The members can do the most for
J^^. preservation by taking on the
preservation of the products made in
their region, because if they don't, no
one else will!

Qoing to the Movies

continued from page 1
Gomery and Gunning are joined by
project scholars Robert Branham, who
teaches film at Bates College; Kevin
Hagopian, University of Wisconsin
PhD candidate in film and history; Juris
Ubans, professor of art at the Univer-
sity of Southern Maine; and Glenn
Uminowicz, executive director of the
Victoria Society of Maine.

Free Audience Guide

An audience guide including essays
by the scholars and by accompanist
Danny Patt will be distributed free of
charge at the screenings.

Page 3

One Hundred Years Ago: The Vitascope in Maine

This article appeared in the Bangor
Daily Commercial, Monday, September
21, 1896. The Vitascope was used in
Portland, Maine, in June 1 896 just
two months after the much-publicized
showing at Koster & BiaPs vaudeville
hall in New York.

The column reprinted here demon-
strates the interaction between print
and motion picture from the earliest
days; promoters understood the power
of newspaper coverage. What happened
to the Phantascope, advertised but not
reviewed the week before?

The young woman's role is of great
interest her presence signified the
appropriateness of the entertainment

for women. Did she have a future as a
motion picture exhibitor?

And the details of the seven-film
program are important, as is the report-
er's emphasis. One film, The Irwin-
Rice Kiss, is well known even today. A
barroom fight in Portland, Maine, is

QUICKER THAN SIGHT.

The Vitascope Beats the Eye and Doesn't

Half Try Manager Richardson Shows

the Machine to Newspaper Writers.

"You think you've got a pretty good eye,
don't you," asked Manager Richardson of
the vitascope, on Sunday night, as he in-
troduced a Commercial man to the great
machine with pride in his face.

The reporter modestly allowed that he
had that reputation around this part of
creation.

"Well," replied the manager with more
pride, "You may have; but I've got something
here that can beat you all to pieces. That's
the vitascope."

This is truth. The vitascope is a good deal
swifter than the human eye. It beats sight on
a kiteshaped track. It knocks vision out be-
hind the distance flag. It is quicker than
sight.

On Sunday night a party of Bangor news-
paper men went to the opera house on invi-
tation of Manager Owen of that popular es-
tablishment, and saw the vitascope. The
"thing" stood up in the balcony to the rear of
the rows of empty seats that looked lone-
some in the half-light that fell from the one
solitary jet in the ceiling; Manager Richard-
son was there, in the little coop of boards
that sheltered the machine and kept the
powerful light from breaking out into the
audience and spoiling the effect of his pic-
tures. His wife and daughter were there too;
the latter is his assistant and she knows more
about electrical appliances than a good
many men who advertise to know a lot. . . .

When you look at the vitascope all you see
is an iron frame supporting a set of wheels
like those upon which a typewriter ribbon
runs. ... A great lens, as big as your head,

now the earliest film known to have
been shot in Maine; however, one
should exercise scepticism, as the piece
could have been a barroom fight any-
where. Perhaps Richardson felt Bangor
audiences would enjoy the imputations
against the southerly city.

Opera House, Upper Main Street. Bangor. Maine.

The Opera House, Bangor

collects the particles of light from the lamp
and concentrates them upon a little metal
frame in front; in front of this frame again is
the muzzle of the machine and excepting a
small battery underneath that runs the
mechanism, that's all there is to it.

"Now get out a picture," said Mr.
Richardson to his charming daughter, who
presently produced a long thing that looked
like a starched grey ribbon, with a satiny
finish. This was the spool of picture. It was
one long celluloid strip, an inch and a quar-
ter wide and many feet long. On the cellu-
loid was the gelatine which had been used to
take the picture. The celluloid had been
passed through a camera at tremendous
speed, and a little shutter working like mad
as it passed had taken a photograph on every
inch of it. Thus when the strip was applied to
the vitascope and again spun before the eye,
the eye saw it go. . . .

On Sunday night Manager Richardson
showed seven pictures to the newspaper
men who had been invited to see the won-
derful invention. There was a picture of a

Photo: Richard Shaw

bucking broncho, with cowboy rider and a
cheering crowd in the background, a dance
by Loie Fuller with delicious glimpses of La
Loie through the fleecy folds of her many-
colored wings, a scene from Charlie Hoyt's
"A Milk White Flag," a dance by a couple of
agile and trim-limbed young women, a very
moving sort of a kiss between the famous
May Irwin and Actor John Rice, a bar-room
fight in Portland, Maine, and a sea scene,
with big white and blue breakers smashing
out onto the beach. This last scene was fairly
wet. It was the crowning triumph of the
night. Mr. Richardson has many other
scenes and he will show them this week at the
opera house. Every night until Saturday and
every afternoon after Monday the vitascope
will show its wonders and as the admission
has been placed at 25 and 35 cents owing to
the brevity of the perfomance compared
with the average theatrical presentation.

The vitascope is wonderful and should be
seen.

It cannot be described.

Source: Bangor Public Library, Reference.

The Collections

The vault is bulging with donations and
deposits of film and videotape. Many
thanks to the individuals, organizations
and families who furthered the cause of
moving image preservation with
donations, deposits and loans.

Thanks also to the donors of intan-
gibles; live broadcasting left many
memories with the audience and no
recorded programs for future genera-
tions. NHF has begun to interview
some of New England's pioneers of live
broadcasting and thanks the first gen-
erous subjects: Dave Astor, who orig-
inated the Dave Astor Show, which
showcased student talent in Portland
and Bangor until 1971, and Mike
Dolley, who played Bozo on WABI in
Bangor between 1961 and 1968.

Broadcast Collections

A television collection, thought lost,
surfaced in two gifts: the John White
Collection of 16mm film from WGAN,
now WGME Portland, Maine, consists
of news, commercials
and interviews from
the late 1950s to the
early 1970s; and the
Andy Graham Collec-
tion, also WGAN
16mm, is primarily
commercials.

Also received were:
Q Clif Reynolds's
WCSH Portland
feature series
People, Places and
Things, 3/4" mas-
ters from 1970s and
80s; and the J. Don
MacWilliams Col-
lection of sports
films and scripts
from WCSH.

Q From the Maine
Public Broadcasting
Network, 16mm, 2"
and 3/4" masters of
programs not other-
wise preserved,
including Reflets et
Lumiere, Franco-
American culture
series produced by
John Greenman
(1979-1981).

Institutional Collections

NHF is working with the film of
Central Maine Power, the utility that
owns railroads, dams and numerous
electric installations around the state.
CMP archivist Judy Franke has been an
excellent contact.

Thanks to Mary Anne Wallace of
Westbrook College for 3/4" videotapes,
including a number of unique copies of
Portland-produced public affairs
programs from the 1970s and 1980s.

Home Movies

Amateur film and videotape came
from many sources, including Mrs.
Thomas Clements and Mrs. Frederic
Camp of Blue Hill, Robert Taylor of
Hanover, NH, and James Marsh of
Prout's Neck, ME.

Q Joan Branch of Caratunk, Maine,
donated film of Pleasant Pond and
Bingham. The creator, Forrest
Colby, was Maine Forest

Commissioner for many years; he
recorded woods operations in the
years 1929- 1938.

Q Sheila Denny-Brown donated 3/4"
master copies of Hancock, Maine,
films from the late 1920s showing
excellent summer views of the Mt.
Desert ferry and the Bar Harbor
express train.

Q Priscilla Osgood of Bangor, Maine,
donated 16mm film from her
father's guiding business in Brown-
ville, including a client's amateur
story film of a young girl's sporting
day titled The Little Log Cabin in
the Northern Woods (1929).

Factual Film & Documentaries

Q Huey, Portland independent film-
maker, donated reference copies of
his film Grace: A Portrait of Grace
de Carlton Ross (1983), the story of
a dancer and silent movie actress.

Q From the Museum of Modern Art, a
^^^KB^HM 16mm copy of a 1906
American Mutoscope
and Biograph film,
Canoeing in Maine.
Q Robert Saudek
donated a reference
copy of A Maine
Lobsterman, written
and narrated by E.B.
White, from the 1954
Omnibus television
series.

Equipment & Books

Thanks to donors of
equipment used to
document moving
image technology: The
Maine Medical Center,
Elaine Solesky; Maine
Public Broadcasting
Network; and WGME.
Franklyn Lenthall, a
Boothbay Harbor
friend, donated his film
book collection and
valuable images of
Maine's theaters.

The John White Collection, WGAN, arrives in unlabeled boxes, representing hundreds
of hours of cleaning, repair and cataloguing.

Pag

Grants in Action & Awards

Please Join

The National Alliance of Media Arts
Centers gave a $3,780 grant from their
NEA-funded Management Assistance
Program. Under this grant, develop-
ment professional Denis Thoet of Bath,
Maine, is working with the NHF board
and a corps of volunteers. The program,
based on the extensive strategic plan-
ning of NHF, will assist in communi-
cating the goals of the organization to
funders and board prospects.

The Maine State Library's
incentive matching grant program for
preservation of unique state historical
and library research material donated
$5,000 to the Bangor Historical
Society/WABI project. The support is
for the third of three years of core
preservation work.

The Maine Humanities Council
gave a major grant, $17,600, for the
program Going to the Movies.

The videotape Woodsmen and River
Drivers won a gold medal at the Inter-
national Film & TV Festival of New
York in January. Woodsmen, which
uses archival footage and present-day
interviews, was produced by David
Weiss and Karan Sheldon for Northeast
Archives of Folklore and Oral History,
Dept. of Anthropology, University of
Maine, under a grant from the Maine
Humanities Council and Champion
International. In May the program won
a certificate of merit for cinematic
excellence from the Movies on a
Shoestring festival, Rochester, NY.

More NHF Members

Regular Members (cont'd from p. 2)
Andrew Mazer
AlanJ McClelland
Franklin & Phyllis Mellen
Bruce Meulendyke
Irvine H. Millgace
Betty & Hugh Montgomery
Francis S Moulton Jr.
Lee Murch
John A. O'Brien
George R. O'Neill
Richard Obrey, Three East Video
Dan Osgood, VP Film and Tape, Inc.
James A. Phillips
Guy and Dianne Poirier
Robert Porter
Charles H. Pritham
M.A. Prittie
Sally Regan

Dr. & Mrs. Edward Rendall
Karen Rhine
Michael Roy
Shan Sayles

Mr. & Mrs. P.H. Sellers
Nancy Sheldon
Sally Smith

Mr. & Mrs. Julian Stein
Mr. & Mrs. Samuel Taylor
Robert & Julia Walkling
Mary Anne Wallace
Mrs. Henry Walter
Seth H. Washburn
Vern& Jackie Weiss
Robert H. Whitney
Wendy Wincote
Carter Wintle

Karen Wyatt, Karen Wyatt Film & Picture
Research

Mr. & Mrs. Harry Zinn

Nonprofit Organizations

D.B. Averill, Instructional Resource

Center

Barbara Austen, New Hampshire Historical

Society

Bagaduce Music Lending Library
Blue Hill Historical Society
Jack Boynton, Maine State Library
Mrs. Margery Brown, Cherryfield
Narraguagus Historical Society
Marianne Buehler, Jackson Memorial Library
Bonnie Copper, George Stevens Academy
Curtis Memorial Library, Brunswick
Marilyn Diffin, Calais Free Library
Stephen Fletcher, Indiana Historical Society
Lea Girardin, Maine Film Commission
Bill & Alicia Gross
Diane Kopec, Abbe Museum
Keith E. Leavitt, Prime Resource Center
Kathleen Lignell, Sea Grant Communications
J. Gary Nichols, Maine State Library
David Olsen, University of Maine,

Farmington

Keith Peeler, City Theater Associates
Vlada P. Petric, Harvard Film Archive
Bernard F. Roscetti, MPBN
Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe College
Elaine Solesky, Maine Medical Center
University of Maine, Augusta, Library
Diane Vatne, Bangor Historical Society

Educator/Student Members

Miss Rosemary Anthony

Alvina Cyr, Dr. Lewis S. Libby School

Charles Ellis

Bernadette Friel, Schenk High School

Phil Gonyar, Waterville High School

All new members and renewing mem-
bers receive a gift packet of eight post-
cards with striking images from
regional moving pictures: 1920 Maine
Centennial, The Seventh Day, The
Rider of the King Log and Bozol

NHF has a new t-shirt! It's got eye-
catching color graphics and the NHF
logo on the front, and on the back,
complete date code symbols from 1916
to 1993. Associate, corporate, friends
and founding members receive one shirt
free of charge. All members may pur-
chase t-shirts for $10 each.

Q Regular members, $25 per year,
receive a subscription to Moving
Image Review, notice of screenings
and events, and discounts on materi-
als distributed by NHF.

Q Educator/Student Members, $15
per year, receive all regular member-
ship benefits. This category is for
teachers and students at any level.

Q Nonprofit Organizations, $35 per
year, receive all regular benefits of
membership, plus additional copies
of Moving Image Review on request
and reduced rates for consultation,
presentations and professional
services.

Cora Greer

Kevin Hagopian

Scott Herring

Dr. T.B. Johnson

Richard Judd, University of Maine

Daisy Kelley, Adirondack Museum

Susan Kirlin, Pemetic School

Dean Lyons

Sharon L. Merrill, Guy E. Rowe School

Al Morrison

Alan Morse

Tim O'Keefe

Sanford Phippen

Dr. David Richard, Rollins College

Paige W. Roberts

Susan Stires

Joan Sullivan, The Brick Store Museum

William Taylor, Plymouth State College

Daniel Towner, Johnson State College

John Ware, Jr.

Dr. Richard E.G. White, Queens College

Steve & Peggy Wight

Caroline Wiley

Pag

Northeast Historic Film

Q Associates (Individuals) and
Corporate Members, $100 per year,
receive the benefits of regular
members, and in addition, special
recognition in Moving Image
Review and in programs.

Q Friends, $250 per year, receive all
benefits of regular membership and,
in addition, a privilege card which
will admit two people to any NHF-
sponsored screening or event, plus
listing in the roster of Friends.

Q Founding Members, $1,000 per
year, the premier category of mem-
bership. These members are making
a major commitment to ensure the
preservation and use of the NHF
resource, and receive all benefits of
regular membership and invitations
to special previews.

Membership at any level is an oppor-
tunity to become involved with the
preservation and enjoyment of our
moving image heritage.

Your dues are tax-deductible to the extent
allowed by law.

Videotapes of New England Life

NEW LOW PRICES CALL OR WRITE FOR FULL CATALOG

A Century of Summers

A portrait of the residents and summer people of

Hancock, Maine. 43 minutes.

$24.95/NHF members $19.95

Albert Collins of South Blue Hill

Lobsterman, craftsman, painter, fiddler, poet.

60 minutes. $24.95/NHF members $ 1 9.95

Ride the Sandy River Railroad

Comprehensive silent (with titles) from early 1930s
two-foot-gauge railroad. 30 minutes.

$29.95/NHF members $24.95.

Earliest Maine Films
Drawing a Lobster Pot (1901); Logging in
Maine (1906); Trout Fishing, Rangeley Lakes
(1906). Total 22 minutes.

$16.95/NHF members $14.95.

Gold Medal Winner!
Woodsmen and River Drivers,
"Another day, another era"

Maine woodsworkers active before 1930 share
recollections. 30 minutes.

$24.95/NHF members $19.95.

Our Lives in Our Hands

The story of the Micmac Indian basketry coopera-
tive. 40 minutes. $29.95/NHF members $24.95
Note: This videotape is available from NHF for
home use only. Schools and libraries please
contact DER at (617) 926-0491.

Norumhega: Maine in the Age of
Exploration and Settlement

A fast-paced introduction to early Maine history.
14 minutes. $24.95/NHF members $19.95

Maine's TV Time Machine

A compilation of TV from the 1950s and early 60s
from the Bangor Historical Society /WABI
collection. 34 minutes.

$19.95/NHF members $16.95.

The Ways at Wallace and Sons
and The Bank Dory

Schooner John F. Leavitt and her New England
shipbuilders; and building a dory. Total 58 minutes.
$29.95/NHF members $24.95.

Award-winning project!

From Stump to Ship:

A 1930 Logging Film

The most complete look at the long-log industry. 28

minutes. $24.95/NHF members $19.95.

Membership and Order Form

Ordered by

Name

Address
City __
State _

Ship to (if different from above)
Name

Zip

Address
Ci t y_
State

Zip

Northeast Historic Film, Blue Hill Falls, ME 04615 USA
Videotape name

Price

Qty.

Total

Members' t-shirt Qs DM QL DxL

$10 ea.

fj Special Fourth Class mail: add $1.50 Subtotal
plus $1 each additional tape ..

i i c- <~i \t -i jj *, tn Tax: ME residents add 5%
J First Class Mail: add $2.40

plus $1 each additional tape Shipping and handling
Q Overnight: add $12.50
plus $3 each additional tape

I Membership/ Specify level, please:

TOTAL

Payment Method

I I Check or money order make check payable to Northeast Historic Film
D Visa D MasterCard Credit card*

Questions? Call Libby Rosemeier at (207) 374-2736

I I Institutional purchase order #

Expiration date

Credit card signature .

Page

photo: 7 odd Hoffnuui

To order Our Lives in Our Hands, call Libby Rosemeierat (207) 374-2736. Schools and Libraries,
please contact Documentary Educational Resources, 101 Morse St., Watertown, MA 02172
(617) 926-0491.

NORTHEAST

HISTORIC

=LM

MAINE

USA(M< '.74-27%

ADDRESS CORRECT/ON REQUESTED

Our Lives in Our Hands

The life of Micmac Indian baskctmakcrs
in Maine was recorded in a film by
Harald Prins and Karen Carter. Our
Lives in Our Hands shows the persis-
tence of a traditional native craft in the
Canadian-American border region, and
illuminates an off-reservation commun-
ity of artisans and seasonal laborers
facing the challenges of a changing
world.

National Screenings

The film premiered at the Native
American Film and Video Festival at
the American Museum of Natural
History and has been shown widely at
festivals including the Festival of Amer-
ican Folklife at the Smithsonian. Harald
Prins, an anthropologist and filmmaker
who has taught at Colby College and
Bowdoin, toured the film in Maine, and
it was broadcast on the public broad-
casting system. However, it has not
been widely available for home viewing.

Now on Home Video

Our Lives in Our Hands is now

available to individuals on VHS video-
tape from Northeast Historic Film as
part of an effort to locate and make
available material relating to regional
culture.

With limited resources, NHF is try-
ing to add titles such as this one to its
catalog, and make them known to its
members and friends.

The filmmakers and the original
distributor, Documentary Educational
Resources, understood NHF's goals
and entered an agreement permitting
the nonprofit to distribute to the public.
DER retains exclusive rights to
distribute to institutions.

Distribution Changes

The National Alliance of Media Arts
Center's annual meeting in Boston in
May addressed the distribution of film
and videotape. There are no easy an-
swers for compensating artists, reaching
the public with an unfamiliar product,
and staying ahead of falling prices.

NHF wants to meet these distribu-
tion challenges. Let us know what you
think.

m Northeast Historic Film

MOVING

IMAGE

REVIEW

Dedicated to the Preservation of
Northern New England
Motion Picture

Winter 1991

Executive Director's Report p. 2

Archival Notes p. 3

100 Years Ago p. 4

Interview: David Bowers p. 6

Small Town Movies p. 7

Fryeburg Fair p. 12

Moving Image Review is a semiannual pub-
lication of Northeast Historic Film, Blue
Hill Falls, Maine 04615. David S. Weiss,
executive director, Karan Sheldon, editor.
ISSN 0897-0769

New England
Broadcast Histories

The History of Broadcasting in Maine:
The First Fifty Years, recently published
by the Maine Association of Broadcast-
ers, tells the story of the corporations
and individuals often several genera-
tions of families who ran the state's
broadcasting enterprises.

Fred Thompson, president of
WCSH-TV Portland and WLBZ-TV
Bangor, introduces the book in his role
as chair of the Maine Association of
Broadcasters' history committee. Of
the radio and television pioneers de-
scribed in the book, he says, "Their
story is full of tremendous foresight and
horrible decisions, humor and tragedy,
brilliance and dumb luck."

The Maine book describes the pio-
neers of local programming and is illus-
trated with evocative photographs. Fred
Thompson says that the discovery of
photos spurred the publication of the
book. He wrote the book's coda on
Thompson Guernsey, a Maine inventor
who established experimental station
WIXG-TV in Boston, which broadcast
an hour every day between 1940 and
1945. The Tremont Street viewing room
beckoning "See the Tellies" and "Dem-
onstration Inside" suggests just how far
the medium has come.

Ellie Thompson (no relation to Fred
Thompson) wrote the Maine history
following her 1989 Voices from the
Hills: 70 Years of Vermont Broad-
casting.

The Vermont book is available for
$10 from the Vermont Association of
Broadcasters, Box 4489, Burlington,
Vermont 05406. The History of Broad-

casting in Maine is available in many
Maine bookstores and can be ordered
through Northeast Historic Film.

photo: Maine Association of Broadcast t-

WIXG-TV Boston viewing room in the early 1940s.

Executive Director's Report

NHF is a Member, Too.

We take pride in our association with
other organizations. I felt it would be
worthwhile to reflect on how our
relationships help us in our mission of
moving image preservation.

Through the Maine Historical
Society, New Hampshire Historical
Society, and the American Association
for State and Local History, NHF
learns how to integrate moving image
history into the broader historical
picture of the region and to advocate
the importance of moving images.

The Boston Film/Video Foundation
(BF/VF) and the National Alliance of
Media Arts Centers (NAMAC) allow
us to share experiences in media pro-
gramming and to improve our ability to
assist independent media producers.

The new Maine Association of
Museums, the Society of Maine Archi-
vists, New England Archivists and the
Maine Library Association connect us
with regional cultural organizations.

Nationally, the Association of
Moving Image Archivists, AMIA
(which until October 1990 was called
F/TAAC), is polling its constituents on
whether and how to organize. I hope
that we will next convene as a formal
organization. This is an important de-
velopment for moving image preserva-
tion across the country. AMIA can be
an effective advocate, directing atten-
tion and resources to the organizations
caring for moving images.

Being a responsible member takes
time and commitment, but the returns
are significant. The organizations that
NHF supports through membership
and participation have enlightened and
strengthened us.

Join These
NHF Members!

David S. Weiss
Executive Director

As an independent nonprofit
organization, NHF depends on its
members. You help us set priorities,
you pass the word about the
significance of cultural preservation,
and your dues help keep us operating.
Please join and renew!

Founding Members

Paul & Deborah Gelardi
Karan Sheldon & David Weiss

Friends of NHF

Robert Mclntire, MaxMedia
David & Sue Parsons
Ed Pert
Robert Saudek

Corporate/ Associate Members

Marcia Fenn

Ernest & Kathryn Gross

Donald Hammond, Hammond Lumber

Company

Thomas Hammond & Son
Edgar & Sally Lupfer
Virginia Morgan
Mr. & Mrs. Howard Peabody
Peter & Ann Sheldon
Dr. David Smith, History Dept., UM
Lynda & Charles Tyson
Mrs. Joanne Van Namee
WCVB Creative Services
WLBZ

Joel & Allene White
Pamela Wintle
Dr. & Mrs. Stewart Wolff

Educator/Student Members

Miss Rosemary Anthony

Michelle Branigan

Carol Bryan

Richard Burns, Ocean Park Association

Alvina Cyr, Dr. Lewis S. Libby School

Rudolph Deetjen, Jr.

Charles Ellis

Bernadette Friel, Schenk High School

Phil Gonyar, Waterville High School

Joe Gray

Cora Greer

Kevin Hagopian

Scott Herring

Dr. T. Johnson, Johnson Associates

Richard Judd

Janice Kasper, Penobscot Marine Museum

Daisy Kelley, Adirondack Museum

Susan Kirlin, Pemetic School

Robbie Lewis

Library, Stonington Elementary School

Dean Lyons

Sharon Merrill, Guy E. Rowe School

Al Morrison, SUNY

Alan Morse

Tim O'Keefe

Sanford Phippen

Dr. David Richard

Ms. Paige Roberts

Debbie Rollins, Fogler Library, UM

Mrs. Rowell, Fogler Library, UM

Susan Stires

Joan Sullivan, The Brick Store Museum

William Taylor, Plymouth State College

Daniel Towner

Carla Turner, Windham Real School

John Ware, Jr.

Dr. Richard E.G. White, Queens College

Steve & Peggy Wight, Sunday River Inn

Caroline Wiley

Wendy Wincote

Regular Members

Philip Abbott

Joan Amory

Peter Anderson

Tom Armstrong

David Astor

Larry Audet

James Austin

Jean Barrett

Deirdre Barton, Weatherbird

Rev. & Mrs. Curtis Beach

James Bezanson

Paul & Mollie Birdsall

Lynne Blair

Richard Bock, WGBH

Nat Bowditch

Donna Boyles, Pownal Scenic & Historical

Soc.
Richard Bradley

More members, page 9

NHF Statement of Purpose

The purpose of Northeast Historic
Film is to preserve, and make avail-
able to the public, film/videotape of
the northern New England region.
This purpose will be carried out by
activities including, but not limited
to, a comprehensive survey of
moving image resources of interest
to the people of northern New Eng-
land; the preservation of film/tape
through restoration, duplication,
providing of technical guidance and
vault storage; a touring program to
bring materials to audiences through-
out the area; and the establishment of
a study center, including resource
materials and reference copies of
motion picture films and videotapes.

Pave 2

Archival Notes:
Vinegar Syndrome

The purpose of an archives is to pre-
serve material for the future. Herein lies
the archivist's great challenge: it is not
possible to know what physical changes
will take place in the collections over
time.

Until now, film archives have tried
to duplicate 35mm nitrate materials
first, since it was believed that nitrate
was subject to instability and deteriora-
tion far exceeding other film stocks.

But emerging information leads
archivists to question the longevity of
"safety" stock.

At the Film and Television Archives
Advisory Committee annual conference
in November 1990, a presentation
chaired by Bill Murphy, Chief of the
Motion Picture, Sound, and Video
Branch of the the National Archives,
clearly outlined the chemical prognosis.
Moving image archives of all sizes are
facing the deterioration of acetate film
decades or even centuries before it was
expected. Bill Murphy:

Many of us are familiar with the
process of deterioration of cellulose
nitrate motion picture film, the
staple of the film industry from the
1890s until 1951 when Eastman
Kodak stopped manufacturing it.

Long known for its chemical insta-
bility and high degree of flammabil-
ity, nitrate film is typically given the
very highest priority for conversion
in film archives.

This has given rise to a certain
amount of complacency about the
longevity of cellulose acetate or
safety film, which generally receives
a much lower priority for preserva-
tion and restoration. However, this
complacency is not justified.

Murphy outlined the results of
studies undertaken in the U.S. and
overseas between 1987 and 1990, which
concluded that the longevity of acetate
film is seriously compromised by
humidity, metal cans and lack of air
circulation. Acetic acid, the source of
the "vinegar" smell, is a product of the
film's degradation, and once produced
promotes further deterioration, particu-
larly in a humid environment and in the
presence of iron in metal containers or

"Vinegar" odor, extreme curl and acetic acid crystals indicate deteriorating 16mm film that must
be isolated from the rest of the collection.

from the oxides in magnetic-stripe
sound film. Bill Murphy again:

There are some measures that
archivists can take to minimize the
loss of archival images that may be
in danger of chemical deterioration.

Acetate collections, like nitrate
collections, must be inspected from
time to time. Films emitting strong
odors or showing crystalline deposits
should be isolated from the collec-
tion and scheduled for copying.

Polyester film, used currently for
projection prints, may have a more
optimistic archival life. It is not, how-
ever, without liabilities, e.g., splices
must be tape or ultrasonic. Murphy
says, "Some have questioned the
permanence of the adhesion of emul-
sion to base," an ominous situation.

As a regional archives, Northeast
Historic Film collects moving images of
interest to the people of northern New
England, across all genres from home
movies to industrials, features to
television commercials. The sources are
equally diverse: material shot in Maine,
New Hampshire and Vermont is

dispersed worldwide. While some
incoming collections have had climate-
controlled lives, a portion has been in
tropical garages, urban attics and moldy
basements.

Videotape is short-lived, and diace-
tate film (the stock used for NHF's
earliest home movie collections) is often
brittle and shrunken. NHF, like many
other archives, is now faced with a
growing collection on threatened
triacetate stock.

What can be done? The first lines of
defense are inert containers and tem-
perature and humidity control, along
with inspection for incipient deteriora-
tion. Although the news presented in
this paper was not encouraging, it is
important to share. The fall conference
is one of the few ways North American
moving image archives of all sizes can
exchange information important to
daily life in the archives and to the
survival of the visual history of the 20th
century. |

Excerpts from William T. Murphy, "The
Vinegar Syndrome: An Archival Response
to the Deterioration of Cellulose Triacetate
Motion Picture Film. "

One Hundred Years Ago:
The Development of Yankee Comedy

by Richard Sweterlitsch
Assistant Professor of Folklore and English, University of Vermont

In 1912 the Philadelphia-based film studio, the Lubin Manu-
facturing Company, sent a crew to Maine. Motion Picture
World, a trade paper, reported that 31 people from Lubin
spent 14 weeks in a fishing village near Portland, Maine.
Because a 1914 fire destroyed the company's earliest work,

Northeast Historic Film never expected to see the results of
this 1912 visit. However, a 16mm copy of one of the films did
turn up and was donated to the archives. The one-reel
comedy, Just Maine Folks, provides information on the comic
use of Yankee stereotypes.

The plot oijust Maine Folks
revolves around two older male
figures competing for two women, a
neighbor widow and a hearing-impaired
spinster, while a younger couple tries to
court. The setting is in the country, and
the story unfolds in a single 24-hour
period.

The phrase "Just Plain Folks" means
simple, rural people salt of the earth.
In this film, it has a ribald connotation.

Courting in the Hay

The rural scene is essential to the
flavor of the film and to its comedy.
Setting the action in a hayfield con-
veys the rural nature of the piece and
allows the couples to interact. Hay-
time was traditionally a time for
romance. The scene evolves from
"sparking" to physical humor: the
young woman hides flirtatiously,
is chased by her counterpart, and
then the other characters are
drawn into a slapstick hay-pitching
fight.

The intertitle that follows indi-
cates a corn-husking bee. Although
this scene is missing, husking was
another traditional time for court-
ship, an important social event in
the 19th and beginning of the 20th
century.

Roots of the Comic Yankee

Courting an old deaf woman is a
motif that occurs in Yankee humor, al-
though its presentation in a silent drama
is somewhat peculiar and might indicate
non-film origins.

Comic courtship was a common
theme in Yankee drama, going back to
Royall Tyler's play, The Contrast
(1787). Jonathan, the backwoods
Yankee, is a servant who mirrors his
master's courtship.

It's an important theatrical conven-

tion masters and servants in romantic
situations, as in Shakespeare's comedies.
In a sense we get that in Just Maine
Folks with the noble, youthful couple
doing what young couples ought to
do taking advantage of the husking
bee. Their appropriate behavior is set
against the farce of the older people
acting out of place.

Dress & Action: Familiar Types

The older male characters in Just
Maine Folks are broadly drawn, rotund
country bumpkins. One is Squire Lang,
a landholder. "Squire" as a title occurs
frequently in traditional New England
drama, as with Squire Bartlett in Way
Down East. Lang's rival, Bart Collum,
would be below him on the social
ladder. Their status is reinforced by
costuming: the squire's citified belt,
Collum's down-home suspenders.

The young hero has a stalk of grass

hanging from his mouth, denoting a
"hayseed" character. The women wear
what would have been typical haying
costumes, long aprons, partially open in
the back, over cotton dresses.

The physical actions include classic
stage bits, part of the actor's standard
repertory. To indicate his pleasure as he
leaves the porch of the widow, Collum
does a little dance, clicking his heels,
then leaping up in the air.

Rural and City

Rural people seeing such broad
gestures might respond, "We don't act
like that. They dress like us, maybe, but
their actions are exaggerated." Urban
people might have believed in the
stereotype.

The Newhart show on television
indicates the same phenomenon:
Vermonters could look at Larry,
Darryl and Darryl and say, "That's
not us." The character George
represents Just Plain Folk; he is
exaggerated enough that Ver-
monters can laugh at him while
city folk think that's what Ver-
monters are like.

Background to the Yankee Figure

By 1912, when Just Maine Folks
was made, a strong stereotype had
evolved around the Yankee. Popu-
lar notions of the comic Yankee and
Down East figures were based upon
costume and to a great extent on
dialect. Stage predecessors advanced
and solidified the portrayal of comic
Yankee figures. Many of these plays
became movies:

Qln the 19th century, George H.
Hill's famous Yankee accent was
heard in The Green Mountain Boy
(1833).

Q The Old Homestead (1886) takes
place around Keene, New Hamp-

n -

Winter-Spring Calendar

Winter tour of Northeast Historic
Film's Going to the Movies series,
silent films with live piano accompani-
ment by Danny Patt. Series funded by
the Maine Humanities Council and
Expansion Arts, Maine Community
Foundation.

January 25, Biddeford City Theatre,
show starts at 8 pm. The Iron Horse
(1924), directed by Portland-born John
Ford. One of the greatest westerns, an
epic story of the railroad. Part of the City
Theatre's Winter Festival.

January 27, Farmington, Univ. of Maine
Lincoln Auditorium (Room C-131) 2 pm.
Timothy's Quest (1922), a charming story

by Kate Douglas Wiggin, filmed in Maine.
Sponsored by the Farmington Historical
Society.

January 29, Caribou, VFW Hall, 7 pm
Timothy's Quest. Sponsored by the
Caribou Historical Society.

February 3, Rumford, Acadia Theatre,
(VFW, Waldo Street) 2 pm. The Seventh
Day (1921), a made-in-Maine feature
starring Richard Barthelmess. Sponsored
by the Acadian Society and the Rumford
Historical Society.

February 10, Lincoln, Lincoln Theatre,
1:30 pm. The Iron Horse. Sponsored by
the Lincoln Historical Society.

photo: Tom Stewart

Danny Patt, silent film accompanist, began his career in 1924 in Union, Maine.

Dyer Library, Saco, Maine, lunchtime
video series of Maine subjects:

January 15, Joyce Butler's The 1947 Fires.

January 29, Sins of Our Mothers, directed

by Matthew Collins.

February 12, Claws, featuring Maine

humorist Tim Sample.

February 26, Mysteries of the Red Paint

People, an archaeological exploration of

Maine and the circumpolar region.

March 12, Jane Morrison's Master Smart

Woman and A White Heron.

March 26, Woodsmen and River Drivers,

lives of Maine woodsworkers.
Dyer Library, 207 283-3861.

March 3 at 2 pm the Portland Museum
of Art, Congress Square, will present
Way Down East in 16mm with accom-
paniment by Danny Patt. The film is
being offered in conjunction with an
exhibition of Southern photographs by
Walker Evans and William Christen-
berry focusing on a sense of place.
Portland Museum of Art, 207 775-6148.

March 9 at the University of New
Hampshire in Durham, Rick Sowash of
Gambier, Ohio, will play the piano for
Buster Keaton's The General.

March 23 at 8 pm at the Great Falls
School, Auburn, Maine, the Androscog-
gin Valley Community Orchestra will
accompany Buster Keaton's The Boat
and D.W. Griffith's Orphans of the
Storm. For more information call Greg
Boardman 207 777-5320.

shire; Denman Thompson spent
many years on stage as the central
character, Uncle Josh. There were
numerous film versions, including
one directed by James Cruze.
"Uncle Josh" was widely franchised,
showing up in Edwin S. Porter films
in 1900-02.

Acres (1892) was set in La-
moine, Maine, with land speculation
as the plot device. The play was by
James A. Herne, who also played
"Uncle Nat Berry" for a number of

years. Rex Ingram directed a 1920
film.

Q David Harum (1900), a play about a
small-town banker, was produced
by Charles W. Frohman. James
Cruze, again, directed a 1934
feature.

LlHome Folks (1904) opened in New
York starring William S. Hart. Al-
though set in the Midwest, the play
contains much hayseed business a
squire and other details fitting the
New England stereotypes. H

Figures

Further Reading

Yankee & Down East Comic Figures
"The Question of Folklore in a New
Nation," American Folklore and the
Historian, Richard Dorson, Chicago,
1971, pp 94-107.

American in Legend, Richard Dorson,
Pantheon, 1973.

The Small Town in American Drama,
Ima Honaker Herron, Dallas, Southern
Methodist University Press, 1969.
American Humor, Constance Rourke,
New York, 1931.

Pag

The Collector:
An Interview with Q. David Bowers

David Bowers lives in Wolfehoro,
New Hampshire. He is author of
Nickelodeon Theaters and their
Music and over three dozen other
books on various subjects.

Bowers: My interest in historical
motion pictures emerged in 1957
when I was a teenager. In Philadelphia,
on Pine Street, I bought for $5 each a
bunch of one-sheet silent film posters
discarded by Harvard University.
Among these I bought a Mary Pickford
poster, which I still have.

Why do you collect film posters?

BI enjoy researching something
that has not been done in depth
before film, the two decades from
1895 to 1915, has been described by one
researcher as the archaeological era of
filmmaking. There is little documenta-
tion of this period in standard reference
books.

As I collect posters, trade magazines
and film fan magazines of this era I am
able to piece together the progress of a
studio, how it developed, what it did,
what were the joys and sorrows and
successes and failures of the time.

Have you anything in your collection
relating to northern New England?

Bin the autumn of 1910 a tent
show exhibiting motion pictures
travelled through New England.
Apparently, it met its demise in Bethle-
hem, New Hampshire, in late 1910. I'm
sure they experienced financial rever-
sals. This show had been travelling
through New England under a canvas
with organizers setting up chairs and a
projector. It was a popular method of
exhibition in those days. About 20
posters mounted on cardboard were left
to a person in Bethlehem and went
through a succession of hands. I ac-
quired them from an antique dealer
there about 10 years ago.

There were Thanhouser posters, a
number of Independent Moving Picture
of America posters (that was Carl
Laemmle, who later founded
Universal), and some from lesser-
known studios, including Yankee.

Poster display ca. 1916.

What do posters tell you about the
film business?

BA film company called Monopol
put out a version of Carmen
based on the opera. Around 1912 they
hired Marion Leonard at a salary of
$1,000 a week, they claimed in their
ads. They had nationwide publicity
saying that Marion Leonard was the
highest-paid movie actress in the world.
In 1991, who has heard of Monopol or
Marion Leonard? My poster of Carmen
serves as a link with this forgotten era.

Carmen was filmed because it was a
familiar story?

BFrom 1908 through 1912 many
different studios were being
formed. Companies were looking for
subjects, and it was logical to use ones
the public already knew: operas, the
novels of Charles Dickens, Shake-
speare's plays.

How was a well-known subject like
Carmen promoted?

B Before 1915 posters usually gave
just the name of the film and the
producing company. They were very
colorful, and the illustration alone had
to draw the person in. Artistically, they
were better than later posters.

They very rarely mention the actor
even if he or she might have been well
known. Early posters of Mary Pickford,

photo: Q. David /tai

of which I have a number, do not men-
tion her.

Today a typical movie poster men-
tions the name of the studio, the actors
in careful order (in an arrangement
managed by their publicity directors
and their attorneys), the author of the
screenplay and the book. Looking at a
movie poster today is like looking at a
legal notice.

How were the posters distributed and
used?

B Posters were given away by the
film distributors or studios, or in
some instances were loaned stamped
on the back "property of so-and-so and
must be returned."

A typical poster was one sheet in
size (27 x 41"), vertical, and was dis-
played in front of a theater, either on an
easel, or tacked on the walls of the
entryway, right by the ticket booth. It
was common to see posters on tele-
phone poles or on the walls of buildings
as you approached the theater.

Posters were very ephemeral: dam-
aged by rain, torn, clipped, posted,
tacked and pasted very few of them
survived. Once a film was shown, a
typical poster got thrown in the waste-
basket, to be replaced, if the film was
ever shown again, with a new poster.

I have a lot of posters in my collec-

n -

tion that I've never seen elsewhere.
That doesn't mean they're valuable. The]
typical motion picture poster in my col-
lection from 1908 to 1915 probably cost
me about $100 to $200.

The lobby card came into use
around 1914, and typically was issued in
sets of 6 or 8 cards showing scenes from
the film.

Some of the studios, Biograph,
Lubin, Solax and others, issued what
could be called bulletins, which were
black and white, and a little larger than
a sheet of typewriter paper. They
included a scene from the film, the title,
and a paragraph on the plot.

You have written a book about the
Thanhouser Company?

Bit's a series of three volumes,
entitled ThanhoHser Films: An
Encyclopedia and History, to be pub-
lished by the Vestal Press. The first
volume will be a narrative history of the
Thanhouser Company, which was
active from 1910 through 1917, with a
studio in New Rochelle, New York.
The second volume will be a filmogra-
phy listing every Thanhouser film and
plot, the cast, and contemporary
reviews. The third volume will contain )
detailed biographies of approximately
1,000 people associated with Than-
houser Company.

In June 1991 at the Wolfeboro Public
Library, Wolfeboro, New Hampshire, I
will be mounting an exhibition of silent film
posters. It will run all month. There. will be
Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, other
well-known and lesser-known names, all
with accompanying historical descriptions.
Wednesday, June 19, and Wednesday, June
25, we will present a program of silent films ':
free of charge at the library. For tickets or
information, write to Louise Gehman at the |
Wolfeboro Public Library, Wolfeboro,
New Hampshire 03894. Telephone
603569-2428.

NHF is collecting information on
moviegoing before 1930, using a
survey workbook, available free of
charge. The completed workbooks
will be archived at NHF. Valeric Felt
McClead at University College,
Bangor, and Robert Branham, Bates
College, Lewiston, are involving
their students in the interview
process. Educators at all levels are
invited to join the project.

>mall Town Movies

Going to the Movies, NHF's social
history project with funding from the
Maine Humanities Council and Expan-
sion Arts, Maine Community Founda-
tion, is touring five Maine communities
with silent films accompanied by live
music in January and February 1991.

The program includes The Iron
Horse (1924), John Ford's epic western.
Ford, horn in Portland, Maine, was an
experienced director at 29 when this
film was made. Timothy's Quest
(1922) is a feature based on an 1890
story by Kate Douglas Wiggin, author
of Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm. It was

There was plenty of entertainment
in that little town, population
1,200, when everyone was awake. The
social life was family-oriented people
would play the piano and sing. Outside
the home, it was centered around
existing organizations such as the
Grange, church-affiliated organizations
and school functions.

We had silent movies once a week in
the grange hall during the fall, winter
and spring. They ceased in the summer
because it was a farming community
and there was plenty to do during the
summer and not much energy left.
Movies were held in the grange hall
upstairs with seats for 200-300 people.

photo: Matnf Women Wnrrrj Collection,
Urs/tvooX 1 College

Kate Douglas Wiggin, author of Timothy's
Quest (1922), with the film's child stars.

directed in Hollis and Bridgton, Maine,
by Sidney Olcutt, whose career went
back to a 1907 one-reel version o/Ben
Hur.

Since the project began in June,
NHF has heard from individuals -who
attended silent films in more than 30
communities in Maine, and the database
of places that regularly showed movies
has grown to over 600 sites.

Neil Sawyer shared his childhood
memories of Easton, in Aroostook
County. His interview illustrates that
motion picture attendance was part of
the fabric of small-town society.

I was born in 1916, so my early
recollections about the movies would
be 192122. It was a successful proposi-
tion at that time. There was a projection
booth, which was asbestos-protected
because they were using nitrate film.
There was one projector the old
carbon arc manually adjusted type. I re-
member the machine because I wanted
to get up in the booth and see it work
and have the man explain it to me.
Eventually I got to turn the crank.

Etta Corey played the piano for
every show. She did a wonderful job. I
still remember the melody hne of the
music she played for chase scenes.

During the week we played cow-
boys and Indians. I sent to Sears
Roebuck or Montgomery Ward to get
an Indian costume with colored feath-
ers. I was absolutely thrilled with it. I
also got a cowboy outfit with a funny
hat and chaps, and a fireman's costume.

In silent movies they spent quite a
bit of time showing firemen in action
and disasters and policemen clubbing
people or pursuing people.

I don't remember before Prohibi-
tion. I remember hearing my folks talk
about rumrunners. Liquor was forbid-
den in the household. The town was
absolutely dry. But there were several
drunks in town they were easily iden-
tified. Some would come to the movies
with a bottle of vanilla. I remember one
individual in particular, a leathery old
guy whose trade was making snow-
shoes. He would come in and we could
and then look for him.

Grants in Action

Join
Northeast Historic Film

The Maine Community Foundation,
Expansion Arts Program (National
Endowment for the Arts funds), gave
$5,000 toward the touring program of
Going to the Monies. With these funds
the series is able to reach northern and
western Maine communities in January
and February 1991.

The Maine Arts Commission's
Touring Artists program, which helps
arts programmers by contributing one-
third of artists' fees, selected Danny
Patt, silent film accompanist, and
Northeast Historic Film as touring
artists for the 1991 season.

The National Alliance of Media
Arts Center's $3,780 grant from the
NEA-Fundcd Management Assistance
Program has resulted in consultancy
with Denis Thoct of Bath, Maine, over
the summer of 1990, completion of a
development publication, and drafting
of a guide for board members and
volunteers.

High Water Video

Howard Frank Mosher's short story
High Water is about a Vermont family
in 1959. A teen-aged boy, his sister and
father live on a farm. The boy has a race
car. The story begins with his truck,
carrying the race car, falling through
the farm's bridge while the creek waters
rise.

Catamount Arts Center, St. Johns-
bury, Vermont, made the story into a
16mm film in 1988. Jay Craven, direc-
tor, and Bess O'Brien, producer, have
toured Vermont with the film pre-
senting it to 50 schools and community
halls.

Now a videotape of High Water is
available in a package with a half-hour
documentary on the making of the in-
dependent drama, and a 65-page study
guide. The guide contains the full text
of the short story (5 pages), the screen-
play (20 pages), and questions intended
to stimulate discussion about the film.
Also included is a great deal of material
on the nuts and bolts of producing the
film, including the seven-day shooting
schedule and a diary of that experience.

All new members and renewing mem-
bers receive a gift packet of eight
postcards with striking images from
regional moving pictures: 1920 Maine
Centennial, The Seventh Day, The
Rider of the King Log and Bozo!

NHF sold out the first run of t-shirts!
You, too, will be proud to have one. It's
got eye-catching color graphics and the
NHF logo on the front, and on the
back, complete date code symbols from
1916 to 1993. $12 each, $10 for mem-
bers. Associate, corporate, friends and
founding members receive one shirt
free of charge.

Q Regular members, $25 per year,
will receive a subscription to Mov-
ing Image Review, notice of
screenings and events, and discounts
on materials distributed by NHF.

3 Educator/Student Members, $15
per year, receive all regular member-
ship benefits. This category is for
teachers and students at any level.

Q Nonprofit Organizations, $35 per
year, receive all regular benefits of
membership, plus additional copies
of Moving Image Review on
request and reduced rates for

consultation, presentations and
professional services.

Q Associates (Individuals) and
Corporate Members, $100 per year,
receive the benefits of regular
members, and in addition, special
recognition in Moving Image
Review and in programs.

Q Friends, $250 per year, receive all
benefits of regular membership and,
in addition, a privilege card which
will admit two people to any NHF-
sponsored screening or event, plus
listing in the roster of Friends.

Membership at any level is an oppor-
tunity to become involved with the
preservation and enjoyment of our
moving image heritage.

Your dues are tax-deductible to the extent
allowed by law.

photo: Catamount Arts

For more information on the pack-
age, contact Bess O'Brien, Catamount

Arts, P.O. Box 324, St. Johnsbury, VT
058 1 9. Telephone 802 748-2600. 1

P a P c

More Members (continued from page 2)

Bob & Dot Broadbent

Frederick Bryan III

Raymond Burnham

Lynn Cadwallader

Mrs. Frederic Camp

Mary Grace Canfield

Robert Carnie

Michel Chalufour

Martha Chandler
} Gary Cobb

Art Collier

Cecil Crosse

Wallace Cunningham

Darwin Davidson

John Davis

Peter DeAngelis
' Clarence deRochemont

Peg Dice, Bodacious Films

Ann-Marie Duguay

Holly Hock Dumaine

John Ellingwood

Carroll Faulkner
) Joseph Filtz

Robert Foster

Peter Gammons, Jr.

Roy Gauthier, Astro Electric Company

John Gfroerer, Creativideo, Inc.

Jim Goff, WPBC-FM

Douglas Gomery
9 Henry Grandgent

Nancy Gray, Harraseeket Inn

Rynard Gundrum

Charles Hall

Pat Harcourt

Mark Henderson, VP Film & Tape
I Eric Herndon, Granite Hall Store

Charles Hesse

Wendell Hodgkins

C. A. Porter Hopkins

John Howard

Stanley Howe

David Huntley
I Douglas Ilsely

Margaret Jaffray

Hillary Stowell James

Jeff Janer

Shirley Johnson

Robert Jordan
Thomas Joyce

Dr. Susan Kaplan, The Peary-MacMillan
Arctic Museum

John Karol Jr., Apertura

Donald King

James King

Ernest Knight, Raymond-Casco
I Historical Soc.

Diane Lee

Stephen Lindsay

Betty Ann & Donald Lockhart, Perceptions,
Inc.

Rep. Theone Look
Lily Marston
William Materne
Wendy Matthews
Andrew Mazer
Valerie Felt McClead

Alan McClelland, Owls Head Transportation
Museum

MANY
YEARS

Have you ordered your shirt?

' ,/

Judith McGeorge

Patricia McGeorge

Carl McGraw

Charles Ray McKay

Franklin & Phyllis Mellen

Bruce Meulendyke

Irvine Millgate

Betty & Hugh Montgomery

Francis Moulton Jr.

Lee Murch

John O'Brien

George O'Neill

Richard Obrey, Three East Video

Dan Osgood, VP Film and Tape, Inc.

Tom Pears

James Phillips

Guy and Dianne Poirier

Robert Porter

Charles Pritham

M. Prittie

Sally Regan

Dr. & Mrs. Edward Rendall

Karen Rhine

Michael Roy

Charles Ryan

Dewitt Sage

Shan Sayles

Bill Schubart, Resolution Video

Mr. & Mrs. P.H. Sellers

Jennifer Sheldon & Ian Gersten

Nancy Sheldon

Gail Shelton

Ms. Pat Sherman

Sally Smith

Mr. & Mrs. Julian Stein

Lynda Sudlow

Mr. & Mrs. Samuel Taylor

Dawn Thibodeau

Denis Thoet

Mr. & Mrs. Charles Thompson

Amy Turim

Robert & Julia Walkling

Mary Anne Wallace

Mrs. Henry Walter

Seth Washburn

Vern & Jackie Weiss

Robert Whitney

Bonnie Wilson, Minnesota Historical Society

Jon Wilson & Sherry Streeter, Woodenboat

Carter Wintle

Brian Wood

Cynthia Wood

Karen Wyatt

Mr. & Mrs. Harry Zinn

Nonprofit Organizations

Barbara Austen, New Hampshire Historical

Soc.

D. Averill, Instructional Resource Center
Blue Hill Historical Society
Jack Boynton, Maine State Library
Mrs. Margery Brown, Cherryfield

Narraguagus Historical Society
Marianne Buehler, Jackson Memorial Library
Bonnie Copper, George Stevens Academy
Curtis Memorial Library
Jacques Cyr, JC Roofing and Chimney Co.
David De Turk, Maine Osteopathic Ed Fdn.
Marilyn Diffin, Calais Free Library
Stephen Fletcher, Indiana Historical Society
Lea Girardin, Maine Film Commission
Mrs. Mary Cheyney Gould, Bagaduce Music

Lending Library
Bill & Alicia Gross
Diane Kopec, Abbe Museum
Keith Leavitt, Prime Resource Center
Kathleen Lignell, Sea Grant Communications
J. Gary Nichols, Maine State Library
David Olsen, Mantor Library
Keith Peeler, City Theater Associates, Inc.
Vlada Petric, Harvard Film Archive
Bernard Roscetti, MPBN
Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe
Elaine Solesky, Maine Medical Center
Diane Vatne, Bangor Historical Society
University of Maine at Augusta Library
Waldo Theatre Inc.

Pag

Videotapes of New England Life

Each is carefully selected because it portrays an aspect of
New England culture. All tapes guaranteed. Some b&w,
some silent, something of value for everyone. If any tape is
not what you expected, it's returnable for refund.

From Stump to Ship:
A 1930 Logging Film

The most complete look at the long-log industry includes
felling trees in winter with cross-cut saws, the spring river
drive and work in a steam-powered mill. 28 minutes, b&w,
sound. $24.95/NHF members $19.95

Ride the Sandy River Railroad

From the 1870s to 1935, the Sandy River Railroad was one of
the best two-foot-gauge railroads in the U.S. Very clear and
complete views of the Sandy River Line with engines,
railbuses and snowplows. 30 minutes, b&w, silent with titles.

From the original 16mm made in the early 1930s by railroad enthusiasts Linwood
Moody and Newell Martin.

$29.95/NHF members $24.95

Earliest Maine Films

Logging in Maine (1906) shows men working to prevent a
logjam on a river. 13 minutes.

Drawing a Lobster Pot (1901) is the earliest surviving film
known to have been shot in Maine. 15 seconds.
Trout Fishing, Rangeley Lakes (1906) shows sports
arriving by train and steamer, a typical Rangeley camp and
guests in three-piece suits catching trout from Rangeley
boats. 9 minutes. All b&w, silent.

$16.95/NHF members $14.95

Norumbega:

Maine in the Age of Exploration and Settlement

The history of the region
called Norumbega, from the
first voyages of European ex-
ploration in the late 1400s to
the establishment of the state
of Maine in 1820. Originally a
multi-image slide show used
in statewide public programs,
this video is a fast-paced in-
troduction to early Maine
history. 16 minutes, color,
sound.

Woodsmen and River Drivers:
"Another day, another era"

Unforgettable individuals
who worked for the Machias
Lumber Company before
1930 share their recollections
of a hard life. 30 minutes,
color and b&w, sound.

A project of Northeast Archives of
Folklore and Oral History with
funding from the Maine Humanities
Council and Champion International.

$24.957
NHF members $19.95

The How and Why of Spuds

A detailed look at 1920 potato
farming in Aroostook County,
Maine, when the primary
power was horses. Includes a
variety of farm machinery and
techniques. 13 minutes, b&w,
silent with titles.

$16.95/NHF members $14.95

Maine's TV Time Machine

A compilation from the Bangor Historical Society /WABI
collection from Maine's oldest TV station, WABI-TV. The
1950s and early 1960s: television news, sports and local com-
mercials. A view of regional culture in the Cold War period
never before possible. Includes 12-page booklet identifying
each story. Lesson plans also available. 34 minutes, b&w,
sound. $19.95/NHF members $16.95

$24.95/NHF members $19.95

Videos from Mystic Seaport

Around Cape Horn

Capt. Irving Johnson's 1929 voyage aboard the massive
bark Peking. 37 min, b&w, sound.

$29.95/NHF members $24.95

The Ways at Wallace and Sons and The Bank Dory

The building of the John F. Leavitt and of a Nova Scotia
dory. 58 min, color, sound. $29.95/NHF members $24.95

Yachting in the 30s

Weetamoe, a 1930 film of the Herreshoff-built J-boat and
other short films. 45 min, color and b&w, sound.

$24.95/NHF members $19.95

P a

A Century of Summers

The impact of a summer colony on a small Maine commu-
nity. 45 minutes, b&w and color, sound.

This production was sponsored by the Historical Society of the town of Hancock,
Maine, and made possible by a major grant from the Maine Humanities Council.

$24.95/NHF members $19.95

Our Lives in Our Hands

The story of the Micmac Indian basketry cooperative. Facing
vanishing demand, members of the Aroostook band of
Micmac Indians
have formed a co-
operative to find
wider markets for
their native craft. A
compelling docu-
mentary of life in
Aroostook
County. 50 min-
utes, color, sound.

Note: This videotape is available from NHF for home use only. Schools and
libraries please contact DER at (617) 926-0491.

$29.95/NHF members $24.95

Additional Titles Available
All But Forgotten

Career of 1920s Maine author and film producer Holman
Francis Day. 30 min, color and b&w, sound.

$19.95/NHF members $16.95

Hap Collins of South Blue Hill

An informal visit with the lobsterman, painter and poet by
Jeff Todd Titon. 56 min, color, sound.

$24.95/NHF members $19.95

Legends of American Skiing

Archival footage and modern interviews comprehensively
define the sport. 78 min, color, sound.

$39.95/NHF members $34.95

Mount Washington 1852-1908

Life at the top: the hotels, newspaper and building of the cog

railway. 30 min, color, sound.

$24.95/Sorry, no members discount

An Oral Historian's Work with Dr. Edward Ives
Skills and techniques needed for an oral history project
demonstrated by a world's authority. 30 min, color, sound.

$59.95/NHF members $47.50

Books

Our Lives in Our Hands, by Bunny McBride and Donald The History of Broadcasting in Maine, by Ellie Thompson,

$10.95 published by the Maine Association of Broadcasters, paper-
back. $15.95

Sanipass, paperback.

Membership and Order Form Northeast Historic Film, Blue Hill Falls, ME 04615 USA

Ordered by

Name

Address

City

State _

Ship to (if different from above)
Name

Zip

Address

City

State _

Zip

Videotape/ Book name

Price

Qty.

Total

T-shirt D S DM D L D XL

$12/$10mem.

Q Special Fourth Class mail: add $1.50 Subtotal
plus $1 each additional item _, ..

DC- /-i \t -i jj *> en lax: Mh residents add 5%
First Class Mail: add $3.50

plus $1 each additional item Shipping and handling
Q UPS: add $3.50 plus $1 each
additional item

Membership /Specify level, please:

TOTAL

Payment Method

l_l Check or money order make check payable to Northeast Historic Film
D Visa D MasterCard Credit card #

Questions? Call Libby Rosemeier at (207) 374-2736

I I Institutional purchase order #

Expiration date

Credit card signature .

Page 11

Fryeburg Fair

Friendly oxen share space at the Farm Museum with Northeast Historic Film.

NORTHEAST

HISTORIC

=LM

PLU; HILL HALLS -MAINE
USA 0401 i (207) 374-2730

ADDRESS CORRECT/ON REQUESTED

The Fryeburg Fair takes place the first
week in October. It is an enormous
agricultural fair that has run for 141
years near the Maine-New Hampshire
border on the edge of the White Moun-
tains.

Fryeburg is shooting distance from
Conway, New Hampshire, known
widely for its outlet shopping. During
the Fair, however, the crowds are all on
the midway, in the exhibition halls and
around the track.

For the last three years, Northeast
Historic Film has had an exhibit at the
Fryeburg Fair's Farm Museum. Tucked
between two friendly oxen and the
Greene family's woodstove cookery,
NHF staff spends 10 days 9 am to 9
pm talking with thousands of fairgo-
ers about traditional New England
culture.

Operating on an "interactive" basis,
NHF programs videotapes according to
the desires of the crowd. Sometimes
individuals stay for two or three hours,
a long time considering the area is
unheated and snow usually falls at least
once during the fair.

NHF thanks the fair officials,
especially Phil Andrews, the Eaton
family and the volunteers of the Farm
Museum, Mrs. Hardcastle, board
member Pam Wintle and volunteers
Judy McGeorge and David Williams.

Thanks also to the many individuals
who take time to stop and share recol-
lections that enrich the moving image
record-. Fairgoers have added dozens of
notes to the database of Maine theaters,
and added to understanding of many
things: Mt. Washington, skunk trap-
ping, the Sandy River Railroad and
cutting ice.

In 1991 look for the NHF booth at
these other Maine fairs: Full Circle Fair,
Blue Hill; the Maine Festival; and the
Common Ground Fair, Windsor.

Northeast Historic F i I

MOVING

IMAGE

' REVIEW

Reference By Mail

Northeast Historic Film is pleased to
announce a new service: Reference by
Mail. Members can now borrow from a
list of VHS videotapes.

"It's our hope that this will
provide a way to
make more of the
collections acces-
sible," says David
S. Weiss, NHF
executive director.
"It's an important
addition to the
services already
offered to our mem-
bers."

Access to Collections

NHF has more than 100 named
collections ranging in size from
a single title to thousands of
individual news stories.
These films and videotapes
describe northern New
England life in detail with
images and sound of rural
and urban environments.
"NHF preserves and
makes accessible a record
which defines and interprets the en-
during and endangered characteristics
of northern New England life," says
David Weiss. "We've developed pro-
grams to reach public halls, schools and
fairs, and distributed thousands of
videotapes to people in North America
and a dozen other countries.

"But most of our materials didn't fit
these programs. For example, nobody
had a chance to see Margaret Chase

Smith announce for
the presidency or
a drama about a
lobster coopera-
tive. We wanted
to make more of
this diversity
known to more
people."

Easy
Borrowing

Members of
Northeast Historic
Film can now borrow from a
list of 30 titles including 24
Hours, a professional dramati-
zation of firefighting in Port-
land, Maine; and John F.
Kennedy's October 1963 visit
to Orono, Maine.
There will be tapes
on subjects including
woods work, Franco-
American culture and
fisheries. The list will
be added to regularly.
Please see page 6 for the current circu-
lating reference tape list and how you
can participate.

Thanks to NHF board president
Paul Gelardi and E Media for making
this project possible.

Dedicated to the Preservation of
Northern New England
Motion Picture

Summer 1991

Executive Director's Report ........,.. p. 2

Archival Notes p. 3

Motion Picture Chums p. 4

Interview: Margaret Byrne p. 5

Tales of Wood and Water p. 8

Moving Image Review is a semiannual pub-
lication of Northeast Historic Film, Blue
Hill Falls, Maine 04615. David S.Weiss,
executive director, Karan Sheldon, edi
ISSN 0897-0769

Stump T-shirt

From Stump to Ship: A 1930 Logging
Film is a 16mm introduction to long-
log lumbering in Maine.

Perhaps because it succinctly sum-
marizes an era that is long gone, From
Stump to Ship has been popular not
only in Maine but with people around
the world interested in North American
forests and worklife.

Fans of Stump can help support
further moving image preservation by
covering their chests with a brand-new
T-shirt sporting the original From
Stump to Ship art.

The reconstruction of From Stump to Ship was
a project of The University of Maine, Orono,
and Northeast Archives of Folklore and Oral
History, with funding from the Maine
Humanities Council and Champion Inter-
national. Drawing by Mike Mardosa.

Executive Director's Report

Phone Log

The phone rings all day with requests
from researchers. We found Penobscot
River life for a class of fourth-graders;
supplied footage of a set of triplets;
located Bowdoin College in the 1930s;
and came up with a Moosehead Lake
steamer.

But sometimes, it's just not possible
to help yet. I confess that recently we
failed to come up with pre-1918 circus
footage and color film of out-of-shape
football players.

On Stage

The winter 1991 Moving Image Review
mentioned a play called Shore Acres, a
Yankee comedy. NHF received a call
from New York City for footage to be
used in connection with development of
an updated production of Shore Acres.
The Everett Foster Collection con-
tained suitable scenes of the Maine
coast.

Fish Stories

Oregon Public Broadcasting completed
a one-hour production for Frontline,
the public broadcasting service's public
affairs series, which includes shots of
Maine fisheries.

Fuji-Sanke Communications in Japan
requested early lobstering footage.

Home and Away

A history of Portland, Maine's "Million
Dollar Bridge" got 1920 aerial footage.
A videotape of Ed Sullivan Show
excerpts called for home movies of
Christmas to serve as an opener.
A new United Airlines national adver-
tisement includes a single shot of potato
harvesting in Aroostook County,
Maine.

Ken Burns's Florentine Films is looking
for baseballs in action.
Academic and commercial use of archi-
val footage judging from the calls
seems to be growing. A wider audience
will help foster awareness of the cul-
tural and historical value of the material

we preserve

Summer/Fall Calendar

NHF will be at the Ocean Park Asso-
ciation in Ocean Park, Maine (near
Saco) on Wednesday, June 26, at 7 p.m.
with Danny Patt on the piano accompa-
nying the silent film The Seventh Day.
Henry King directed the 1921 feature
about New Yorkers in the fishing
village of New Harbor. It stars Richard
Barthelmess and costars a 190-ft. steam
yacht and a Portland-built fishing
schooner. The Seventh Day will be
shown in The Temple, where the asso-
ciation has shown movies since 1919.

Look for Northeast Historic Film at
the WERU Full Circle Fair in Blue
Hill, Maine, at the fairgrounds on
Sunday, July 14.

David S. Weiss
Executive Director

NHF distribution coordinator Libby Rosemeier
at the Full Circle Fair.

On Thursday, August 22 at 7 p.m.
Danny Patt will play the piano for the
Maine-made silent film Timothy's
Quest at Ocean Park in the Temple.
The event coincides with the Maine
Writers Conference meeting at Ocean
Park. The film is from a story by Kate
Douglas Wiggin; Patt has created an
excellent score of period music. For
more information contact Dick Burns,
program superintendent, 207 934-5034.

photo: Ocean Park Assoc.

The Temple, Ocean Park

From Sunday, September 29 to Sun-
day, October 6, Northeast Historic
Film will be at the Farm Museum,
Fryeburg Fair, in Fryeburg, Maine.

On Tuesday, October 8 at 7 p.m. the
Old Town Public Library will host "A
Century of Maine Movies," a program
prepared by NHF of film and videotape
made in Maine. The Old Town Public
Library has just opened a new building;
the event is being hosted by the Friends
of the Library. For more information
contact Valerie A. Osborne, Library
Director, 207 872-3972.

NHF Statement of Purpose

The purpose of Northeast Historic
Film is to preserve, and make avail-
able to the public, film/videotape of
the northern New England region.
This purpose will be carried out by
activities including, but not limited
to, a comprehensive survey of mov-
ing image resources of interest to the
people of northern New England;
the preservation of film/tape through
restoration, duplication, providing of
technical guidance and vault storage;
a touring program to bring materials
to audiences throughout the area;
and the establishment of a study
center, including resource materials
and reference copies of motion
picture films and videotapes.

Grants in Action

Muskie Archives

The final report was submitted to the
Maine Humanities Council for Going

I to the Movies, a project on the social
context of movie exhibition in Maine.
Accompanist Danny Patt prepared
musical scores for a program of silent
films; there were ten screenings from
Biddeford to Caribou, Maine, with

) introductions and public discussion.
More than 175 pre-1930s movie-
goers' surveys were completed with the
assistance of students from elementary
school through college. The project
published an audience guide with essays

> and held additional screenings for more
than 1000 elementary-school students.

The National Alliance of Media
Arts Centers received NHF's final
report for the $3,780 grant from the
NEA-funded Management Assistance
\ Program. I

Archival Notes:
New England Archivists

1 ~

New England Archivists, the regional
organization for archival professionals,
held its annual meeting in Boston at the
Massachusetts Archives on April 26.
Jim Farrington, Wesleyan Univer-

> sity music librarian, led off an opening
workshop titled "Light and Sound: The
Preservation of Films, Videotapes, and
Sound Recordings" with an introduc-
tion to the many kinds of sound record-
ing media.

Moving Image Issues

Northeast Historic Film staff followed
Farrington with a presentation of issues
in physical safeguarding, appraisal and
outreach of moving images.

I The session was attended by 40

archivists from institutions such as
Boston University, the Archdiocese of
Boston, and the Sheldon Museum in
Middlebury, Vermont.

The people attending the workshop

H were concerned about vinegar syn-
drome, the rapid deterioration of cellu-
lose acetate. They also raised questions
on the lifespan of videotape and on the
establishment of guidelines for access
and fees for use.

Northeast Historic Film is completing a
project for the Edmund S. Muskie
Archives at Bates College, Lewiston,
Maine.

The Archives hold the personal and
office papers, audiovisual materials and
memorabilia of Muskie and are one of
the largest non-presidential political
collections in the nation.

Ed Muskie grew up in Rumford,
Maine, and practiced law in Waterville.
He was governor of Maine (1955-59),
U.S. senator (1959-80), and secretary of
state (May 1980-January 1981). The
Archives also document his 1968 vice-
presidential race and bid for the 1972
Democratic nomination.

Almost 200 cans of film made their

way to the archives from his offices and
home. NHF cleaned, repaired and
transferred the film to 3/4-inch video-
tape. Reference VHS tapes were made
for the Muskie Archives with duplicate
copies to serve Northeast Historic
Film's researchers.

In addition to the films, the Muskie
Archives sound recording collection
contains over 400 cassettes and 600
reel-to-reel tapes of speeches, inter-
views and campaign commercials.

For more information on the
Muskie Archives, contact the director,
Christopher M. Beam, Muskie Archives,
Bates College, Lewiston, Maine 04240.
207 786-6354.

Machias High School Projects

Students of Machias High School in
Washington County, Maine, created a
videotape called The Batteau Machias.
Batteaus were used on the Machias
River to help move the logs that had
been cut in the woods down to the mill.
Members of the river-driving crew
traveled in them with their food and
supplies.

Students studied and measured
examples, helped cut huge planks at a
local mill and became boatwrights in
their shop class with instructors Karl
Kurz and Chris Wright. "At first the
project wasn't very exciting . . . but
then as the boat started getting built up
everyone started getting more excited.
When we finally got to see our finished
product we were really pleased," re-
ports a student.

With the help of independent film-
maker Huey, the tape was planned,
shot, written and edited by students.
The narration is by Charlie Koch;
editing by Cathy Tower. Advisor Cora
Greer assisted with locating archival
footage through research at Northeast
Historic Film. Footage of batteaus in
the 1920s and 1930s is included in The
Batteau Machias, an outstanding ex-
ample of a student video.

Baseball, Too

Machias students also undertook a
videotape
oral history
interview
with Carlton
Willey of
Cherryfield,
Maine, a
professional
baseball
player who
was 1958
rookie of the
year. These
videotapes

are being archived at Northeast His-
toric Film and are available through
Reference by Mail.

One Hundred Years: Motion Picture Chums

Youth genre fiction like the Rover Boys
and the Tom Swift adventure series
includes two moving-imagerelated
series, The Moving Picture Boys, adven-
tures of young men who make movies
(in the jungle, in earthquake land) and
The Motion Picture Chums, about
setting up photoplay houses.

The series were the work of the
pseudonymous Victor Appleton,

'CT A 7 hat do you say to starting a motion

V V picture show?"

The effect of Frank Dunham's an-
nouncement on Pep Smith was electrical.
The latter sprang to his feet, his face beam-
ing with excitement.

"Say, that's a great idea!" he cried,
enthusiastically. "You mean a moving pic-
ture show right here in Fairlands?"

'Just that," replied Frank. "Will it go?"

"Go? When whole crowds take the
trolley down to Chester just to see the
movies? "

At the Pioneer Film Exchange:
"Because a motion picture show makes you
think of gilt fronts and flaring lithographs
and piano music, you mustn't think it's an
easy and interesting pathway to fortune.
The business is by no means 'soft,' and a
show doesn't operate itself. It's not all rose-
hued. You want to go into it just as you
would if you were dealing in groceries or
dry goods."

that's just what Frank has told us,"
vouchsafed the irrepressible Pep.

"To succeed in a motion picture show,"
resumed the man, "you must have capable,
intelligent, alert management. You must
have the glitter to attract trade, but above
all you must have the right class of films. It's
studying what kind just suits your patrons
that pays. You want to advertise, and you
want to learn just how to go about it. In the
small one-show town like Fairlands, with
over a thousand inhabitants, the business
can be made to pay if it is conducted on the
right basis."

They set up the theater:

Frank hadjust completed gilding the mold-
ing running around the sides of the room.
The boys had been most fortunate in se-
curing a vacant store. . . .

The landlord had plastered up the
breaks in the wall and had the room nicely
kalsomined. Outside of that, he had re-
fused to make any repairs. The boys had
scrubbed up the floors until they shone.

created by the Edward Stratemeyer
syndicate, which plotted and assigned
the writing of hundreds of books.

NHF's interest in the moviegoing
experience led us to The Motion Picture
Chums' First Venture, published in
1913 by Grosset & Dunlap. Within the
boys' adventure formula, the book
gives a detailed contemporary account
of establishing a theater in a rural area.

Then each set to work to do his share
towards beautifying the place. . . .

The front of the new Wonderland burst
into a dazzling flood of radiance.The big-
gest and best electric sign in Fairlands
presented its face of fire to the public,
glowed, was blank, flashed up again, and
began its mission of inviting and guiding
the public to the motion picture show. . . .

MOTION PICTURECHOMS
FIRST VENTURE

The fictional Wonderland Theater's
Maine counterparts, 1913 storefront
theaters in towns of 2,000 or less, can
be found in the Pastime Theaters of
Northeast Harbor, Boothbay and
Brownville. For the record, Maine had
four Wonderlands: Houlton, Keegan,
Old Orchard and Rockland.

Fairlands had never had a motion pic-
ture show before, and the town board had
never made any restrictions as to over-
crowding and the like. Frank, however,
had gone to one of the selectmen the week
previous. He had shown him the usual
rules adopted in city photoplay houses.
The official had agreed with Frank that
some system as to sanitation and safety
should be enforced. . . .

Frank had selected only first-class films
for the opening night. . . . Most fortunately,

the motion picture chums had been able
to secure a film showing the mishaps of a
city chap. He had wandered from the sum-
mer resort he was visiting, among the sur-
rounding farm community.

The funny things that happened to
him were very comical. They brought in a
milking scene, a haymow, the farmer's
dogs, a mad bull, a runaway horse, and a
dive into a duck pond. The film reeled off
not only striking scenes, but action, spice
and variety. Nearly a dozen rural families
were represented in the audience. It did
Pep's heart good to hear the bluff "haw-
haws" of the old farmers, and note their
wives laugh till the tears ran down their
cheeks. . . .

"Won-won-Wonderland! The place for you!
Wonderland, great and grand! Rah! rah! rah!

And thus we leave the three motion picture
chums, happy, prosperous and successful,
to tell about their further trials and tri-
umphs in the photoplay house line in the
second volume of this series, to be entitled,
"The Motion Picture Chums at Seaside
Park; or, the Rival Photo Theaters of the
Boardwalk."

Further Reading

The Motion Picture Chums at Seaside Park;
or, the Rival Photo Theatres of the Board-
walk, 1913.

The Motion Picture Chums on Broadway;
or, the Mystery of the Missing Cash Box,
1914.

The Motion Picture Chums' Outdoor
Exhibition; or, the Film That Solved a
Mystery, 1914.

The Motion Picture Chums' New Idea; or,
the First Educational Photo Playhouse,
1914.

The Motion Picture Chums at the Fair; or,
the Greatest Film Ever Exhibited, 1915.
The Motion Picture Chums' War Spectacle;
or, The Film That Won the Prize, 1916.

Pave

The National Moving Image Database:
An Interview with Margaret Byrne

The National Moving Image Database
(NAMID), a project of the National
Center for Film and Video Preservation
at the American Film Institute, is di-
rected by Margaret Byrne. She received
her PhD in film studies from the Uni-
versity of Southern California and has
served as a research and strategic plan-
ning consultant to both international
and U.S. media clients, including many
of the major Hollywood studios. NHF
caught up with Margaret when she and
colleague Henry Mattoon were in New
York to work with NAMID participants.

What is NAMID?

Byrne: NAMID is a project to build a
national database of moving im-
ages: film, television, video, kinescopes.
We've identified certain streams: fea-
ture fiction films, shorts, television,
independent film and video, news.
Initially, we'll be working with a con-
stellation of databases which eventually
will be combined.

Who will use the NAMID database?

BOne of our mandates is to serve
preservation experts so they can
make informed decisions. To preserve
a film you need to find the highest
quality original materials. It is a night-
mare job to try to piece together the
highest-quality fragments from various
locations. So NAMID will provide a
centralized database with the locations
of physical holdings as well as film-

ographic information to facilitate their
work.

Who else does NAMID serve?

BOur second mandate is to serve
cataloguing experts. Through
coordination and centralization we
hope to reduce duplication of catalogu-
ers' efforts. Many archives hold the
same titles, although not necessarily the
same physical elements. We also have a
third mandate to be a resource for
scholarly research.

What does a NAMID record look like?

BThe record structure is broken
into four parts: the filmographic
data (title, cast and credits, summary,
etc.); the location (where materials are
housed); the physical elements (descrip-
tive information on printing elements
such as negatives and fine grains); and
the actual condition of the materials, for
example, whether they're pristine or
hockey pucks.

The first tier, filmographic or video-
graphic, should be identical for all
institutions holding that title. The last
two tiers are proprietary and security
coded.

If NAMID can accomplish that first
level of cataloguing and then distribute
it to participating archives we can free
up cataloguers' time to focus on de-
scription of the physical elements.

That sounds like a lot to accomplish.
What are your resources?

B Right now we are a small office
of just three people. We all an-

swer the phone and do our own photo-
copying. Someday we will be able to
pull together enough unique materials
of public interest that we will be able to
serve more than just the specialists.

What does NAMID mean for the public?

B Imagine if in 100 years our
children's children could not see
the first walk on the moon, or Martin
Luther King's delivery of those inspir-
ing dreams, or Disney classics? If his-
tory is this great net of human culture,
imagine huge tears in the net if moving
images are lost; holes in our sense of
cultural identity.

I personally believe the moving
image is the most important communi-
cation art form of this century. To lose
these images from our cultural memory
is to lose an essential part of ourselves.
We have to preserve them. I

: Mrs. H.G. Howe

In the Moosehead Lake area around 1920: Harris B. Coe at mealtime
in the woods (third from left) with his friends and Akeley camera.

Harrie B. Coe worked for the Maine Publicity Bureau
producing motion pictures in the 1920s and 1930s. Recently, a
fragment of his work in the form of a 16mm reduction print of
two state promotional films came to NHF.

Coe produced, wrote and edited short segments on Maine
life: blueberries, sheep farming, Portland, Rangeley resorts.

His intertitles add an odd personal style to the promotion:
"Where the subways got the idea of packing 'em in" leads off a
shot of a hand holding a can of sardines, concluding an excel-
lent sequence of dories filled to the gunwales with fish.

Coe's concept of touristic interest is likewise idiosyncratic:
he leads with a Rockland lime quarry, which is of spectacular
depth but could hardly be considered a first-rank attraction
compared with the salmon fishing later in the reel.

P a

S e

Reference by Mail Collection

Members of Northeast Historic Film
may borrow from the newly established
circulating reference collection of VHS
videotapes.

Each member is invited to borrow
one tape free of charge. Associate and
Corporate members can borrow five
tapes at no charge; Friends of NHF can
borrow ten tapes at no charge. For all

members additional tapes are just $4.00
per tape.

The borrower is responsible for
return postage to NHF via First Class
mail or UPS. Tapes must be in the mail
on their way back to NHF five days
after they are received.

Videotapes listed here are offered as
a reference service.Where possible,

public performance rights are included.
Please be sure to check each tape's
status.

Note: PERF means public performance
rights are included. Where there is no
PERF, the tape is for home use only
and may not be shown to a group.

City Life

24 Hours, a profes-
sional dramatization
with music and
narration of fire
fighting in Portland,
Maine. 1963. 27 mins.,
b&w, sd. PERF

Country Life

The Batteau Machias, a student project depicting
construction of a traditional river-driving boat.
1990. 22 mins., col., sd. PERF

A Century of Summers, the impact of a summer
colony on a small Maine coastal community.
1987. 45 mins., b&w and col., sd. PERF

Cherryfield, 1938, a home movie about rural
spring. 6 mins., b&w, si. PERF

Ice Harvesting, a compilation of newsreel and
home movies demonstrating human-, horse- and
gasoline-powered ice gathering. 20 mins., b&w,
si. PERF

The Movie Queen,
Lubec, a pretend
movie queen visits her
home town in down
east Maine. 1936. 28
mins., b&w, si.

Early Film

All But Forgotten, documentary on silent film-
making by the Holman Day film company in
Maine. 1978. 30 mins., col. and b&w, sd. PERF

Cupid, Registered Guide, a silly rwo-reeler set on
a Maine lake by Holman Day. 1921. 20 mins.,
b&w, si. PERF

Earliest Maine Films, lobstering, trout fishing,
logging, canoeing in Moosehead Lake and potato
growing, from 1901 to 1920. 44 mins., b&w, si.

PERF

Just Maine Folks, a bawdy hayseed one-reeler.
Poor image quality. 1913. 8 mins., b&w, si. PERF

The Knight of the Pines, another North Woods
adventure by Holman Day. 1920. 20 mins., b&w,
si. PERF

To Purchase

Videotapes of New England Life
Call or Write for Catalog

Tales of Wood and Water, a 1991
documentary on wooden-boat build-
ing and sailing on the coast of Maine
(60 mins.) is $29.95, or $24.95 for
NHF members. Purchase only.

For additional maritime titles and
other videotapes for sale including
the gold-medal-winning Woodsmen
and River Drivers, please call Libby
Rosemeier at 207 374-2736.

Fisheries

Basic Net Mending, how to repair fish nets. 1951,
16 mins., col.', sd. PERF

Maine's Harvesters of the Sea, fisheries including
shrimp, cod and lobster. 1968. 28 mins., col., sd.

PERF

Turn of the Tide, drama about formation of a
lobster cooperative; from the Vinalhaven Histori-
cal Society. 1943. 48 mins., col., sd.

Franco- American Life

Reflets et Lumiere: Porte Ouverte sur les Arts, a
program on the arts from an MPBN television
series on Franco-American culture in Maine.
1982. 30 mins., col., sd. PERF

Reflets et Lumiere: Porte Ouverte sur I'Assim-
ilation, a program on Franco-American accul-
turation in New England. 1982. 30 mins., col., sd.

PERF

There are more titles in this series. Please ask.

Geography

Assignment in Aroostook, life at Loring Air Force
Base: the woman at home, the sergeant at work,
the family at play in northern Maine. 1956. 27
mins., col., sd. PERF

Norumbega: Maine in the Age of Exploration
and Settlement, an introduction to early Maine
history, based on maps. 1989. 16 mins., col., sd.

PERF

Winter Sports in the White Mountain National
Forest, skiing, sledding and snowshoeing in New
Hampshire. 1934. 28 mins. b&w, si. PERF

Oral History

Hap Collins of South Blue Hill, Jeff Titon's oral
history interview with some in-the- field footage
of a lobsterman, painter and poet. 1989. 56 mins.,
col., sd. PERF

An Oral Historian's
Work with Dr.
Edward Ives, a "how
to" illustrating a
successful oral history
project by a world's
authority. 1987. 30
mins., col., sd. PERF

Carlton Willey, major-league baseball pitcher,
1958 rookie of the year, interviewed in a high
school project. Unedited interview from VHS
master. 1990. 39 mins., col., sd. PERF

Performing Arts

Grace: A Portrait of Grace DeCarlton Ross,
independent filmmaker Huey traces Ross' silent
film and dance careers. 1983. 50 mins.,' col., sd.

PERF

Political Discourse

Margaret Chase Smith
Speech, declaration of
intention to run for
President, includes
Q&A. 17 mins. 1964,
b&w, sd. PERF

John F. Kennedy Speech on the anniversary of the
Cuban Missile Crisis, October 1963 at Univ. of
Maine homecoming. 30 mins., b&w., sd. PERF
Sent with full transcript of speech.

Television

Maine's TV Time Machine, the 1950s and early
60s in news, sports and local commercials from
the Bangor Historical Society /WAB I collection.
1989. 34 mins., b&w, sd. PERF

NHF Membership

Woods

In the Public Interest: The Civilian Conservation
Corps in Maine, the federal work program from
Acadia National Park to Cape Elizabeth. 1987. 58
mins., col. and b&w, sd. PERF

From Stump to Ship, complete look at long-log
industry from forest to shipboard. 1930. 28 mins.,
b&w, sd. PERF

King Spruce, harvesting pulpwood, includes
horses and mechanical log haulers, ca. 1940. 23
mins., col., sd.

Little Log Cabin in the Northern Woods, ama-
teur film of a young woman's hunting trip near
Brownville, Maine, with a professional guide, ca.
1930. 13 mins., b&w, si. PERF

Woodsmen and River Drivers, "Another day,

another era," unforgettable

individuals who worked for

the Machias Lumber

Company before 1930.

1989. 30 mins., col.

and b&w, id. PERF

Photos:

Mike Daicy, Portland

Fire Dept.

Lubec Historical Society

Margaret Chase Smith Library Center

Newell Beam by Tom Stewart

Q Regular Members, $25 per year,
receive a subscription to Moving
Image Review, notice of screenings
and events, loan of one reference
tape at no charge, and discounts on
materials distributed by NHF.

Q Educator/Student Members, $15

per year, receive all regular member-
ship benefits.This category is for
teachers and students at any level.

Q Nonprofit Organizations, $35 per
year, receive all regular benefits of
membership, including loan of one
reference tape at no charge, plus
additional copies of Moving Image
Review on request and reduced
rates for consultation, presentations
and professional services.

Q Associates (Individuals) and Cor-
porate Members, $100 per year,
receive the benefits of regular mem-
bers and loan of five reference tapes
at no charge.

Q Friends, $250 per year, receive all
benefits of regular membership and,
in addition, loan of ten reference
tapes at no charge.

Membership at any level is an opportu-
nity to become involved with the pres-
ervation and enjoyment of our moving
image heritage.

Your dues are tax deductible to the extent
allowed by law.

Membership and Order Form Northeast Historic Film, Blue Hill Falls, ME 04615 USA

Ordered by

Name

Address

City

State

Ship to (if different from above)

Name

Address

City

State

Zip

[H Please send a free catalog!

Purchase

Qty,

Total

Tales of Wood & Water, $29.95/24.95 mem.

T-shirts From Stump to Ship D
$12/10 mem. NHF D

s a
s a

M D L D XL

Q Special Fourth Class mail: add $1.50
plus $1 each additional item
Q First Class Mail: add $3.50
plus $1 each additional item
Q UPS: add $3.50 plus $1 each
additional item

Subtotal

Tax: ME residents add 5%

Shipping and handling

Reference by Mail/Members

ONLY

Titles):

$4 each.

Please see top of

page 6 tor number
of tapes you may

borrow at no charge.

Payment Method
I I Check or money order make check payable to Northeast Historic Film LJ Institutional purchase order #

I I Visa \ I MasterCard Credit card # Expiration date

Membership/Specify level, please:

TOTAL

Questions? Call Libby Rosemeier at (207) 374-2736

Credit card signature .

Page 7

photo: Robert White Collection, frame blowup by John E, Allen, Inc.

The Doris Hamlin, Harrington, Maine, 1919.

NORTHEAST

HISTORIC

FILM

BLUE HILL FALLS MAINE
USA 0461 5 (207) 374-2736

ADDRESS CORRECTION REQUESTED

Tales of Wood and Water

Wooden-boat building and sailing have
many devotees on the coast of Maine.
In 1991 David Clark completed a one-
hour documentary on Maine's wooden
boat culture.

The film visits boatyards large and
small, as well as allied businesses such
as WoodenBoat magazine and two boat-
building schools. A student remarks,
"Boatbuilding is like house building,
only rounder and upside down."

Elements of wooden-boat culture
all portrayed in the film include
yacht design, sailmaking, half-model
building and old and new construction
techniques.

A fleet of windjammers gathers in
Eggemoggin Reach, and Clark visits
them by water and air, going aboard
Doug and Linda Lee's Heritage. Chil-
dren are brought up on the water: the
Lee's 7- and 9-year-old daughters have
been sailors all their lives.

A man and woman who offer day
sails in their Friendship sloop chat in
their cockpit; Andy Chase, captain of
the schooner Bowdoin, travels to La-
brador and meets Inuit elders who had
come aboard half a century earlier when
the Bowdoin was under the command
of Donald MacMillan.

Modern cold-molding techniques
for constructing a mahogany speedboat
and an elegant yacht contrast with 1919
footage from Northeast Historic Film's
Robert White Collection, the launching
of the four-masted schooner Doris
Hamlin in Harrington, Maine. After
the boat hits the water, Miss Hamlin of
Boston beams at the camera while
grasping a huge bouquet.

NHF is very pleased to distribute
Tales of Wood and Water.

Northeast Historic Film

MOVING

IMAGE

REVIEW

Moviegoers/ME, NH, VT

Northeast Historic Film received a
$15,700 grant from the National En-
dowment for the Humanities Division
of Public Programs to plan a traveling
exhibition entitled "Going to the Mov-
ies: 100 years of Motion Pictures in
Northern New England."

The purpose of the exhibition is to
use moviegoing as a way to understand
the twentieth-century history of the
northeast United States, the states of
Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont.
The project's focus is the concept of
community and an examination of
cultural values and activities enforced
and changed by movies.

Ten scholars of New England his-
tory, North American social history,
music and popular culture and cinema
studies are participating, along with
exhibition professionals. These men and
women are based in New York, Wash-
ington, Toronto, Montreal and around
New England.

The project builds on the 1990-91
Maine Humanities Council-funded
silent film tour and gathering of pre-
1930 audience oral histories.

Why an Exhibition?

The format of an exhibition of three-
dimensional artifacts (rather than a film
or lecture series) was chosen in order to
present historical evidence in the form
of technological and architectural arti-

facts, manuscripts, advertising, photo-
graphs, moving images and sound.

Research has taken NHF staff and
scholars through the three states, dis-
covering traces of more than 1,100
places where movies were seen.

Readers are invited to share infor-
mation and artifacts that might be rel-
evant to preparation of the exhibition.

Who is the Audience?
"Going to the Movies" seeks a diverse
audience. The movie spectator is in
large part the topic of the exhibition,
and visitor input as past and present
moviegoers is actively sought.

The show should illuminate aspects
of regional life, such as its strong Franco-
American culture, that differentiate it
from the rest of the nation. H

Dedicated to the Preservation of
Northern New England
Motion Picture

'inter 1992

Executive Director's Report p. 2

Itinerant Movie Exhibitors

by Kathryn H. Fuller p. 4

Interview: James Henderson p. 5

Dead River Rough Cut p. 8

Moving Image Review is a semiannual pub-
lication of Northeast Historic Film, Blue
Hill Falls, Maine 04615. David S.Weiss,
executive director, Karan Sheldon, editor.
ISSN 0897-0769

Posters, Postcards & Books
Given to NHF

Posters for D.W. Griffith's The Battle
(1911) and AMobawk's Way (1910)
along with three other original litho-
graphed movie one-sheets were grate-
fully received by Northeast Historic
Film in a 1991 gift from Q. David
Bowers of Wolfeboro, NH.

Reference books, including Erno
Rapee's 1924 Motion Picture Moods for
Pianists and Organists and the 1911
two-volume Cyclopedia of Motion-
Picture Work, are part of the gift, along
with over 100 postcards of Maine and
New Hampshire movie theaters. They
are a much-valued resource for the
"Going to the Movies" project. H

The Bristol Theatre, Bristol, NH, was a center
of community life in the 1940s and 1950s.

photo: QDB/NHF Collection

Executive Director's Report

Collections Descriptions
In 1991 we made major strides in de-
scribing Northeast Historic Film indi-
vidual collections in a sharable form.

Graduate Student Intern

Crystal D. Hall, a student in the gradu-
ate program in Library and Information
Science at Florida State University in
Tallahassee, devoted herself to this
project from May to December 1991.

NHF has 130 named collections,
now described in our ProCite computer

Association of Moving
Image Archivists

The first annual meeting of the Associa-
tion of Moving Image Archivists (AMIA)
was held in New York from November
5-9. A total of 140 people attended the
conference with a full agenda including
sessions on news archiving, responsible
use of archival materials, vinegar syn-
drome, videotape restoration, screen-
ings and visits to facilities in the area.

NHF Represented

Northeast Historic Film staff was
represented by David Weiss, Crystal
Hall and Karan Sheldon,
who is serving a two-year
term as treasurer on
AMIA's executive board,
along with president Wil-
liam Murphy of the Na-
tional Archives; vice
president Jan-Christopher
Horak, George Eastman
House; and secretary Gre-
gory Lukow, National
Center for Film and Video
Preservation.

Join These

Home Movies Panel

NHF helped organize a
catalog. Each record provides physical panel, "Home Movies and Amateur

AMIA conference, NY.

and content descriptions, based on
MARC (machine-readable cataloguing)
fields such as title statement, terms
governing use, and provenance.

New Cataloguing Tools
Crystal also compiled and put into use
cataloguing tools including a list of
genre terms used by the archives such
as educational/cultural works and home
movies to describe collections.

Genre terms, geographical terms,
and summary notes about the contents
of the collections will make the work of
staff and researchers much easier.

Without Crystal Hall and technical
support for her from the staff of the
National Moving Image Database this
progress wouldn't have been possible.
We wish Crystal well as she goes back
to Florida for her final semester of
graduate work, and look forward to her
return to Maine.

David S. Weiss
Executive Director

Footage," with a presentation by NHF
board member Pamela Wintle of the
Human Studies Film Archives, Smith-
sonian Institution. Karan Sheldon began
the session with an introduction from
film scholar Patricia Zimmermann,
Ithaca College.

Stephen Gong, Pacific Film Archives;
Karen Ishizuka, Japanese American
National Museum; and Micheline
Morisset, National Archives of Canada,
showed excellent footage from their
archives, and provided analysis and
suggestions to the field.

To Join AMIA

AMIA is a professional association estab-
lished for individuals concerned with
the collection, preservation, exhibition
and use of moving image materials.
To become a charter member of
AMIA, to receive the AMIA newsletter
and the proceedings of the November
meeting, contact Greg Lukow at the
National Center for Film and Video
Preservation, 213 856-7637; fax 213
467-4578.

Founding Members

Paul & Deborah Gelardi

Del Keppelman & Skip Sheldon

Karan Sheldon & David Weiss

Friends of NHF

Robert Mclntire, MaxMedia

David & Sue Parsons, Milbridge Theatre

Ed Pert

Mr. & Mrs. Robert Saudek

Dr. David C. Smith

Sylvia Smith

Lynda & Charles Tyson

Corporate/ Associate Members

John Bragg, N. H. Bragg & Sons

Dr. Constance Carlson

Darwin Davidson

Marcia Fenn

Ernest & Kathryn Gross

Donald C. Hammond, Hammond Lumber Co.

James Henderson, Maine State Archives

Franklyn Lenthall

Edgar & Sally Lupfer

Patricia McGeorge

Virginia Morgan

Henry H. Moulton

John Mucci, GTE Service Corp.

Richard Obrey, Three East Video

Mr. & Mrs. Howard Peabody

Peter & Ann Sheldon

Mrs. Joanne Van Namee

Eric von Hippel

Joel & Allene White

Pamela Wintle

Dr. & Mrs. Stewart Wolff

Nonprofit Organizations

Abbe Museum

Bangor Historical Society

NHF Statement of Purpose

The purpose of Northeast Historic
Film is to preserve, and make avail-
able to the public, film/videotape of
the northern New England region.
This purpose will be carried out by
activities including, but not limited
to, a comprehensive survey of mov-
ing image resources of interest to the
people of northern New England;
the preservation of film/tape through
restoration, duplication, providing of
technical guidance and vault storage;
a touring program to bring materials
to audiences throughout the area;
and the establishment of a study
center, including resource materials
and reference copies of motion
picture films and videotapes.

Page 2

NHF Members!

Blue Hill Historical Society

Calais Free Library

Cherryfield Narraguagus Historical Society

City Theater Associates, Inc.

College of the Atlantic Library

George Stevens Academy

Bill & Alicia Gross

Historic Preservation Program, Univ. of

Vermont

Indiana Historical Society
Instructional Resource Center, Bangor Schools
JC Roofing and Chimney Co.
Jackson Memorial Library
MPBN

Maine Film Commission
Maine Medical Center
Maine Osteopathic Education Fdn.
Maine State Library
New Hampshire Historical Society
Northeast Harbor Library
Prime Resource Center
Sea Grant Communications, Univ. of Maine
Simmons College Library
Sultan Technikon Library
Union Historical Society

Regular Members

Philip Abbott
Sieglinde Alexander
Joan Amory
Tom Armstrong
David Astor
James Austin
Jean Barrett
Deirdre Barton
Helen Beach
Rev. Curtis Beach
Henry Becton, Jr.
Paul & Mollie Birdsall
Lynne Blair
Richard Bock
Deborah Boldt
Nat Bowditch
Q. David Bowers
Donna Boyles
Richard Bradley
Ben & Joan Branch
John M. R. Bruner, M.D.
Raymond Burnham
Lynn Cadwallader
Mrs. Frederic Camp
Mary Grace Canfield
Robert Carnie
Michel Chalufour
Martha Chandler
Wallace Cunningham
John Davis
Peter DeAngelis
Clarence deRochemont
Josephine H. Detmer
Peg Dice
JeffDobbs

Broadcast Notes

A half-hour program on Maine's Mt.
Katahdin and Baxter State Park pro-
duced by Art Donahue aired on
Chronicle, WCVB TV Boston. It was the
highest-rated show for the November
ratings period. The program contained
footage from Northeast Historic Film
of Governor Percival Baxter in 1920 in
his state house office, and views of
typical fishing camps.

Earliest Maine Films
Erratum

Thank you to the rail fans who pointed
out that the jacket of a collection of
short Maine films transferred to video
contains an error. The train in Trout
Fishing, Rangeley Lakes (1905) arriving
in Bemis, Maine, is not narrow gauge.
The tender of the locomotive is lettered
"Portland and Rumford Falls," a stan-
dard-gauge line. H

Members, Your renewal date appears on the mailing label.
Not yet a Member? Please use form on page 7!

Robert Eggleston
John Ellingwood
Mrs. Anna Mary Elskus
Carroll Faulkner
Joseph Filtz
Janet Forbes
Joseph Foster
Robert Foster
Eugene Fuller
Kathy Fuller
Peter Gammons, Jr.
Roy Gauthier
Christopher Glass
Jim Goff
Douglas Gomery
Henry Grandgent
Terry Grant
Nancy Gray
Rynard Gundrum
Jim Hamlin
Pat Harcourt
Mark Henderson
Eric Herndon
Charles Hesse
Wendell Hodgkins
C. A. Porter Hopkins
John Howard
Stanley Howe
David Huntley
Douglas Ilsley
Ann Ivins
Margaret Jaffray
Jeff Janer
Shirley Johnson
Robert Jordan
Thomas Joyce
Dr. Susan Kaplan

John Karol, Jr.

Richard Kimball

Donald King

James King

Diane Lee

Stephen Lindsay

Bill Lippincott

Betty Ann & Donald Lockhart

Howard Lowell

Mrs. Russell MacGregor

Lily Marston

Wendy Matthews

Valerie Felt McClead

Alan McClelland

Judith McGeorge

Carl McGraw

Charles Ray McKay

Franklyn & Phyllis Mellen

Bruce Meulendyke

Hillery Mongelli

Betty & Hugh Montgomery

Francis Moulton, Jr.

John O'Brien

George O'Neill

Kathryn J. Olmstead

Dan Osgood

Tom Pears

William Petrie

James Phillips

Guy & Dianne Poirier

Robert Porter

Sandra Pottle

Charles Pritham

Elvie Ramsdell

Sally Regan

Dr. & Mrs. Edward Rendall

More members on page 6

Page 3

One Hundred Years: The Cook and Harris High-Class Moving Picture Company,

Itinerant Exhibitors in New England

by Kathryn H. Fuller,
PhD candidate, History, The Johns Hopkins University

Before the nickelodeon era, small
northern New England communi-
ties got their movie entertainment from
itinerant exhibitors like the Cook and
Harris High-Class Moving Picture
Company. B. Albert "Bert" Cook and
his wife, Fannie, of Cooperstown, NY,
travelled between villages in upstate
New York, Vermont, New Hampshire,
Maine and Quebec from 1904 to 1911
with a variety show format, featuring a
mix of brief films, music, sound effects
and song.

Bert Cook was a talented singer and
phonograph and magic lantern opera-
tor. Like other mechanically inclined
young entrepreneurs at the turn of the
century, he entered show business
through this new entertainment ma-
chinery. Fannie Shaw Cook was a
pianist and aspiring actress who was
willing to trade middle-class respect-
ability for the excitement of show
business.

By the fall of 1904, Bert and Fannie
saved enough money from performing
with other groups to purchase a Powers
film projector and "a nice lot of films."
They formed the Cook and Harris
High-Class Moving Picture Company,
with Bert as manager and projectionist;
Fannie as musical director, ticket seller
and treasurer; her brother George Shaw
as assistant projectionist and behind-
thc-screen sound effects creator; a
pianist; and an advance agent.

In 1905 their two-hour program
consisted of as many as 25 brief films,
such as Indians and Cowboys, Drama
in Mid- Air, Water Falls of the Rhine,
The Lost Child, Burglars at Work and
Fireworks in Color. Bert performed
songs "illustrated" with lantern slides at
intervals to break what they called "The
Monotony of a Whole Evening of
Motion Pictures." Ticket prices were 35
and 25 cents, with 10 cent admission for
children at matinees.

The advance agent travelled ahead
of the company to secure show dates
along the routes of railroad lines. The
agent approached each small town's
lodges, school- and church-groups to

sponsor the movie show, so as to win
the Cook and Harris Company local
acceptance. In return the supporting
organization could keep 30 to 50 per-
cent of the show's proceeds. As many
as half of the performances gained such
genteel sponsorship.

TO-NIGHT

HIGH CLASS EXHIBITION

HE HIGHEST GRADE EXHIBITION OF MOVING
PICTURES EVER PRESENTED.

photo: Library, New York Slate Historical Association,
Cooptrstown, NY

The Cook and Harris show was
primarily a family-oriented program for
conservative towns. When some prize-
fight films requested by a lodge in
Attica, NY, failed to materialize, the
organizer wrote, "We are just as well
satisfied as there would no doubt be
some objections in as small a town as
this to an exhibition of this kind and as
you know our Order will not stand for
anything that is not strictly O.K."

In six weeks of a typical winter tour,
the company played at opera houses or
lodge halls in 35 towns in Vermont and
New Hampshire. Local sponsors in
Vermont included Fairhaven's high
school seniors who were raising money
for a class trip to Washington, DC;

Proctor's baseball team; and the Ver-
mont National Guard.

The itinerant business was not easy.
Timid advance agents took "no" for an
answer too often from skeptical spon-
sors or opera house managers. They
faced competition from at least half a
dozen other itinerant showmen, and
Bert's expensive-to-purchase films
became outdated rapidly. An advance
agent complained to Bert from Middle-
bury, VT, in 1907, "I have no paper
[posters] to show the society and the
minute they see the San Francisco Fire
they give me a wise look, put their
tongue in their cheek and say no I guess
not. I lost Vergennes on account of not
having paper and the "S.F. Fire" [film
released May, 1906] has been there by
both [rival exhibitors] Howe and Fos-
ter."

On a personal level, the itinerant life
for Bert and Fannie Cook meant leaving
their young daughter with her grand-
mother in Cooperstown, living from
hand to mouth between profitable play
dates, and being labeled "show people"
by polite society. But the Cooks thrived
on their varied experiences, making
many friends along the way.

A family friend from Groveton, NH,
anticipated the future of film exhibition
in a note to Fannie after a 1907 appear-
ance, "Please tell Mr. Cook that I hear
nothing but words of praise for the
entertainment. One young man said, 'I
would go every night if it was here.' *

By 1910 itinerant show people in
New England villages of even 500 to
1,000 people faced competition from
local movie shows. Like most other
traveling exhibitors, Bert and Fannie
Cook in 1911 retired from the road and
operated nickelodeons in the Coopers-
town, NY, area until 1917. They re-
mained in the movie business into the
1940s.

The itinerant movie show of 1900 to
1910 represents a link between 19th-
century traveling entertainments and
the ubiquitous movie theater. Its legacy
in northern New England was the
establishment of an enthusiastic audi-

/> .r

The Maine State Archivist:
An Interview with James Henderson

Jim Henderson beads the Maine State
Archives, a bureau within the Depart-
ment of Secretary of State. He chairs the

' Maine Historical Records Advisory
Board and the Local Government
Records Board. A Ph.D. in political
science, he has been a professor at the
University of Maine and a member of
the Maine Legislature. He currently

) chairs the Steering Committee of the
State Historical Records Coordinators
for the United States.

What is a public archives?

Henderson: It's the place where the
permanently valuable records of
the government are kept, to document
how that government has executed its
public trust and to guarantee access by
the people to those documents.

fc What's the function of the Maine
State Archivist?

HThe State Archivist has the
responsibility for determining
which official State records are perma-
nently valuable, insuring that those
I records are not destroyed, preserving
those deposited in the State Archives,
and assuring public access to such
records.

Are there misconceptions about what
a historical record is?

I T T Yes! There are confusions about
JL JL media and time. The usual image

ence for the hundreds of nickelodeons
that dotted Vermont, New Hampshire
and Maine from 1910 to 1930.

Further Readin

"Shadowland: Middle Class Audiences and
the American Movie-Going Experience,
1900-1930," Kathryn H. Fuller, PhD disser-
tation, Johns Hopkins University, 1992.

"The Cook and Harris High-Class Moving
Picture Company," Courtney Burns, M.A.
thesis, SUNY Oneonta, Cooperstown Pro-
gram, 1988.

"Edwin J. Hadley, Traveling Film Exhibitor,"
Edward Lowry in John Fell, ed., Film Before
Griffith, 1983.

High-Class Moving Pictures: Lyman H.
Howe and the Forgotten Era of Traveling
Exhibition, 1880-1920, Charles Musser in
collaboration with Carol Nelson, 1991.

is the old paper document or book.
Some might concede photographs. But
all documentary material must be
considered: motion picture film, micro-
film, audio and videotape, laser disks,
computer tapes and disks.

A "historical record" is one that is
"permanently valuable" because of its
informational content. The computer-
ized court docket updated today is
already a historical record since it
contains permanently valuable informa-
tion not readily available elsewhere.

What is the significance of electronic
records and image media, and what
preservation problems do they pose?

H Electronic records are totally
dependent on the technology
with which they are associated.

Given the continuing changes in
technology, archivists are beginning to
concentrate on "migrating" the infor-
mation to new media, thereby preserv-
ing the information with less emphasis
on preserving the media.

What statewide activities have you
been involved with?

HThe State Archivist should, I
believe, support efforts involving
historical records in the broader
community. During the past several years,
the Archives have taken a leading role
in establishing the Society of Maine
Archivists, conducting the Maine His-
torical Records Assessment Project, and
coordinating the Statewide Preservation
Planning Project funded by the NEH.

What is the 1991 Historical Records
Assessment Report?

HThe Report, funded by the Na-
tional Historical Publications
and Records Commission (NHPRC),
documents the condition of historical
records in Maine, based on survey
responses from over 200 historical
societies, libraries, museums and local
governments and an assessment of State
government records.

Essentially, it concludes that records
held by small organizations and gov-
ernments are frequently stored in con-
ditions with little fire protection or
physical security. While most of the
custodians are highly motivated, they

are hampered by
other duties, lack
of resources and
little training.

A few larger
organizations
have a substantial
portion of all the
state's historical
records. While
they have professional staff and better
physical conditions, they are often
overwhelmed by demands of research-
ers and by the sheer volume of material.

The reports also focus attention on
new media. The preservation of elec-
tronic records, especially computer
records, is, in my opinion, an emerging
crisis.

What resources are available for
individual preservation projects?

HThe NHPRC funded the assess-
ment to provide a basis for award-
ing grants for the preservation and
archival management of historical
records in Maine.

The keys to a good proposal include
documenting the historical importance
of the records; assessing their condition;
and employing archival expertise in the
development of the project.

The report and guidelines for apply-
ing for NHPRC grants are available from
the State Archives, Cultural Building,
Station 84, Augusta, ME 04333.

What statewide actions would you
like to see in the near future?

HThe NEH-funded planning proj-
ect, in conjunction with statewide
associations of archivists, museums,
librarians and others, can provide the
basis for coordinated activities.

The current economic climate has
been very difficult for the cultural
community. Advocacy for restored
funding for preservation will be essen-
tial during 1992 so that in the future, as
funds are returned to various programs,
preservation requirements will not be
overlooked. H

Reference by Mail Collection

Members of Northeast Historic Film
are invited to borrow from the circulat-
ing reference collection of VHS video-
tapes.

New titles are being added all the
time. Call or write for an updated list!
Here are samples from the more than
40 titles available.

Note: PERF means public performance
rights are included. Where there is no
PERF, the tape is for home use only
and may not be shown to a group.

City Life

24 Hours, a professional dramatization with
music and narration of fire fighting in Port-
land, Maine. 1963. 27 mins., b&w, sd. PERF

Country Life

Ice Harvesting Sampler, five short silent
films showing a near-forgotten New England
industry. 26 mins., b&w, si. with titles. PERF

The Movie Queen, Lubec, a pretend movie
queen visits her home town in down east
Maine. 1936. 28 mins., b&w, si.

Early Film

All But Forgotten, documentary on the
Holman Day silent film company in Maine.
1978. 30 mins., col. and b&w, sd. PERF

Cupid, Registered Guide, a silly two-reeler
by Holman Day. 1921. 20 mins., b&w, si.
PERF

Fisheries

It's the Maine Sardine, catching, packing and
eating Eastport fish. 1949. 16 mins., col., sd.
PERF

Turn of the Tide, drama about a lobster
cooperative; from the Vinalhaven Historical
Society. 1943. 48 mins., col., sd.

Franco* American Life

Reflets et Lumiere: Pone Ouverte sur les
Arts, a program on the arts from an MPBN
television series on Franco- American culture
in Maine. 1982. 30 mins., col., sd. PERF
There are more than a dozen titles available
in this series.

Geography

Assignment in Aroostook, Loring Air Force
Base in northern Maine will close in 1994.
This orientation film shows the woman at
home, the sergeant at work, the family at
play. 1956. 27 mins., col., sd. PERF

Political Discourse

Margaret Chase Smith Speech, declaration of
intention to run for President. 1964. 17 mins.,
b&w, sd. PERF

John F. Kennedy Speech on the anniversary of
the Cuban Missile Crisis, October 1963 at

Univ. of Maine. 30 mins., b&w, sd. PERF
Sent with full transcript of speech.

Television

The Cold War; Transportation; TV Commer-
cials, three compilation tapes of stories from
the Bangor Historical Society/WABI collec-
tion. 40 to 50 mins. each; b&w, si. and sd.
PERF

Maine's TV Time Machine, the 1950s and
early 60s in news, sports and local commer-
cials from the Bangor Historical Society/
WABI collection. 1989. 34 mins., b&w, sd.
PERF

Woods

In the Public Interest: The Civilian Conser-
vation Corps in Maine, the federal work
program from Acadia National Park to Cape
Elizabeth. 1987. 58 mins., col. and b&w, sd.

Little Log Cabin in the Northern Pines,
amateur film of a young woman's hunting
trip near Brownville, Maine, with a profes-
sional guide, ca. 1930. 13 mins., b&w, si.
PERF

More NHF Members

Windsor Robinson

Charles Ryan

DeWitt Sage

Shan Saylcs

Ronald Schliessman

Mr. & Mrs. P. H. Sellers

Jennifer Sheldon

Nancy Sheldon

Gail Shelton

Ms. Pat Sherman

Harold Si Janet Simmons

Benjamin Bigelow Snow

Betty Stookey

Noel Stookey

Lynda Sudlow

Mr. & Mrs. Samuel Taylor

William Taylor

Dawn Thibodeau

Denis Thoet

Mr. &: Mrs. Charles Thompson

Amy Turim

Robert Tyler

Robert &: Julia Walkling

Mary Anne Wallace
Peter Wappler
Seth Washburn
Vern & Jackie Weiss
Bonnie Wilson
Jon Wilson
Carter Wintle
Brian Wood
Cynthia Wood
Bob Woodbury
Waldo Theatre, Inc.

Educator/Student Members

Albert Belanger
Jon Bragdon
Michelle Branigan
The Brick Store Museum
Carol Bryan
Prof. William Burgess
Richard Burns, Ocean Park Assoc.
Robin Clay

Carnegie Library, Good Will-
Hinckley

Dr. Richard Condon, Univ. of

Maine, Farmington
Joseph Conforti, Univ. of Southern

Maine
Alvina Cyr, Dr. Lewis S. Libby

School

Rudolph Deetjen, Jr.
Charles Ellis
Bernadette Friel, Schenk High

School
Phil Gonyar, Waterville High

School
Joe Gray
Cora Greer
Hanna Griff
Kevin Hagopian
Scott Herring
Thomas Wayne Johnson, Chico

Folklore Archive
Richard Judd
Janice Kasper, Penobscot Marine

Museum
Robbie Lewis

Dean Lyons

Sharon Merrill, Guy E. Rowe

School
Tim O'Keefe
Sanford Phippen
Harald Prins
Jo Radner
Paige Roberts
Mrs. Rowell, Fogler Library, Univ.

of Maine
Linda Seavey
Stonington Elementary School

Library
Juris Ubans
Dr. Richard E. C. White, Queens

College
Steve & Peggy Wight, Sunday

River Inn
Wendy Wincote

Page 6

NHF Membership

As an independent nonprofit organiza-
tion, NHF depends on its members. You
help us set priorities, you pass the word
about the significance of cultural pres-
ervation, and your dues help keep us
operating. Please join and renew!
Q Regular members, $25 per year,
receive a subscription to Moving
Image Review, notice of events,
loan of one reference tape at no
charge, and discounts on materials
distributed by NHF.
Q Educator/Student Members, $15
per year, receive all regular member-
ship benefits. This category is for
teachers and students at any level.

Q Associates (Individuals) and Cor-

porate Members, $100 per year,
receive the benefits of regular mem-
bers, special recognition in Moving
Image Review, and loan of five
reference tapes at no charge.

Q Friends, $250 per year, receive all
benefits of regular membership and,
in addition, loan of ten reference
tapes at no charge.

Membership at any level is an opportu-
nity to become involved with the pres-
ervation and enjoyment of our moving
image heritage.

Your dues are tax deductible to the extent
allowed by law.

To Purchase

Videotapes of New England Life
Call or Write for Catalog

Dead River Rough Cut, shot in
the backwoods of Maine with two
woodsmen-trappers. Described on
page 8. (55 mins.) $29.95/NHF
members $24.95.

Tales of Wood and Water, an out-
standing new documentary on
wooden-boat building and sailing
on the coast of Maine (60 mins.)
$29.95/NHF members $24.95.

To learn about other videotapes
available for purchase Huey's
Bonsoir Mes Amis on two Franco-
American musicians; Ice Harvesting
Sampler; the new edition of Earliest
Maine Films; and King Spruce, a
1940 pulpwood harvesting
documentary please call Libby
Rosemeier at 207 374-2736.

Membership and Order Form Northeast Historic Film, Blue Hill Falls, ME 04615 USA

Ordered by

Name

Address

City

State _

Ship to (if different from above)

Name

Zip

Address

City .
State

Zip

CH Please send a free catalog of
additional tapes available!

Payment Method
\ I Check or money order make check payable to Northeast Historic Film

D Visa D MasterCard Credit card #

Questions? Call Libby Rosemeier at (207)374-2736

Purchase

Qty.

Total

Q Special Fourth Class mail: add $2.00
plus $1 each additional item
Q Priority Mail: add $3.50
plus $1 each additional item
Q UPS: add $3.50 plus $1 each
additional item

Subtotal
Tax: ME residents add 6%
Shipping and handling

Reference by Moil/Members

ONLY

Titles):

$4 each.

Please see "NHF

number of tapes you may

borrow at no charge.

\ I Institutional purchase order #

Expiration date

Membership/ Specify level, please:

TOTAL

Credit card signature .

Page 7

NORTHEAST
HISTORIC

=11 M

ME 04*1*

41MUJ

Dead River Rough Cut

"Look How Bcavemh that Water
Looks Down in There"

"We lived nut like everybody else . . .
He just got plain skk of it and I did, of
the way people do things, that's all *

At first. Bob Wagg and Walter
u.:

and would visit each other, drink a b*er
and shoot the breese. As winter settled
in. they became inseparable compan-
iciu in a partnership full at hard work,

Since Nonhcast Historic Film's

^ ^ fouixling in 1986 DC*/ /truer /tog*
^ CM has been the most requested and

most eusive title. Now it is available
on videotape.

Work of Maine Independent*
It is an important example of work by
regional independent filmmakers Rich-
ard Searis and Stu Silverstetn.

To nuke what they call "A Woods
Film" they joined the men as they
shouldered pack baskets, took up nflcs
and trap* to travel the Maine landscape
on MOW shoes, snowmobiles, and

Wagg and Lane demonstrate con-
ventional and unlikely woods skills of
trappers: setting and emptying traps,
feeding wild birds, getting water, build-
ing a portable fire on the back of a
snowmobile.

Life and Death

The trappers share trenchant commen-
taries on life and death. This story is
told with scruffy poignancy: "I had a
dream the other night about these

beaver Here I had two of these

great big beaver I'd caught out of a
(towage and one little kitten. There was
two or three more in the flowagc and
they looked at me and they was all
pointing at me 'He's the one, he's the
one that caught our Mama and Daddy
and our little brother. He's the one!'
Oh. it made me fed so bad I woke up
and said I'd not trap any more beaver."
Dt*JRn*r Ro*gb Caf is a valuable
observation of rough backwoods life,
full of visual and verbal poetry and
some actual verse, too, in the form of a
recitation of The Cremation of Sam

Northeast Historic Film

MOVING

IMAGE

' REVIEW

The Alamo

Northeast Historic Film
P.O. Box 900, Main St.
Bucksport, ME 04416

Dedicated to the Preservation of
Northern New England
Motion Picture

Summer 1992

Executive Director's Report p. 2

Archival Notes: Accessions p. 2

Summer/Fall Calendar p. 4

One Hundred Years: Seaside Idyls .... p. 4
The Movie Queen, Middlebury p. 8

Moving Image Review is a semiannual pub-
lication of Northeast Historic Film, Blue
Hill Falls, Maine 04615. David S. Weiss,
executive director, Karan Sheldon, editor.
ISSN 0897-0769

The Alamo Theatre in Bucksport is one

~ of Maine's oldest standing structures
built as a cinema. At NHF's annual
meeting on May 2, board members
discussed the building's potential as a
headquarters for the archives.

Executive director David Weiss sum-

~ marizes, "NHF has reached the point
where a larger, integrated facility is
necessary. The Alamo has many of the
characteristics we seek: fireproof con-
struction, size and public accessibility."
The theater building is just off

_ coastal Route 1 on the Penobscot River
20 miles south of Bangor.

In May 1916, O. J. Hussey bought
land on the corner of Main and Elm
Streets. He and May Hussey erected a
90-foot-long brick building and called it

~ the Alamo Theatre.

What Kind of Name is That?
The original Alamo, a mission in San
Antonio, Texas, has popular culture
resonance beyond its religious and mili-
tary history. There have been many

) movies about the 1836 battle at the
garrison, one of which, The Immortal
Alamo (1911), was made in Texas by
the Melies Company. "It would be a
stolid audience indeed that failed to
respond to the thrilling scene inside

I the Alamo" (June 1911 review,
Motography).

There were Alamo Theaters in
Illinois, Georgia and Washington DC,
where, says the Theatre Historical

Society of
America, a 230-
seat Alamo
built in 1911
lasted until
1964.

Cinema
Heyday

In 1924 Arthur

Rosie bought

the Bucksport

Alamo and

continued to

run it with his

family as a

movie theater.

Bob Rosie,

Arthur's son,

was four when

his father moved

the family into the theater. He took

over the business after his father's

retirement.

Bob Rosie and his wife, newly mar-
ried in 1945, lived for six months in the
second-floor offices facing Main Street.
"We had matinees for kids with 14-cent
tickets," he recalls. "Fifteen-cent tickets
had a tax on them. The last movie we
showed was Godzilla in May 1956."

The auditorium had a floor that could
be angled for movies and cranked down
flat for dances. Bea Spurling of Castine
played the piano. "I played for dances
on that big floor. Afterward we'd go
across the street and have ice cream."

In the years since, the Alamo was by
turns a grocery store, fitness center, bar
and videotape store.

Bucksport Today

Now, its facade unchanged, the Alamo
gutted and silent faces the Penob-
scot River awaiting a new life. As Bob
Rosie says, "I think it would be fun if
somebody did something with it."

It is 20 miles from NHF's present
location, and for several years staff has
had an interest in the building and its
history. The property is scheduled for a
bank foreclosure auction on June 1 1 .

Executive Director's Report

A curatorial manual for the administra-
tion of television newsfilm and video-
tape collections is being edited by Steve
Davidson of the Louis Wolfson II Media
History Center, Miami, and Larry
Viskochil of the Chicago Historical
Society.

The manual will be written by
archivists from the field including Alan
Lewis, National Archives, on a history
of news-gathering formats, processes
and technologies; and Helene Whitson,
San Francisco State University, on
the arrangement and description of
collections.

Northeast Historic Film is contrib-
uting a section on outreach, which will
explore the philosophy and practice of
making collections known to various
publics.

The handbook has been made pos-
sible by a grant from the National
Historical Periodicals and Records
Commission.

Recent Users

The Nickelodeon cable service used
Bangor Historical Society/WABI foot-
age to promote a kids' time capsule
project. Country Kitchen, the Lewiston
bakery, ran a New England bread
commercial using footage from the
same collection.

The Chronicle series at WCVB TV
Boston produced a program on the
grange movement in Maine. NHF sup-
plied agricultural footage for Art
Donahue's excellent piece about the
programs and buildings of the grange,
which drew on a photography and
history project by Rose Marasco and
Elspcth Brown.

Computers

NHF is microcomputer dependent,
using word-searchable descriptions of
the collections that allow us to find
"time capsules" and other terms. Until
now we've existed solely in the DOS
world.

We're about to enter the world of
Macintosh computing, converting the
Bangor Historical Society/WABI data to
ProCitc for Mac files, which will be
available at the Bangor Historical Soci-
ety, providing further access and added
flexibility for users.

Archival Notes:
Accessions

This is a small selection of the film and
videotape that has recently come to the
archives.

The Maine Department of Inland
Fisheries and Wildlife donated 16 mm.
film from the 1960s and 1970s. Subjects
include the Allagash River, Narraguagus
salmon, waterfowl and large mammal
conservation.

More outdoor footage came in a
collection of sports and hunting films,
Outdoors with Bob Edge, which in-
cludes a moose hunt. A delightful piece
of unrelated ephemera accompanied
this collection a 1928 demonstration
of The Automatic Hamburger Machine.

NHF members John and Betty
Howard donated 1930s home movies of
summer on Lake Winnepesaukee, New
Hampshire, Camp Bonheurand Camp
Bonte.

The Knox County Camera Club
amplified the collection of 16 mm. film
with original notes from the production
of Knox County on Parade. This color
portrait of the Maine county was made
in and around Rockland in 1940 and
exhibited that year. It's an outstanding

Happy Birthday,
Danny Patt

Proud to be an octogenarian! Danny,
who began his career as a silent film
accompanist in 1924, has been selected
by the Maine Arts Commission for
their Touring Artists program, which
subsidizes performances for Maine
nonprofit arts presenters. Contact the
Maine Arts Commission, State House
Station 25, Augusta, ME 04333 for the
new Touring Artists directory.

In addition, a soon-to-be-acquired
laptop will help us bring our data on the
road for school and library research and
demonstrations^

amateur work including interiors and
people at work in the bank, newspaper
office and police station, as well as
excellent aerial views, street scenes and
railway-station footage.

In a 90-minute videotape transfer and
compilation, Bill Cross, Bob Monroe
and Jim Moore of the Knox County
Camera Club, with producer Peter Piik

KNOX* corny

DOCKLAND. MAINE

^-Orp

David S. Weiss
Executive Director

organized and narrated the material
so that it can be enjoyed by today's
audience. H

NHF Statement of Purpose

The purpose of Northeast Historic
Film is to preserve, and make avail-
able to the public, film/videotape of
the northern New England region.
This purpose will be carried out by
activities including, but not limited
to, a comprehensive survey of mov-
ing image resources of interest to the
people of northern New England;
the preservation of film/tape through
restoration, duplication, providing of
technical guidance and vault storage;
a touring program to bring materials
to audiences throughout the area;
and the establishment of a study
center, including resource materials
and reference copies of motion
picture films and videotapes.

Pag

Music to Everyone's Ears

Making moving images accessible to the
public is one of Northeast Historic
Film's responsibilities and greatest joys.
Videotape distribution is an important
source of revenue for the organization.

Video Advisory Board

NHF has an active video advisory board,
helping to select material to distribute.
The board looks for quality, relevance
to NHF's mission, and for content and
creators not otherwise covered in NHF's
list.

We're offered productions that are
really exciting. The board has reviewed
and selected videotapes like BonsoirMes
Amis by Huey, about two Maine musi-
cians, Our Lives in Our Hands by Karen
Carter and Harald Prins, and Tales of
Wood and Water by David Clark.

Music Woes

Our video advisory committee has
encountered difficulties on occasion
and has had to turn away tapes when

an otherwise worthy work about north-
ern New England life contains music
that the producer did not obtain the
rights to use.

If the producer "borrows" music
from records, tapes and CDs or re-
records songs without permission from
the publisher, the advisory board must
turn down the work.

Get Permission, Please . . .

So, if you're a producer or compiler
(amateur or professional) and intend to
distribute your work, it's imperative to
have permission to reuse music that has
been previously recorded. And if you
decide to record any piece of music not
in the public domain you must seek
permission from the composer and/or
the music publisher.

In the May 1992 issue of The Inde-
pendent, attorney Robert L. Seigel
outlines basic music rights and how to
go about obtaining them: synchroniza-
tion rights for adding music to your

piece; and performance rights for the
right to use it before an audience.

. . . Or Else

If your budget does not allow paying
for music licensing, consider alterna-
tives such as commissioning original
music from a composer; obtaining
easily licensed music from recording
studios which usually maintain libraries
of such recordings; or using environ-
mental sounds or silence.

ding

The Independent is a publication of the
Foundation for Independent Video and
Film, Inc., 625 Broadway, New York, NY
10012. 212 473-3400. Single issues may be
purchased for $3.50 plus postage.

This Business of Music, Sidney Shemel and
M. William Krasilovsky, Billboard Publica-
tions, Inc., 1985.

Media Law for Producers, Philip Miller,
Knowledge Industry Publications, Inc., 1990.

Broadcast Series
Wide Angle: Maine Film and Videc

A series of programs by Maine produc-
ers is airing weekly May 9 through June
27 on WCBB Lewiston.

WCBB staff producer Mark Ireland
put the series together for its second
year motivated by a recognition that
there were many different kinds of
work being done in the state that could
receive a wider audience.

To be selected, programs must fit
into a half-hour format. Some produc-
ers have chosen to present selection
from longer works, while short films
are often combined with other work,
sometimes by another producer. The
pieces are tied together by field wrap-
arounds with host Martin Andrucki.

Students and Others

The 1992 season opened with Women,
Children and AIDS by Tim Sorel, de-
picting rural women at risk for con-
tracting HIV.

Peg Dice, an independent filmmaker

from Brunswick who began her career
in film when she was in her 50s, pro-
duced Fence in the Water.

Rudy Burckhardt, a still photogra-
pher, artist and filmmaker now living in
New York, contributed Slipperella, a
fairytale of moccasins that journey to
Maine. Independents Yvonne Hanne-
mann and Don Moore are represented
with ethnographic work and a piece
about Maine
ghosts.

Students
are featured as
subjects and
producers:
The Univer-
sity of Maine
made avail-
able three
stories about
students and
alumni/ae;
character-

Peg Dice, independent
filmmaker

driven pieces about Maine artists were
produced by students at the Rockport
International Film and Television
Workshops.

The series will conclude with the
work of Bates College students Fawn
Johnson and Julie Morrison and profes-
sor Robert Branham Ella Knowles: A
Dangerous Woman, about a Bates
graduate, leading nineteenth-century
activist for women's suffrage, who was
the first woman lawyer in Montana.

WCBB-MPBN Merger
On July 1, 1992, WCBB in Lewiston
will merge with MPBN Bangor, the
state's other PBS affiliate. The combined
entity, MPBC (Maine Public Broadcast-
ing Corporation), will provide a state-
wide audience for next year's Wide
Angle: Maine Film and Video. Work
to submit for the 1993 season? Call
Mark Ireland at 207 783-9101.

Pas.

One Hundred Years: Seaside Idyls

"Let's go to Beach Plum Point. "

"Where is that?" asked Helen.

"It is down in Maine. Beyond Port-
land. And Mr. Hammond and his com-
pany are there making my Seaside Idyl.

"Oh, bully!" cried Helen, repeating
one of her brother's favorite phrases, and
now quite as excited over the idea as he.
"I do so love to act in movies. Is there a
part in that Idyl story for me?"

The Summer 1991 Moving Image
Review contained a "One Hundred
Years" column about the Motion Picture
Chums. The chums are male. Gregory
Sanford of the Vermont State Archives
in Montpelier called us to task for not
mentioning the Motion Picture Girls.

RUTH FIELDING
DOWN EAST

Well, indeed he's
right. There is a Motion
Picture Girls series,
published by the same
Edward Stratemeyer
syndicate. And there's
Ruth Fielding Down
East, too, in the Ruth
Fielding series from
which the quote above is
taken. In this 1920
novel, brought to our
attention by Kathy
Fuller, we read about
the theft of the youthful
screenwriter's scenario.

Summer Filming

Come summer, many
production companies head for seaside
spots. In Maine, cameras rolled in recent
years for Pet Sematary in Hancock; Bed
and Breakfast in Cape Neddick; Signs
of Life around Stonington and Blue
Hill; and Whales of August on Cliff
Island.

An earlier seaside idyl was Queen of
the Sea, a 1918 Fox Special starring
Annette Kellerman as a Little Mermaid
type offered mortal form if she rescues
four humans including Prince Hero.
Kellerman rehearsed daring aquatic
feats near Bar Harbor, thrilling the Mt.
Desert Island population. Directed by
John Adolfi, no copies of the film are
now known to exist.

The Motion Picture World reported
in 1912 that the Lubin Company sent
31 people for 14 weeks (summer, nat-
urally) to a fishing village . . . Cape
Elizabeth, near Portland.

Earlier still the Vitagraph Company

The Sailor's Sacrifice

led by director Lawrence Trimble pro-
duced a number of short films in 1909
and 1910 starring Jean the Vitagraph
Dog at Cape Shore, near Portland. One
of these, The Sailor's Sacrifice (1909),
leaves traces of what may have been
an off-camera summer idyl for the
players but on screen they suffered
the indignity of flying buckets of water
representing a rudimentary storm at
sea.

Summer Reading

NHF is always happy to receive dona-
tions of books and periodicals relating
to moving image media. Thanks for
recent gifts to John Stilgoe, Kathy
Fuller, Douglas Gomery and Q. David
Bowers.

We're particularly interested in
receiving fan magazines, scrap books,
clippings and other printed material
relating to movie exhibition. B

Summer/Fall Calendar

June 13 at 7:30 p.m. at the Saco River
Grange Hall, Bar Mills, Maine: Timothy's
Quest (1922), directed by Sidney Olcutt
from a story by Kate Douglas Wiggin.
With piano accompaniment by Danny
Patt. The hall was once the Riverside
Theater. Renovated by Patricia Packard,
it contains a 40-foot painted advertising
curtain, which is itself worth the trip.
Call 207 929-6472.

July 8 at the Weld Historical Society,
Weld Maine: 16 mm. screening of From
Stump to Ship: A 1930 Logging Film.

July 23 at 8:30 p.m. at the Claremont
Hotel, Southwest Harbor, Maine: The
Seventh Day (1921), directed by Henry
King, starring Richard Barthelmess.
With piano accompaniment by Danny
Patt. Call 207 244-5036.

August 6-9 at the Maine Festival,
Thomas Point Beach, Brunswick. Look
for us in the Maine Enterprise tent.

September 25-27 at the Common
Ground Fair, Windsor, Maine. Archives
selections will be shown in the annex,
next to the biggest pumpkin exhibit.

October 3-10 at the Farm Museum,
Fryeburg Fair. B

The Maine Folklife Center:
An Interview with Mary O'Meara

A native of Ellsworth, Maine, O'Meara
became associate director of the Northeast
Archives of Folklore and Oral History,
University of Maine, in the fall of 1990
and has been working with its director,
Dr. Sandy Ives, in developing the Archives
as the Maine Folklife Center. She received
her M.Phil, from Columbia University,
where she is completing a doctorate in the
Department of Anthropology. Her field-
work experience includes work with refu-
gees and also the basketmaking traditions of
Penobscot and Passamaquoddy Indians.
O'Meara chairs the Traditional Arts Panel
of the Maine Arts Commission.

What is the Maine Folklife Center?

O'Meara: It represents a merger of
two of Maine's oldest and most
prominent folklife organizations, the
Northeast Archives of Folklore and
Oral History, and the Northeast Folk-
lore Society, both founded in the 1950s
by Dr. Edward D. "Sandy" Ives at the
University of Maine.

Like Northeast Historic Film, the
Maine Folklife Center collects, pre-
serves and has a public service mission.

What is folklore?

O Folklore and folklife encompass a
very broad range of expressive
phenomena that have to do with tradi-
tionality. The making of folklore is an
ongoing creative process that counters
a popular conception of folklore, that
it is concerned only with the study of
disappearing traditions and passing
ways of life. In Maine we have strong
oral and artistic traditions associated
with Native peoples, descendants of
Colonial and immigrant populations,
and newcomers from such places as
Southeast Asia.

Maine's distinctive occupational
and regional traditions contribute to
our wealth of folklife. At the Maine
Folklife Center we hope to make the
public aware of the diversity of folklife
traditions which shape the collective
identities of Maine people today.

What media do you preserve?

We archive one of the largest and
most comprehensive assemblages
of regional folklife in North America:
tape recordings, transcripts of tapes,
manuscripts and photographs. The col-

lections are based on the tape-recorded
interview the primary means of record-
ing oral history and the documentary
photograph.

What do they contain?

OThe accessions comprise a wide
range of historical and cultural
subject matter relevant to Maine and
the Maritime Provinces of Canada.
Special collections include folk songs,
traditions of the Maine lumberwoods,
Native American legends and beliefs,
traditional medicine, women in the
Depression and World War II, labor
history, vernacular architecture, coastal
and maritime occupations and tradi-
tional arts and artists.

Students and other researchers par-
ticipate, and you collect and preserve.
How do you benefit the public?

OOur public programming wing
provides numerous opportunities
for making the archival materials acces-
sible to a broad public audience in
Maine and beyond through exhibits,
lectures, workshops, video and audio
tapes and festivals.

We hope to play a more active role
in focusing public attention on the
plurality of expressive traditions that
exist within Maine's borders and adja-
cent regions. Our recent radio series
on Maine's diverse musical traditions
and our approaching exhibit of Maine
women textile artists and folk art forms
reflect this priority.

A three-year National Endowment
for the Arts grant allowed us to hire
Teresa Hollingsworth as a Folklife
Coordinator. We have been able to
expand our instructional, reference and
consultancy services to the public and
are particularly interested in increasing
our resources to schools, libraries,
historical societies and other local
organizations in Maine.

What about publications?

OOur journal, Northeast Folklore,
is now in its 29th volume. Our
quarterly newsletter's next edition in
August will be the first to come out
under its new name, Maine Folklife
Center Newsletter.

Are there

similar

organizations?

We are

very

fortunate to
have close ties
with a number
of folklife pro-
grams else-
where in Maine. We enjoy a close
partnership with the Traditional Arts
Program of the Maine Arts Commission
under state folklorist Kathleen Mundell.
Our statewide folk arts survey is being
conducted under the NEA grant.

The recent establishment of the
Acadian Archives/archives acadiennes
at the University of Maine, Fort Kent,
has already begun to have a profound
impact on the celebration and study of
Maine's French heritage.

This summer we will sponsor a Folk
Arts Tent at the Maine Festival.

Our cosponsorship of the film From
Stump to Ship launched our movement
into public programming in 1985, and
we feel privileged to carry on our rela-
tionship with the staff of Northeast
Historic Film through the continuing
popularity of Stump and the other
folklife videos distributed by NHF.

How can people join the Folklife
Center?

UFor information about member-
ship, call or write. The Maine
Folklife Center is largely a self-support-
ing unit within the University. One of
the most important sources for generat-
ing operating revenues is through the
support of our members.

All current members of the former
Northeast Folklore Society will auto-
matically become members of the Maine
Folklife Center. Members receive our
annual journal; the quarterly newsletter
that focuses on folklife activities in
Maine, the Maritimes and elsewhere in
New England; invitations to events; and
discounts on some of our audio and
videotapes. B

The Maine Folklife Center, S. Stevens
Hall, University of Maine, Orono ME
04469.207581-1891.

Reference by Mail Collection

Members of Northeast Historic Film
are invited to borrow from the circulat-
ing reference collection of VHS video-
tapes. Here is a sample of the titles
available. For the full list of over 40

videotapes, please call or write.
Note: PERF means public performance
rights are included. Where there is no
PERF, the tape is for home use only
and may not be shown to a group.

Country Life

A Century of Summers, the impact of a
summer colony on a small Maine coastal
community. 1987, 45 mins., b&w and col.,
sd. PERF

The Movie Queen, Lubec, a pretend movie
queen visits her home town in down east
Maine. 1936, 28 mins., b&w, si.

Early Film

Earliest Maine Films, logging, lobstering,
canoeing and more. 1901-1920, 44 mins.,
b&w, si. PERF

Knight of the Pines, a North Woods Adven-
ture by Holman Day. 1921, 20 mins., b&w,
si. PERF

Fisheries

Turn of the Tide, drama about formation of a
lobster cooperative, from the Vinalhaven
Historical Society. 1943, 48 mins., col., sd.

Maine's Harvesters of the Sea, fisheries
including shrimp, cod and lobster. 1968,
28 mins., col., sd. PERF

Franco- American Life

Reflets et Lumiere: Porte Ouverte sur les

Arts, a program on the arts from an MPBN
television series on Franco-American culture
in Maine. 1982, 30 mins., col., sd. PERF
There are more than a dozen titles available
in this series.

Television

Maine's TV Time Machine, the 1950s and
early 60s in news, sports and local
commercials from the Bangor"
Historical Society /WABI collection.
1989, 34 mins., b&w, sd. PERF

Margaret Chase Smith Speech,
declaration of intention to run for Presi-
dent. 1964, 17 mins., b&w, sd. PERF

Woods

From Stump to Ship, a complete look
at the long-log industry from forest to
shipboard. 1930, 28 mins., b&w, sd. PERF

King Spruce, harvesting pulpwood, includes
horses and mechanical log haulers. Ca. 1940.
23 mins. col., sd.

To Purchase

Videotapes of New England Life
Call or Write for Catalog

Tales of Wood and Water, an out-
standing documentary on wooden-
boat building and sailing on the coast
of Maine (60 mins.) $29.95/NHF
members $24.95.

Dead River Rough Cut, shot in the
backwoods of Maine with two
woodsmen-trappers. (55 mins.)
$29.95/NHF members $24.95.

illustration: Rob Groves

Welcome, New Members!

Maine Historical:
Punchy Lunch Events

This winter the Maine Historical Society
in Portland took advantage of NHF's
Reference by Mail'service to run a
February lunchtime screening series in
the library.

Cindy Murphy, the society's mem-
bership secretary, reports, "It went very
well. We sent out a mailing to members
and about twenty people came for each
session. They especially enjoyed Maine's
TV Time Machine. It was a blast from
the past, and something they could
relate to."

Winter was a good time to do the
series, she felt. "It was a fun activity at
lunch time." B

Nonprofit Organizations
Border Historical Society
United Methodist Men

Regular Members
Kathleen Bean
Daniel Donovan
W. Fowler
Randal Grant
Sherman Howe, Jr.
John D. Lewis
John Mcllwaine
Alphonse Martin
Betsy Montandon
Robert Schyberg
Waldo J. Williams, Sr.
Edith Wolff

Educators/Student Members

George Sarns
Todd Mclntosh
James Morris

NHF Membership

Q Associates (Individuals) and Cor-
porate Members, $100 per year,
receive the benefits of regular
members, special recognition in
Moving Image Review, and loan of
five reference tapes at no charge.

Q Friends, $250 per year, receive all
benefits of regular membership and,
in addition, loan of ten reference
tapes at no charge.

Membership at any level is an opportu-
nity to become involved with the pres-
ervation and enjoyment of our moving
image heritage.

Your dues are tax deductible to the extent allowed by law.

From Stump
to Ship T-shirt

Small Number Available

100% cotton
$11.95/NHF members $9.95

Membership and Order Form Northeast Historic Film, Blue Hill Falls, ME 04615 USA

Ordered by

Name

Address

City

State _

Zip

I Ship to (if different from above)
Name

Address

City

State _

CU Please send a free catalog of
additional tapes for sale!

CD Please send Reference by Mail
list!

Payment Method

I I Check or money order make check payable to Northeast Historic Film
D Visa D MasterCard Credit card #

Questions? Call Libby Rosemeier at (207) 374-2736

Purchase

Qty.

Total

] Special Fourth Class mail: add $2.00
plus $1 each additional item
Q Priority Mail: add $3.50
plus $1 each additional item
Q UPS: add $3.50 plus $1 each
additional item

Subtotal
Tax: ME residents add 6%
Shipping and handling

Reference by Mail/Members

ONLY

TirleOV

$4 each.

Please see "NHF

Membership" above for
number of tapes you may

borrow at no charge.

I Institutional purchase order #
Expiration date

Membership/ Specify level, please:

TOTAL

Credit card signature .

Page

pholo: Thr SktUon M*Km

Middlebury, Vermont

NORTHEAST

HISTORIC

: ILM

fU.UH HILL KALIS MAINE
USA 04615 C07) 574-27)6

ADDRESS CORRECTION REQUESTED

The Movie Queen,
Middlebury

Yet another film entitled The Movie
Queen has been found! Polly C. Darnell
at The Sheldon Museum in Middlebury,
Vermont, contacted Northeast Historic
Film recently with news of a 16 mm.
film with that title.

Shot in the fall of 1939 to be shown
with a three-act play and sponsored by
the Middlebury Chamber of Commerce,
the film captures many of the local
citizens and activities of the town,
including a roster of churches.

Like the Movie Queen films made in
coastal Maine, it is a combination of a
tour of the town, followed by a kidnap-
ping plot, all starring local people.

We do not yet know whether this
film was made by the same itinerant
filmmaker, Margaret Cram, who came
to Lubec, Eastport and Bar Harbor,
Maine, in 1936.

Female Villain

While similarly constructed, this film
concentrates more on close-ups of
people and offers a new twist the
villain of the kidnapping plot is a woman,
"Marlena Slarbo," a jealous movie star
who leads a crowd of local businessmen
intent on removing the hometown
Movie Queen. Unlike the Maine films,
this one has campy intertitles, including
Slarbo's "Ha! Ha! Proud Beauty, you
are in my power."

Home Town Highlights

Featured are the Middlebury train sta-
tion (where the Movie Queen descends
from train with press agent in white silk
scarf and monocle); interiors of local
businesses including demonstrations of
a refrigerator and high-tech ice cube
tray; the College Restaurant, where a
waitress in wire rim spectacles takes
orders; and a Middlebury-Norwich
collegiate football game with a superb
white-sweatered male cheerleader
dwarfed by his megaphone.

Embedded in the film are indica-
tions that the Movie Queen is coming
home to the land of milk and honey: a
truck full of milk cans heads up Main
Street, and the Mraz apiary vehicle's
parade banner declares "She's Our
Honey."

Northeast Historic F i I

MOVING

IMAGE

REVIEW

Members Buy Historic Building
for Archives

Dedicated to the Preservation of
Northern New England
Motion Picture

Winter 1993

Executive Director's Report p. 2

One Hundred Years: Island Music p.4

Archival Notes p. 5

Winter Calendar p. 7

Videos of New England Life
Catalog p.9

Moving Image Review is a semiannual pub-
lication of Northeast Historic Film, P.O.
Box 900, Bucksport, Maine 04416. David S.
Weiss, executive director, Karan Sheldon,
editor. ISSN 0897-0769.

Responding to an urgent appeal, more
than 85 members and friends of North-
east Historic Film helped buy the
moving image archives its own building.
The Bucksport, Maine structure, built
as The Alamo Theatre in 1916, was
purchased at a foreclosure auction in
June, 1992.

The archives' successful bid of
$37,500 for its first bricks and mortar
won about 150,000 bricks, enclosing
10,000 square feet of space. As one
member said, "$37K looks like an
incredible buy for anything today."

Moving Day

The departure from Noel Paul Stookey's
Henhouse in South Blue Hill marked
six years' growth from a lO-ft.-square
office to two rooms with an unbeatable
view of Blue Hill Bay, now occupied by
WERU community radio staff.

It was not easy for NHF to say
goodbye to friends in the building at
River Music, Neworld and WERU, and
to possibly the world's best post office,
captained by Dolly Robertson.

But the frontier called, and the last
week of September saw George Rolles-
ton and Bob Rosie heaving file cabinets
up and down stairs.

Here We Are

Northeast Historic Film is on Main
Street, Bucksport, just off route 1. It is
about 20 miles from the airport in

Bangor, from Ellsworth and from
Belfast.

Bucksport is 120 miles north of
Portland, Maine. The post office is next
door; Federal Express and UPS come
every day.

Plans for the Building

Phased renovation will convert the 1916
cinema building into a home for the
collections and programs of northern
New England's only moving image
archives.

While the auditorium was gutted in
1956 to make room for an A&P, the
faade is intact, as are the original
manager's offices, the fly space and
projection room.

Archival storage for the growing
collections occupies a portion of the
first floor, while administrative func-
tions take place upstairs.

Plans include public screening
facilities with 16 mm. and video in a
temporary space this winter. I

Executive Director's Report

The purchase of the Alamo Theatre
building is perhaps Northeast Historic
Film's biggest step since founding in
1986. A culmination of growth and
development to date, it's also a new
beginning.

Gifts Are Crucial

I am tremendously grateful that our
membership responded to the purchase
opportunity. The $30,000 given or
pledged virtually overnight made the
acquisition possible in two ways:

1) NHF could not afford to take on
debt to buy the building without
donations and pledges.

2) Gifts from more than 85 members
and friends are a vote of confidence,
saying that NHF is worth support-
ing and its mission deserves to be
realized.

Three- Year Debt

To supplement the $30,000 in donations,
the board authorized me to borrow an
additional $25,000 from the Union
Trust Bank in a three-year loan. This
allowed us to pay the winning bid of
$37,500, meet closing costs of $2,500,
and budget $15,000 for immediate
repairs including a new roof. The
board is confident that the extra $25,000
can be raised. The first principal pay-
ment of $10,000 is due in July 1993.

Next on the List

We have heat, lights, a new film vault,
and a roof guaranteed for 20 years. But
there's a staggering amount left to do:
interior walls, exterior masonry, and
painting must be tackled soon.

Tons of film, video, books and equip-
ment need to be placed on scores of
shelving units which we don't have.

Our collections of film, videotape,
books and artifacts continue to grow.
If you doubt the urgent need for our
services, look at recent accessions. Before
we were officially moved in, NHF
received two new major collections.
We'll report on these and other devel-
opments in the next Moving Image
Review.

A Chance for the Future

NHF took a chance at the auction. We
stretched because real estate seemed at

Grants in Action

The Betterment Fund, created by the
will of William Bingham 2nd, has made a
grant of $5,000 toward the purchase of
equipment for the transfer of film to video-
tape. The Transfer Independence Project
helps NHF make 16 mm. film to 3/4-inch
and VHS videotape transfers at 15 frames
per second and add electronic titles.

This will permit creation and anno-
tation of reference copies of late 1920s
and 1930s home movies. The archives
holds more than 20 collections of home
movies of this era camera original
film containing important details of
home and work life.

A planning project for a traveling
exhibition, "Going to the Movies: 100
Years of Motion Pictures.in Northern
New England," submitted its final
report to the National Endowment for
the Humanities, public humanities
projects, in June.

Film scholar Tom Gunning com-
mented, "The project is on the cutting
edge of scholarly pursuits in film his-
tory and is not only educating the
public, but at the same time uncovering
new research materials."

The followup proposal for imple-
menting the exhibition, to interpret a
century of moviegoing from a social
history perspective, was rejected for
funding by the NEH in September.

Ten outstanding scholars partici-
pated in the planning process, demon-
strating notable commitment to the
scholarship, topic and form of "Going
to the Movies":

an all-time low. But to make the chance
pay off, we have to develop.

Our board needs to double; the level
of support from the board and mem-
bership must increase. Foundation and
corporate giving needs to accelerate,
along with earned income.

NHF has grown and won your sup-
port, yet all our efforts to date are small
compared to the real preservation and
public programming needs. Thank you
for the chance to pursue NHF's vision.

David S. Weiss
Executive Director

Gillian Anderson, music, Library of

Congress

Jere Daniell, history, Dartmouth College
Yves Frenette, history, Glendon College,

York University
Kathryn Fuller, history, Hampshire

College
Andre Gaudreault, history of art,

Universite de Montreal
Douglas Gomery, film studies, University

of Maryland

Tom Gunning, film studies, SUNY Pur-
chase
Chester Liebs, history, University of

Vermont
John Stilgoe, visual and environmental

studies, Harvard
Ronald Walters, history,

The Johns Hopkins University

Tevere MacFadyen, Main Street Design
Duncan Smith, Duncan Smith Associates
Darwin Davidson, photography
Judy McGeorge, computer consultant

Karan Sheldon, project director

Products of the planning process in-
clude more than 1000 records relating
to places where movies were shown in
Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont;
written testimony from more than 200
silent-era moviegoers; audiotapes, photo-
graphs and other artifacts relating to th<
changing social history of moviegoing
in northern New England communities,

The future of the project is under
consideration. I

NHF Statement of Purpose

The purpose of Northeast Historic
Film is to preserve, and make avail-
able to the public, film/videotape of
the northern New England region.
This purpose will be carried out by
activities including, but not limited
to, a comprehensive survey of mov-
ing image resources of interest to the
people of northern New England;
the preservation of film/tape through
restoration, duplication, providing of
technical guidance and vault storage;
a touring program to bring materials
to audiences throughout the area;
and the establishment of a study
center, including resource materials
and reference copies of motion
picture films and videotapes.

The Auction Honor Roll

These members and friends gave
generously to the fund that allowed
I Northeast Historic Film to buy the
Alamo Theatre building at a fore-
closure auction on June 11, 1992.

Norris & Margaret Austin

John D. Bardwell
) Henry Barendse

Otis J. Bartlett

Lynne K. Blair

Q. David Bowers

Mr. & Mrs. Benjamin C. Branch

Dr. & Mrs. John M. R. Bruner
' Mrs. Frederic C. Camp

Dr. Constance H. Carlson

Michel Chalufour

Bill Cross

Richard & Bonnie D'Abate
I Darwin & Jacqueline Davidson

Peter Davis

John & Peg Dice

Carroll & Ann Holland Faulkner

Kathryn H. Fuller

Peter T. Gammons, Jr.
) Deborah & Paul Gelardi

Faith Getchell & Glenn Jenks

D. Lea Girardin

Douglas Gomery

Green Hill Farm

Cora Coggins Greer

Jeanne H. & Randolph C. Harrison

Charles T. Hesse

Porter Hopkins

Stanley F. Howe

Edward D. & Barbara Ann Ives
I Robert L. Jordan

Mr. and Mrs. Richard W. Judd

Del Keppelman & Skip Sheldon

Richard A. Kimball, Jr.

Diane Kopec

Franklyn Lenthall & James Wilmot
* Chester Liebs

Ed & Sally Lupfer

Valerie Felt McClead

Alan McClelland

Patricia F. McGeorge

John T. Mcllwaine

Maher's Oil Burner Service, Inc.

Maine Osteopathic Association

Joan F. Meserve

Elizabeth J. Miller

Elizabeth B. & Hugh Montgomery
Richard E. Nopper, Beckett

Corporation
John A. O'Brien
Kathryn J. Olmstead
Alice H. Palmer
David & Sue Parsons
Howard B. Peabody
Ed Pert
James Petrie in Memory of

Louis de Rochemont
James A. Phillips, Jr.
Sanford Phippen
Prelinger Associates
Joan Radner
Connie & Ned Rendall
Windsor C. Robinson
Richard & Anna Roelofs
Robert & Venetia Rosie
DeWitt Sage

Robert & Elizabeth Saudek
Pat & Tom Schroth
Elliott & Dorothy Schwartz
Wendy Wincote Schweikert
Peter & Ann Sheldon
Noel & Betty Stookey
Lynda L. Sudlow
Suzanne & Samuel Taylor
William L. Taylor

Amy Turim & Larry Hershman

Mr. & Mrs. Charles R. Tyson, Jr.

Juris Ubans

Robert & Julia Walkling

Allene& Joel White

Drs. Sheila & Richard White

Steve & Peggy Wight

David S. Wildes

John Wilmerding

Pamela Wintle & Henry Griffin

Cynthia Wood

and Anonymous Givers

The urgent request for money to pur-
chase the building was answered within
days. Gifts ranged from $10 to $3,000
and came in the form of cash and three-
year pledges.

The auction of the building was
conducted on behalf of Casco Northern
Bank by the Keenan Auction Company
of Kingfield, Maine. NHF executive
director David Weiss noted, "The bank
understood the value of our nonprofit
cultural mission. Casco Northern
showed support for the community
and our goals, and they showed a
willingness to engage in a constructive
negotiation and guide us through the
process." B

Sold! Outdoor foreclosure auction.

Page 3

One Hundred Years: Island Movie Music

As part of our ongoing interest in how
movies were seen in northern New
England, we look at the history of
community interaction with motion
pictures, artistic participation by local
people, and the transportation that
made moviegoing possible.

Vinalhaven Island, Maine, (pop.
2,000) presents an outstanding example
of the significance of moviegoing to
community life. In the 1920s movies
were shown five days a week at Memo-
rial Hall. Fortunately for historians,
logbooks from 1914 to 1922 document-
ing the films shown and the theater
manager's accounts.

Island theaters were common in this
period, a time when steamers made
islands as accessible as mainland com-
munities. There were regular movies on
Peak's Island, Swans Island and
Islesboro. The Vinalhaven Historical
Society put Northeast Historic Film in
touch with Mr. Calderwood, now a
resident of Orinda, California.

Neil Calderwood in 1927.

You asked how I came to play for the
movies. The short answer is I was the
most versatile pianist available on the
island at that time.

Music Education

Vinalhaven was a very musical town
and had three piano teachers, all gradu-
ates of the New England Conservatory
of Music. I took lessons from Linda
Jones, who was also the town librarian.

by Neil M. Calderwood

I was schooled in the classics but also
played popular music, and had the
knack of improvising and playing by
ear. I started in 1918 when I was eight
and my grandfather paid Linda fifty
cents for the weekly lesson until 1922.
By that time I had accumulated an
extensive library of Etude music maga-
zines, sheet music, classical volumes,
hymns, but no specialized theater

music.

The Manager Comes Calling

Viv Drew, manager of the Memorial
Theatre, came up to the house one day
in 1922 and said that Arthur Brown, his
current pianist, was leaving town to
work at a bank in Boston; Would I be
interested in the job? The $7 a week
salary (later $9) was too good to turn
down and I accepted. I remember
playing "Song of India" and a Clementi
sonatina for him and then asking if they
would be suitable for the movies. He
agreed and I was hired at the ripe age
of 12 years.

A short time later I took the steamer
Gov. Bodwell to Rockland to buy some
music. Arthur Brown was aboard on
his way to Boston and I spent most of
the trip across Penobscot Bay quizzing
him on what to play. His advice was to
play something fast for the serials and
cowboys, something slow for the love
pictures, marches for the newsreels and
popular music for the comedies. This
was the extent of my training in theater
music.

The program at the Memorial
Theatre in those days was as follows:
Monday and Tuesday two reels of a
serial plus five or more reels of a fea-
ture. Wednesday and Thursday two
newsreels plus a feature. Friday and
Saturday two reels of comedies plus the
feature. The show started at 7 and
lasted somewhere between 8:30 and 9.
There were no matinees. Viv had only
one projector and there was a pause
when he changed reels.

Special Requests

For the first year or so I followed
Arthur's advice. It must have been
pretty awful, but there was no TV and

only crystal radio, and the customers
were hungry for any kind of music. I
can remember people stopping me on
the street and saying they were going to
the movies tonight and would I please
play "Till We Meet Again" or "Let the
Rest of the World Go By," or some
other current favorite.

One Tuesday night Viv came down
behind the screen shielding the piano
lamp from the audience and gave me
something called a cue sheet for the
feature the following evening. It con-
tained lines of script from the screen
followed by lines of music to set the
mood of the action. I had very little of
the music recommended, but plenty of
substitutes. Hence I was introduced to
the art of fitting the music to the action.
The problem was I could never depend
on having a cue sheet. Sometimes they
arrived a week after the feature had
been shown, occasionally a day ahead,
but much of the time not at all. This
forced me to memorize a vast reper-
toire of mood music which I could call

photo: VinaUjavfn Historical Society, Kim Smith

Memorial Hall, Vinalhaven

upon at a moment's notice as the action
changed.

Difficulties & Adventures
Sometimes the lack of a cue sheet was
embarrassing. I can remember in The
Covered Wagon a banjo player played
"Oh Susanna" many times. This was
one of the folk songs I did not know. I
improvised some banjo-sounding music

Page 4

and no one ever knew the difference as
far as I could tell.

Viv used to run the show rain or
shine as long as the boat brought the
film from Rockland. I can remember
one winter evening when a blizzard
piled the snow several feet high in the
streets. I made my way on snowshoes
through the drifts for the half mile or
so to the theatre and arrived on time.
Two hardy souls were in the audience
and the show went on amid the howling
gale.

Musical Influences

Sometime in the early 1920s vacuum
tube radios arrived on the island and I
invested in a Crosley 51, complete with
ear phones. I used to listen to the dinner
music from the Boston and New York
hotels just before I left for the movies,
and frequently I would hear a selection
being introduced which I could use in
the feature that night.

I recall hearing "In a Little Spanish
Town" introduced for the first time at
the Hotel Roosevelt in New York. The
feature that night was cast in Mexico
and I used the number as a love theme.
Thus the audience in Vinalhaven heard
the latest popular introduction on the
same evening as the New Yorkers.

Another recollection was the dilem-
ma of the Stars and Stripes waving in
the breeze which constantly occurred in
the newsreels of the day. The music
called for was obviously "The Star
Spangled Banner." If I played it the
audience was obliged to rise. Rather
than wearing them out getting up and
down I substituted "My Country 'Tis
of Thee."

Our Community Life

The movies were very well attended in
those days and the audiences were
well mannered. Much applause if they
liked the show but I never remember
hearing boos. Snacks were not sold in
the theatre, but several shops on Main
Street near the Memorial Hall sold
popcorn and candy bars which were
very popular.

During the summer several traveling
acting groups would visit the island to
sample the seafood and put on reper-
tory plays. I remember the Gladys
Clark group in particular. Some of the
dramas were excellent.

On special occasions the seats of
the main floor would be moved to the
side and dancing would take place after
the show to the tunes of the Orion
Orchestra.

Archival Notes

photo: Imai E. CtUtrwaod, The Saga of Hod

Horse and wagon, steamship convey film between theater and mainland.

The Movies

The Vinalhaven Historical Society is
recording interviews with other people
connected with film exhibition on the
island including Cleo Shields, daughter
of manager O. V. Drew, and accompa-
nists Leola Smith and Marguerite Adair.
The interviews will be recorded on audio-
tape and on 8 mm. videotape. Copies will
be donated to Northeast Historic Film.

Here are a few movies that made a par-
ticular impression: The serials, Eddie Polo
in Lure of the Circus, The Mexicans,
Liberty, the Harold Lloyd and Charlie
Chaplin features, The Covered Wagon,
and many Douglas Fairbanks features.
The most boring one I remember was If
Winter Comes. It went on interminably
and never seemed to make its point.

Silent Speed

Member Bruce Meulendyke, a licensed
projectionist, attended the Saco River
Grange Hall screening of Timothy's
Quest, a silent film (projected at 16
frames per second), and offered to
write a primer for NHF members on
the differences between silent-speed
projection and sound-speed projection.
His letter is excerpted here.

We all know that moving pictures,
whether projected onto a screen or
seen on the picture tube of a televi-
sion set, are a succession of still
pictures. These are shown so rapidly
in sequence that action appears to be
moving. The eye is fooled.

As long as both the camera and
projector show these separate frames
at the same rate, the picture appears
normal. In the early days, this speed
was [often] 16 frames per second.
When sound pictures were introduced,
the camera and projector speeds were
increased to 24 frames per second.
So whenever silent films were shown
with a sound projector, the action
was speeded up. Any motion which
should take one minute now took
only 40 seconds, a very significant
difference.

When television came on the scene,
there was another change in film
speed. The projection speed for the
TV camera and receiving set was, in
effect, 30 frames per second. Again,
as long as the camera and TV set
were operating together, there was
no problem.

The Elmo 16mm-to-videotape transfer
system purchased under the Bingham
grant transfers silent film at 15 frames
per second (two video frames for each
film frame). This electronic projector
does a relatively inexpensive and
compared with standard 24 fps machines
relatively more accurate job of repre-
senting the action originally recorded
by silent-speed cameras.

Page

Thank you, Current Members!

Check your mailing label. Your mem-
bership expiration date should appear
there. Save NHF a tedious and costly
mailing by sending your renewal check
now! Visa and Mastercard renewals are
welcome. If there's no date on the
address label, please turn to page 11
and join.

Friends

Ed Pert

Robert Saudek

Dr. David & Sylvia Smith

Lynda Tyson

Corporate and Associate Members

John Bragg, N. H. Bragg & Sons

Ben & Joan Branch

Darwin Davidson, Darwin K. Davidson, Ltd.

Marcia Fenn

Ernest & Kathryn Gross

Donald Hammond, Hammond Lumber

Company

Miriam Hansen, Univ. of Chicago
James Henderson, Maine State Archives
Franklyn Lenthall
Larry Lichty
Edgar & Sally Lupfer
Patricia McGeorge
Robert Mclntire, MaxMedia
Virginia Morgan
Charles & Charlotte Morrill
Henry Moulton
John Mucci, VisNet East, GTE
J. Gary Nichols, Maine State Library
Richard Obrey, three east communications,

inc.

Mr. & Mrs. Howard Peabody
Nancy Sheldon
Peter & Ann Sheldon
Eric von Hippel
Joel & Allene White
Pamela Wintle
Dr. & Mrs. Stewart Wolff

Nonprofit Organizations

Abbe Museum, Diane Kopec

Bangor Historical Society

Border Historical Society, Ruth Mclnnis

Calais Free Library, Marilyn Diffin

Cherryfield Narraguagus Historical Society,

Mrs. Margery Brown
City Theater Associates, Inc., Keith Peeler
College of the Atlantic, Marcia Dworak
George Stevens Academy, Bonnie Copper
Historic Preservation Program,

Univ. of Vermont, Chester Liebs
Indiana Historical Society, Stephen Fletcher
Instructional Resource Center, Bangor,

D. Averill

JC Roofing and Chimney Co., Jacques Cyr
MPBN, Bernard Roscetti
Maine Film Commission, Lea Girardin
Maine Historical Society, Elizabeth Miller
Maine Medical Center, Elaine Solesky
Maine Osteopathic Education Fdn.,

David & Kathryn De Turk
Maine State Library, Jack Boynton
New Hampshire Historical Society, Barbara

Austen

Northeast Harbor Library, Polly Cote
Prime Resource Center, Keith Leavitt
Simmons College Library, Periodicals
Sultan Technikon, Mr. A. Raju
Union Historical Society, Alison Metcalfe
United Methodist Men
Vinalhaven Historical Society

Regular Members

Philip Abbott

Sieglinde Alexander

Joan Amory

Tom Armstrong

James & Esther Austin

Jean Barrett

Deirdre Barton

Rev. & Mrs. Curtis Beach

Phyllis & Bob Beallor

Kathleen Bean

Henry Becton, Jr.

Paul & Mollie Birdsall

Esther J. Bissell

Lynne Blair

Richard Bock

Deborah Boldt

Nat Bowditch

Q. David Bowers

Donna Boyles

John M. R. Bruner, M.D.

Raymond Burnham

Lynn Cadwallader

Mrs. Frederic Camp

Mary Grace Canfield

Dr. Constance Carlson

Robert Carnie

Michel Chalufour

Alicia Condon & Bill Gross

Clarence deRochemont

Josephine Detmer

Peg Dice

JeffDobbs

Daniel Donovan

Bob Eggleston

John Ellingwood

Mrs. Anna Mary Elskus

Carroll Faulkner

Joseph Filtz

Kent & Janet Forbes

Joseph Foster

Robert Foster

W. Fowler

Eugene Fuller

Kathy Fuller

Peter Gammons, Jr.

Roy Gauthier

John Gfroerer

Christopher Glass

Jim Goff

Martha Goldner

Douglas Gomery

Henry & Gail Grandgent

Randal Grant

Terry Grant

Nancy Gray

Jim Hamlin

Pat Harcourt

Roy V. Heisler

Rand Herbert

Eric Herndon

Charles Hesse

C. A. Porter Hopkins

John Howard

Stanley Howe

Sherman Howe, Jr.

David Huntley

Douglas Ilsley

Ann Ivins

James Jaffray

Jeffjaner

Robert Jordan

Thomas Joyce

Dr. Susan Kaplan

John Karol, Jr.

Richard Kimball, Jr.

James King

Ernest Knight

John Lewis

Stephen Lindsay

Bill Lippincott

Betty Ann & Donald Lockhart

Howard Lowell

Alphonse Martin

Wendy Matthews

Valerie Felt McClead

Alan McClelland

Judith McGeorge

Carl McGraw

John Mcllwaine

Charles Ray McKay

Franklin & Phyllis Mellen

Bruce Meulendyke

Faith Moll

Hillery Mongelli

Betsy Montandon

Betty & Hugh Montgomery

Francis Moulton, Jr.

John O'Brien

George O'Neill

Kathryn Olmstead

Glenn & Joy Olson

More members on page 8

Honors and Awards

Winter Calendar

Folklorists Choose Program

The American Folklore Society selected
I Woodsmen and River Drivers: "Another
day, another era" for public screening
during the annual meeting of the soci-
ety in Jacksonville, Florida, October 15.

The half -hour program, distributed
by NHF, was written and produced by
I NHF staff for the Maine Folklife Center,
University of Maine. It was funded by
the Maine Humanities Council and
Champion International Corp.

PBS Air, Coast to Coast

The production was selected for air on

| more than 80 public television stations
nationwide beginning in May 1992.

Response to the program has come
from viewers far and wide, indicating
that the program has resonance for
people interested in forest heritage from

| one end of the country to the other.

One letter opened, "Greetings from
Spokane: Having experienced the thrills
and hardships of river driving and
having seen your superb video I am
desirous of obtaining a copy. . . . My

) river work was done in the state of
Washington, but what I saw in the
video convinced me that river driving is
much the same anywhere."

The letter went on, "Our local TV
station is again showing that great video

\ and I plan to watch it again. In it I can
see in my mind's eye, myself and my
father, who was a Wisconsin river driver
and woodsman." Walter A. Carriveau.

History Award

The New England Historical Association
' honored the program with its annual
Media Award, presented on October
17 at Rhode Island College. Susan D.
Pennybacker, department of history,
Trinity College, chaired die NEHA Media
Awards Committee.

I The award this year is shared with

The Massachusetts 54th Colored Infantry,
produced and directed by Jacqueline
Shearer for the WGBH TV series The
American Experience.

Producers of Woodsmen and River
> Drivers are honored to be selected for
recognition by the regional organiza-
tion of academics, teachers, students
and independent scholars whose work
lies in the discipline of history.

November 7, Society of Maine Archi-
vists meeting at University of Maine,
Lewiston, 1:15 p.m. As part of a pro-
gram on documenting and preserving
Maine's ethnic heritage, NHF will
make a presentation on film and video
preservation. For more information,
Dianne M. Gutscher, curator of Special
Collections, Bowdoin College Library.
207 725-3288.

November 15, Loranger School, Old
Orchard Beach, 2 p.m. Organ recital
and film accompaniment by Danny
Part: newsreels and Cupid, Registered
Guide. Pine Tree Chapter, American
Theater Organ Society. Dorothy
Bromage, 19 Union St., Biddeford,
Maine 04005.

November 16, Yarmouth Historical
Society, 7:30 p.m. "A Century of Maine
Movies," a video summary of the state's
moving image history. Marilyn Hinkley,
Yarmouth Historical Society, Main
Street, PO Box 107, Yarmouth, Maine
04096. 207 846-6259.

January & February, Northeast
Historic Film, Main Street, Bucksport,
Maine, Wednesdays at 7:30 p.m. Pro-
gram themes will include the sea, for-
estry, comedy, serial adventures and
politics. Feed: A Comedy about Run-
ning for President (1992), Kevin
Rafferty & James Ridgeway's behind-
the-scenes look at the candidates in the
New Hampshire primaries, will be one
of the films in an informal screening
program. Thank you Kevin Rafferty
and Tom Prassis, Original Cinema for
helping us inaugurate our building. For
the full schedule, contact NHF.

January 14, Gould Academy, Bethel,
Maine, 7:30 p.m. Timothy's Quest
(1921), silent film made in Maine with
live accompaniment by Danny Part.
Gould Performing Arts Series, PO Box
860, Bethel, Maine 04217. 207 824-3575.

February 16, Maine State Museum,
Augusta, 7 p.m., "The Baxters of Maine,"
lecture by Neil Rolde will include
footage of Governor Percival Baxter
appearing in a 1920
dramatic film from
NHF's Everett Foster
Collection.

March 2, Maine
State Museum,
Augusta, 7 p.m. Way
Back Home (1932)
comedy with Bette
Davis. For more
information, Denis
Thoet, Maine State
Museum, Augusta,
Maine 04333.
207289-2301.

photo: Everett Fatter Collection

Gov. Percival Baxter appears in a Holman Day production.

More NHF Members

continued from p. 6

Dan Osgood

Patricia Packard

Hilda Paul

William Petrie

James Phillips

Sandra Pottle

Charles Pritham

Elvie Ramsdell

Sally Regan

Dr. & Mrs. Edward Kendall

Windsor Robinson

George Rolleston

Charles Ryan

Dewitt Sage

Shan Sayles

Ronald Schliessman

Wendy Wincote Schweikert

Robert Schyberg

Mr. & Mrs. P. H. Sellers

Jennifer Sheldon

Gail Shelton

Harold & Janet Simmons

Benjamin Bigelow Snow

John S. Stillman

Betty & Noel Stookey

Lynda Sudlow

Mr. & Mrs. Samuel Taylor

William Taylor

Denis Thoet

Cathy & Charles Thompson

Robert Tyler

Mrs. Joanne Van Namee

Waldo Theatre Inc.

Robert & Julia Walkling

Mary Anne Wallace

Peter Wappler

Seth Washburn

Vern& Jackie Weiss

Lisa Whitney

Mr. Waldo Williams, Sr.

Bonnie Wilson

Jon Wilson

Carter Wintle

Edith Wolff

Brian Wood

Cynthia Wood

Bob Woodbury

Educator/Student Members

Albert Belanger

Jon Bragdon

Michelle Branigan

The Brick Store Museum

Carol Bryan

Prof. William Burgess

Richard Burns, Ocean Park Association

Carnegie Library, Good Will-Hinckley

School

Gwendolyn Clancy
Robin Clay

People Who Helped

Amos Wilder, a student at New England Alamo building, and bartending for the

College, Henniker, NH, interned over
the summer,
assisting with
cataloguing,
cleanup at the

August 22 open house.

Denise Eames and Christy Seekins,
participants in Summer Youth Education
and Training, came to NHF through the
Training and Development Corporation
summer program. They waded into
renovation work through the rough-
est part of the debris removal.

Jim Austin, Mark Austin, Judy
McGeorge, David Williams, Bob
Rosie, Dana Leighton, Harold Gray
and many others helped get the
building ready for October 1 .

Robert and Venetia Rosie, happy to
see NHF in the building they ran as
a theater.

Dr. Richard Condon, Univ. of Maine at

Farmington
Joseph Conforti, New England Studies,

Univ. of Southern Maine
Alvina Cyr, Dr. Lewis S. Libby School
Rudolph Deetjen, Jr.
Bernadette Friel, Schenk High School
Francis Frye '
Charles Ellis
Joe Gray

Gray-New Gloucester Middle School Library
Cora Greer
Hanna Griff
Thomas Wayne Johnson, Chico Folklore

Archive
Richard Judd

Janice Kasper, Penobscot Marine Museum
Jim Laukes
Robbie Lewis
Dean Lyons
Todd Mclntosh, Rockland District Middle

School

James Morris, Pocono Mountain High School
Tim O'Keefe
Sanford Phippen
Jo Radner
Ms. Paige Roberts

Mrs. Rowell, Fogler Library, Univ. of Maine
George Sarns, Traverse City Area Public

Schools
Linda Seavey
John Somerville
Juris Ubans

Dr. Richard E. C. White, Queens College
Steve & Peggy Wight, Sunday River Inn H

Like a library, Northeast Historic Film
cares for reference materials, primarily
films and videotapes, and makes them
available to the public.

Founded in 1986, NHF safeguards more
than 3 million feet of film and thousands
of hours of videotape.

Northeast Historic Film is a nonprofit
organization. It is supported by indi-
vidual and institutional members,
corporate donations, grants, and fees
for programs and services.

Individuals and organizations are in-
vited to join NHF to help support the
preservation of the region's culture and
history.

Last year Mrs. James F. Jaffray of
Blue Hill gave a party a dinner at
her house and a screening from
NHF collections to introduce some
of her friends to Northeast Historic
Film. One of our first members, her
kindness and enthusiasm for NHF's
enterprise buoyed our efforts. Margie
Jaffray passed away in September and
will be much missed.

Page 8

Videos of New England Life

Railroads! Traditional Crafts! Sailing!
Lumbermen! Agriculture! Rural Life! Early TV!

Dead River Rough Cut

Shot in the backwoods of

Maine over the course of a

year, this film documents the

lives and harsh philosophies

of two woodsmen-trappers,

rough language and all. It

evokes the harmony between

their lifestyles and the natural

beauty of their surroundings. A film by Richard Searls and Stuart

Silverstein. 55 min., color, sound.

$24.95/NHF members $19.95

Woodsmen and River Drivers:
"Another day, another era"

Unforgettable individuals who
worked for the Machias Lumber
Company before 1930 share
their recollections of a hard life.
An intimate view of camp life
and the dangers and discomforts
of life in the woods and on the
rivers. Winner, International
Film & TV Festival gold medal
and New England Historical
Association Media Award. 30
min., color and b&w, sound.

$19.95/NHF members $16.95

Legends of American Skiing

This video is a documentary of ]
the history of North American
skiing, bringing together still
photos, period music, and film
dating back to 1916. Authentic
thrilling footage that preserves
the birth of one of America's
greatest sports. 80 min., color
and b&w, sound.

$29.95/NHF members $24.95

All But Forgotten

Career of 1920s Maine author and film producer Holman Francis
Day. 30 min., color and b&w, sound.

$14.95/NHF members $12.95

Tales of Wood & Water

Documentary on Maine's wooden boat culture visits boat yards
large and small.
Modern cold-molding
techniques for con-
structing a mahogany
speedboat and an
elegant yacht contrast
with 1919 footage of
the launching of the
four-masted schooner
Doris Hamlin in
Harrington, Maine.

60 min., color, sound.

$29.95/NHF members $24.95

Earliest Maine Films

Drawing a Lobster Pot

(1901) is the earliest surviving
film known to have been shot
in Maine. (15 sec.)
Trout Fishing, Rangeley Lakes (1906) shows sports arriving by
train and steamer, a typical Rangeley camp and guests in three-
piece suits catching trout. (9 min.)

Canoeing in Maine (1906) shows a Moosehead Lake canoe trip,
with steamboats, fishing, and lake and river canoeing. (9 min.)

Logging in Maine (1906) shows men working to prevent a
logjam on a river. (13 min.)

The How and Why of Spuds, techniques and equipment of
potato farming in Aroostook County in 1920. (13 min.)

Total length 44 min., b&w, silent with titles.

$16.95/NHF members $14.95

From Stump to Ship:
A 1930 Logging Film

The most complete look at the
long-log industry includes fell-
ing trees in winter with cross-cut saws, the spring river drive and
work in a steam-powered mill. Original 1930 script spoken by
humorist Tim Sample. Project won the American Association for
State and Local History award of merit. 28 min., b&w, sound.

$19.95/NHF members $16.95

An Oral Historian's Work with Dr. Edward Ives

Skills and techniques of an oral history project demonstrated by a
world's authority. 30 min., color, sound.

$39.95/NHF members $34.95

Page

Ride the Sandy River Railroad

From the 1870s to 1935 the
Sandy River Railroad in Maine
was one of the country's best
two-foot-gauge railroads. Very
clear and complete views of the
Sandy River Line with engines,
railbuses and snowplows.
30 min., b&w, silent with titles.
$24.95/NHF members $19.95

Around Cape Horn

In 1929 the last great days of
commercial sail were passing.
During that year Capt. Irving
Johnson sailed aboard the
massive bark Peking. He filmed
the crew's daily activities and
spectacular scenes from high
aloft during a storm rounding
Cape Horn, and narrated the
film. 37 min., b&w, sound.

$24.95/NHF members $19.95

Bonsoir Mes Amis

A video by Huey, this film is a portrait of the lives of two of
Maine's finest traditional Franco-American musicians, Ben
Guillemette and Lionel "Toots" Bouthot. 46 min., color, sound.

$29.95/NHF members $24.95

Our Lives in Our Hands

Micmac tribespeople in
Aroostook County have
relied on basketmaking and
migrant seasonal labor for
subsistence since the mid-
1800s. Members of the
Aroostook band of Micmac
Indians have formed a
cooperative to find wider
markets for their native
craft. 50 min., color, sound.

$24.95/NHF members $19.95

Note: This videotape is available from NHF for home use only. Schools and other
institutions needing public performance rights please contact DER at (617) 926-
0491.

Mount Washington
among the Clouds

An early history of Mt. Wash-
ington, 1852-1908. A portrayal
of life at the top: the hotels,
newspaper, and building of the
cog railway. 30 min., color,
sound.

$24.95/sorry, no member discount

Yachting in the 30s

Weetamoe, a 1930 film of the Herreshoff-built J-boat and other
short films. 45 min., color and b&w, sound.

$19.95/NHF members $16.95

King Spruce

A circa 1940 look at pulpwood harvesting and river driving.
23 min., color, sound.

$14.95/NHF members $12.95

A Century of Summers

Alternating between old footage and modern interviews, this
video explores the lives of both summer and native residents of
the town of Hancock. 45 min., color and b&w, sound.

$19.95/NHF members $16.95

The Ways at Wallace and Sons and The Bank Dory

The building of ihejohn F. Leavitt and of a Nova Scotia dory.
58 min., color, sound.

$24.95/NHF members $19.95

Ice Harvesting Sampler

Five short silent films from the 1920s-1940s showing a near-
forgotten New England industry. 26 min., b&w, silent with titles.

$14.95/NHF members $12.95

Norumbega: Maine in
the Age of Exploration
and Settlement

This videotape examines the
history of the region called
Norumbega, from the first
voyages of European exploration
in the late 1400s to the establish-
ment of the state of Maine in
1820. Originally a multi-image slide show used in statewide
public programs, this video is a fast-paced introduction to early
Maine history. 14 min., color, sound.

$19.95/NHF members $16.95

Maine's TV Time Machine

A compilation from
Maine's oldest TV
station, WABI-TV, in-
cluding television news,
sports and local com-
mercials from the 1950s
and early 1960s. A view
of regional culture in the
Cold War period never
before possible. Nar-
rated by veteran radio and TV journalist George Hale. Includes
12-page booklet identifying each story. Call for information on
lesson plans! 34 min., b&w, sound.

$14.95/NHF members $12.95

Page 10

The Essential Library of
Videos of New England Life

Nonprofits, build your collection. Buy 6 or more
tapes and get 50% off the regular price.

Choose from all 21 of NHF's titles. A sample
selection:

Q From Stump to Ship $9.98
Q Earliest Maine Films $8.48
Q Dead River Rough

Cut $14.98
Q Legends of American

Skiing $14.98
Q Woodsmen and River

Drivers $9.98
Q Around Cape Horn $12.48

Join Northeast Historic Film

as a nonprofit member for just $35.

Buy 6 tapes and save!

Your membership brings big
savings and

other benefits:

Q newsletters

a technical services
a Reference by Mail

NHF Membership

As an independent nonprofit
organization, NHF depends on its
members. You help us set priori-
ties, you pass the word about the
significance of cultural preserva-
tion, and your dues help keep us
operating. Please join and renew!

Regular members, $25 per year,
receive a subscription to Moving
Image Review, notice of screenings
and events, loan of one reference
tape at no charge, and discounts on
materials distributed by NHF.

Educator/Student Members, $15
per year, receive all regular member-

Offer good through Mrch 31, 1993

Reference by Mail

Members of Northeast Historic
Film are invited to borrow from
the circulating reference collec-
tion of Videos of New England
Life. For the list of over 40
videotapes, please call or write.
Many organizations histor-
ical societies, libraries, schools
use tapes from the Reference by
Mail collection for public
programs.

ship benefits. This category is for
teachers and students at any level.

Nonprofit Organizations, $35 per
year, receive all regular benefits of
membership, including loan of one
reference tape at no charge, plus
additional copies of Moving Image
Review on request and reduced rates
for consultation, presentations and
professional services. See offer at left
for big videotape savings.

Associates (Individuals) and Corpo-
rate Members, $100 per year, receive
the benefits of regular members,
special recognition in Moving Image
Review, and loan of five reference
tapes at no charge.

Friends, $250 per year, receive all
benefits of regular membership and,
in addition, loan of ten reference
tapes at no charge.

Membership at any level is an
opportunity to become involved
with the preservation and enjoy-
ment of our moving image
heritage.

Your dues are tax deductible to the
extent allowed by law.

Membership and Order Form

Ordered by

Northeast Historic Film, P.O. Box 900, Bucksport, ME 04416 USA

Name

Address
City

State -

Ship to (if different from above)

Zip

Name

Address
City _
State _

Zip

Purchase

Qty.

Total

Q Special Fourth Class mail: add $2.00 Subtotal
plus $1 each additional item Tax; M residems ad(J 6%
Q] Priority Mail: add $3.50
plus $1 each additional item Shipping and handling

Q UPS: add $3.50 plus $1 each
additional item

Please send Reference by Mail
list!

Membership /Specify level, please:

TOTAL

Payment Method

I I Check or money order make check payable to Northeast Historic Film

d Visa D MasterCard Credit card #

I I Institutional purchase order #
Expiration date

Questions? Call Libby Rosemeierat (207) 469-0924

Credit card signature .

Page 11

From 1920s film in the Michael J. Bernard Collection

Potato Barrels Transported from Farm to Town in Presque Isle, Maine.

NORTHEAST

HISTORIC

-LM

BUCKSPORT, MAINE, USA
04416-0900 (207) 469-0924

ADDRESS CORRECTION REQUESTED

Northern Maine Movies

Aside from a single title at the National
Archives, surviving film of northern
Maine's rural economy before 1930 has
been unknown.

In September, a Presque Isle, Maine
theater owner, Michael J. Bernard,
donated two reels of Aroostook County
agricultural life to Northeast Historic
Film.

Potato and Apple Harvest, and
Hunting contains horse-drawn carts
carrying potato barrels to in-town
storage, and fields under cultivation and
harvest. Intertitles increase the values of
the views by identifying places and
activities, e.g., "Riverside Farm, largest
seed farm in Maine, produces 50,000
bushels annually, Hoyt and Wheeler,
props."

Orchard footage of men and women
participating in the Aroostook County
apple harvest is followed by street
scenes in Presque Isle.

The reel concludes with promotion
for hunting lodges including the Daunt-
less and Shamrock Camps with guides,
sports and their dogs.

A second reel, Northern Maine Fair,
Presque Isle, 1928, was locally produced
by the Frontier Film Co., Fort Fairfield,
Maine, with photography by C. W.
Benjamin. The film features Governor
Brewster and fair exhibits. Automobile
transportation was a cause for pride, as
views of parked cars are marked by the
tide, "How's this for a parking ground?"
Nitrate deterioration has claimed por-
tions of the reel.

The 35 mm. films are slated for copy-
ing to safety stock. The lab work alone
will cost around $4,000. Funds in support
of this preservation work will be sought
from state and federal grant programs.
At least 50% in matching funds from
other sources will be required.

I Northeast Historic Film

MOVING

IMAGE

REVIEW

Dedicated to the Preservation of
Northern New England
Motion Picture

Summer 1993

Executive Director's Report -p. 2

Summer Calendar p. 3

One Hundred Years: The Concord

Theater, NH ..p. 4

New Reference by Mail Videos p. 6

Moving Image Review is a semiannual pub-
lication of Northeast Historic Film, P.O.
Box 900, Bucksport, Maine 04416. David S.
Weiss, executive director, Karan Sheldon,
editor. ISSN 0897-0769.

Film and Video Collections Update

Donations received in the last few
months ranged from two 190607
Pathe films, Aladdin and Sambo as
Footman, to a 1993 Hi-8 videotape of
Partridge Drug Store's last day.

The collections since the start of the
year represent 265,000 ft. of film and
220 hours of tape.

The Pathe tides, projected outdoors
in a Manchester, NH, neighborhood,
relate to NHF's community movie-
going research and will be preserved
by a major archives. The other acces-
sions are part of NHF's mission to
collect northern New England moving
images.

Known for Public Programs

To make these moving images accessible
many of the organization's resources go
toward public programs: community
screenings, and workshops, videotape
distribution (sales and loan to members
through Reference by Mail), and
research services.

Exciting New Building
Since July 1992, when NHF purchased
the 1916 Alamo Theatre building as a
headquarters, the board, staff, volun-
teers and members have been helping
plan the long-term future of the organi-
zation. The building was an abandoned
shell. Envisioning it as a lively regional
center for the century's media requires
imagination and a new level of strategies
and resources.

Collections, the Heart of NHF

While maintaining public programs
and upgrading the headquarters have
been recent priorities, NHF's film and
video collections the heart of the
organization are no less interesting
or demanding. Television film, home
movies and independent productions
reflecting the life of the region are
sheltered, organized and annotated
at the archives. Some of the newest
acquisitions:

i The WAGM-TV Collection, 100,000
ft. of 16 mm. film, all that is known
to survive of newsfilm from the
Presque Isle, Maine, station. The
texture of everyday life is a large
part of the WAGM-TV collection:
public affairs programs on such
topics as local construction of public
housing in the early 1970s including
interiors of housing deemed sub-
standard and duly demolished,

continued on p. 2

Respect for home movies and implication of their long-term value can be seen in the sturdy wood
case with leather comers and handle by Bell & Howell. The case, containing 16 mm. amateur film
from the 1920s and early 1930s, was donated by Leon Tebbetts of Hallowell, Maine. Photo by
Darwin K. Davidson, Deer Isle, Maine.

Executive Director's Report

Collections

A year ago we pried the plywood off
the Alamo Theatre building and moved
in. We hoped the building would give
us space for growing collections and
activities and that it would be a base for
services to the community.

On our first anniversary I'm pleased
to report the building is living up to its
expectations. Office space is sufficient,
and storage spaces are shaping up. We're
testing a temperature- and humidity-
controlled vault more than twice as big
as the original vault in Blue Hill.

Architect Christian Fasoldt has
drawn up plans for renovations to the
building including sealing the basement
and creating exhibition space and a
public screening area.

We've submitted grants to obtain
funding for the next phase. With luck,
and $125,000, we can start construction
over the coming winter.

Community Activities

Right away we became involved with
the community by co-hosting a free
screening series with HOME Coop in
January and February, and holding
events for the Bucksport Historical
Society, Orland Historical Society, and
the Bucksport Senior Citizens group.
We helped high-school students with
access to video-editing equipment and
donated videotapes to the Buck Memo-
rial Library.

This summer Bucksport indepen-
dent filmmaker Diane Lee will produce
a short 35mm film, Who Will Say
Kaddish for Shapiro? out of the Alamo.
We're putting together, with help from
the Maine Humanities Council, an
exhibition and screening area for sum-
mertime visitors.

All these activities indicate a greater
interest and wider range of possibilities
than we had dared to hope for.

The local response has encouraged
us to expand the size and scope of
public performance and exhibition
space as well as research and study
center areas in the renovation plans.

New Board Members
I am excited to report the election of
two new members to Northeast His-
toric Film's board of directors:

Richard Rosen, 1977 University of
Maine graduate with a degree in busi-
ness finance, a life-long resident of
Bucksport, third-generation owner of
Rosen's Department Store, vice presi-
dent of the board of the Bucksport
Regional Health Center, co-founder
and past president of the Bucksport
Bay Area Chamber of Commerce and
board member of the Private Industry
Council. We count on his sound advice
to give us a clear perspective on the
Bucksport area.

Alan McClelland lives in Camden and
first came to our attention in his role as
volunteer manager of the Owls Head
Transportation Museum archives. At
the NHF board meeting in May he
was elected Treasurer and named chair
of the Long Range Planning commit-
tee. Careful fiscal policy and a well-
conceived strategic plan are essential to
the organization at this time of chal-
lenging growth and change. We're
grateful that Alan has agreed to provide
leadership in these important areas.

David S. Weiss
Executive Director

NHF Statement of Purpose

The purpose of Northeast Historic
Film is to preserve, and make avail-
able to the public, film/videotape of
the northern New England region.
This purpose will be carried out by
activities including, but not limited
to, a comprehensive survey of mov-
ing image resources of interest to the
people of northern New England;
the preservation of film/tape through
restoration, duplication, providing of
technical guidance and vault storage;
a touring program to bring materials
to audiences throughout the area;
and the establishment of a study
center, including resource materials
and reference copies of motion
picture films and videotapes.

continued from p. 1

agriculture, the arrival of a fair,
which then included "red hot exotic
girls."

The 20-year mark invokes thoughts
of preservation to many moving-
image creators. 1970s donations:

Maine Public Broadcasting, 150
hours of public affairs, music, com-
edy and outdoor life programs;

Ben Levine's 70 hours of Maine arts
and culture including the first Com-
mon Ground Fairs;

Stu Silverstein's documentary,
Donald Bakes Bread.

And more recent material:

WCSH-TV, Portland, 46 videotapes
relating to Maine student Samantha
Smith, known worldwide for her
interest in world peace;

WABI-TV, Bangor, hundreds of
political commercials of the 1992
campaigns.

Equipment

Besides the original Simplex projectors,
which left the Alamo Theatre in 1956
for the theater at the Bangor Mental
Health Institute and were returned to
their home this year, here is some of the
equipment NHF received: an RTI Cine-
scan and film chain from WPXT-TV;
three RCA quad videotape machines
from MPBN; a video camera and other
equipment donated by Earle Fenderson;
a video camera and tripods from Keith
Davison; a Powers Cameragraph pro-
jector and stand from the
Harrises family
of Manches-
ter, New
Hampshire,
thanks to a
referral by
the Manchester
Historic Asso-
ciation; 8mm
equipment from
John D. Knowlton;
and a camera and
projectors from Mr. and Mrs. Benjamin
Blodget of Bucksport.

Grants in Action

Summer Calendar

The National Trust for Historic
Preservation made a grant of $1,500 to
help plan for the future of NHF's build-
ing, one of northern New England's
oldest structures built as a cinema.

Architect Christian H. Fasoldt of
Camden, Maine, was retained because
of experience on historic preservation
projects including the Belfast Opera
House and the Rockport Opera House.
With the National Trust funds, Fasoldt
produced a report, "Review and Analy-
sis of the Alamo Theatre Building," a
first step in planning renovations.
The Maine Humanities Council made
grants totaling $6,200 for "Preparing a
Strategy for Future Uses of 16 mm.
Film Circulating Collections," a project
to investigate the future of the Humani-
ties Resource Collection, once available
through the Maine State Library.

NHF hired film consultant Audrey
Kupferberg, who has worked at the
American Film Institute and directed the
Yale Film Study Center. She assessed
the existing collection and will partici-
pate in establishing a new circulating
film and video program to be adminis-
tered by NHF staff.

National Video Resources made a
grant of $14,750 for "Videos of New
England Life: A Regional Distribution
Initiative" to develop the identity, of
NHF's line of videotapes, upgrade
business procedures and place point-
of-purchase displays in retail locations.

The effort will realize the synergistic
benefits of a recognizable product line,
wider exposure and a base for expand-
ing the line.

David Weiss reports, "We're thrilled
at the support of National Video Re-
sources. This was a competitive process
with 50 applicants and only 1 8 grants
given. Revenues from video sales are
crucial to the archives' operating bud-
get. Regionally focused material has
great potential and we're pleased to be
developing an area that helps our bot-
tom line and benefits cultural awareness
and preservation."

The Grace Jones Richardson Founda-
tion gave $27,000 towards production
of Diane Lee's 35 mm. independent
film.

EXHIBIT & SCREENING HOURS

NHF's open house hours during the
summer will be Monday, Wednesday
and Friday from 9 am to 3 pm.

ARTS & CULTURE

August 5-8 at the Maine Festival,
Thomas Point Beach, Brunswick.
Northeast Historic Film will be in the
Maine Enterprise tent and a presenter
in the new Arts & Community Organi-
zations program.

This is NHF's sixth year at the
Maine Festival, an event celebrating the
artistic and cultural traditions of Maine
at a beautiful waterfront park.

August 13 the Bethel Historical Soci-
ety, Bethel, Maine, will host Timothy's
Quest (1922), a made-in-Maine feature
film written by Kate Douglas Wiggin
and directed by Sidney Olcott.

With a piano score of period music
compiled and performed by Danny
Patt, whose career as a silent-film
accompanist began in 1924. Contact
Stanley Howe, director Bethel Histori-
cal Society, 824-2908.

August 17 the Vinalhaven Historical
Society will present Charlie Chaplin's
Tittie's Punctured Romance. Contact
Roy Heisler, 863-4318.

THE FAIR SEASON

September 3-6 NHF will have its own
tent on the fairgrounds at the Blue Hill
Fair, Blue Hill, Maine.

September 19 the NHF booth will try
the Farmington Fair in Farmington,
Maine.

September 24-26 a return engagement
at the Common Ground Fair, Windsor,
Maine, in the film building (turn left
inside the main gate). The screening
schedule is printed in the 1993 Fairbook.

September 29-October 6 the Farm
Museum at the Fryeburg Fair, one of
northern New England's largest agri-
cultural fairs, hosts NHF's booth.

NATIONAL CONFERENCES

The Fast Rewind III Conference in
Rochester, NY. July 24 Karan Sheldon
will participate in "Talking Histories:
Producers, Exhibitors and Audiences
Share their Perspectives."

In October, the Association of
Moving Image Archivists will meet
in Chicago, hosted by the Chicago
Historical Society.

In January 1994 David Weiss will
participate in a panel on the use of
archived materials when the American
Historical Association meets in San
Francisco.

One Hundred Years: In New Hampshire,

As part of our interest in the century of
northern New England interaction with
motion pictures, we ask, Who runs the
theaters? Who goes to them?

Theresa Cantin operates the Con-
cord Theater on Main Street in New
Hampshire's state capital, Concord.

Cantin remembers Lottie Pierce
Merchant, owner and manager of
Manchester's Lyric Theater in the early
1920s. Mrs. Merchant, who took tickets
every day in her theater, was more
welcoming to children than other Man-
chester theater managers. She was said
to have $150,000 in the bank collected
in change from young moviegoers.

Mrs. Merchant's audience is long
gone. Miss Cantin, 60 years after the
opening of her theater, keeps her doors
open two shows a night. She talked to
Eithne Johnson, past editor o/The
Velvet Light Trap and assistant editor
of the Journal of Film and Video, and
videographer Sanjeev Chatterjee. Pans
of the interview are reproduced here.

I started in 1933; my father was half-
owner with another man. I started
as the cashier and bookkeeper. We
were three sisters and we worked here
at the theater together from 1947.

Matinees

I had a lot of variety. Weekends we had
Roy Rogers, Gene Autrey, the Bowery
Boys, the Stooges, we used to have
standing room all the time. The chil-
dren were the afternoon. The second
show 200 more kids waiting to come in.
The Star Theater was the same way.
And the Capitol used to pack. I'm
telling you things have changed.

We had ushers. We were very strict
and the children behaved because the
ushers were right there in case of any
disturbances. We were babysitters.

Keeping the Peace

Everybody behaved very nicely here
because if they didn't behave we'd ask
them to leave and then not let them in
for six months to come. One of them
had brought a little liquor and had
indulged and we noticed it and we had
to put her out.

Concessions

I went to the bank and borrowed money
to put the concessions in in 1948. It is
the same popcorn machine now. We
did have to get a new kettle once upon
the time, along the way. Popcorn and
candy. Popcorn was a real good item,
five cent bag.

The Program

We used to change twice a week. The
good pictures would be on Sunday,
Monday, Tuesday.

The Star Theater
[around the corner] used
to change three times a
week. Then I decided that
I wanted to change three
times a week. Wednesday
and Thursday I repeated
after the Capitol, Betty
_ Grable and all those

strong pictures that they
used to play. Friday and
Saturday, two days only, were
my small pictures: Monogram,
Republic.

We had 500 seats and I
figured we could pack my
house just the same.

Double features on the

weekends. A western with

another variety like either an

action picture or a mystery or some-
thing different.

Short Subjects

We had the Three Stooges and all
kinds of small comedies, 15 minutes or
so. The Three Stooges were very pop-
ular with both [children and adults.]
The newsreels, cartoon, serials. When
we had a serial we would not play a
comedy. We'd have a serial and every
week we'd continue the serial. That
was very strong at the start. Then
when it faded away I started with the
comedies.

Amenities

We are air conditioned. I put it in my-
self along the way. Can't remember the
year. We need it.

Cinemascope was 1954, that's when
I put in the big screen. We used to have
such a small screen and except for the
Shea Circuit nobody else had it.

The people prefer the big screen.
Everywhere you go now it's all small
screens, except in Keene, the Colonial
has a huge screen, beautiful. It's a big
house.

Projection

We had union men [for projection]
when our partner was there. And then
when I took over it was still union. My
brother had gone to Boston to learn
how to become a projectionist because
the union here would never have shown
him how to run the machines. They
were protecting their jobs.

He taught my sister Laurie how to
run the machines and she ran the ma-
chines for almost 40 years. We've been
running without union for years and
years. Now we have a platter [projec-
tion system] installed two or three
years ago.

The Customers

It was always the same customers, they
just walked in. Years ago people didn't
care what you were playing, they just
walked in.

They used to go to the Capitol, they
used to come here and they used to go
to the Star. They used to go to all the
pictures in the city.

When we first opened it was 1
cents for the children, 20 cents in the

Theresa Cantin's Concord Theater

MADE ! AMERICA
WHOOP1 GOLDBERG

afternoon for the adults and I think it
was 25 cents or 30 cents at night.

Lawyers, doctors, white-collar
people, lower class, in between, all
mixed. Depending on the pictures.
Years ago it was always the same faces.
But today they come from all over.

Concord has not grown very much,
we're only 36,000 people. Depending
on the picture, if it's a teenage picture
you get the teenagers, if it's an art
picture you get the people that care for
the arts.

You don't see [older people] any
more. It's all a new generation.

A lot of young people come and say,
"My father and mother remember
you." They say they used to come here
all the time.

Drive-Ins

In 1951 the Star Theater closed. In 1952
the Concord Drive-In came in. So much
competition that it was very hard to
keep going.

We had pictures but the attendance
wasn't good. Everybody went to the
drive-ins. Even the Capitol was almost
knocked cold, and they had a big house.

The drive-ins were something new.
Drive in, sit in your car. People used to
bring lunches. They had a concession
if you didn't have your lunch you could
go to the concession.

A lot of people used to bring their
own beer, their own liquor. In other
words they were having a fiesta at the
same time as watching the movies. The
mosquitoes would eat you alive.

Trade Meetings

I never bothered to mingle. I was a
woman. A lot of people used to go to
Boston to these meetings. They were
mostly men that were running the
movies, the exhibitors were mostly men
and I never bothered. Not the meetings.
I used to go for films.

We used to go to Boston every two
weeks or so. I used to go and see the

branch managers. After a while I knew
them all. I did some business and then
we'd take in a ballet or take in a movie
or opera.

Women Managers in Manchester
The Empire in Manchester once be-
longed to a woman. She took over and
she couldn't make a go of it.

She used to say to me, "Why don't
we go to Boston? Don't you want to
learn anything?" I don't think there was
anything to learn there. All you have to
learn is your pictures and what you put
on the screen. She had to close up in no
time.

A Mrs. Merchant on Hanover Street
in Manchester ran the Lyric for years
and years. She was very successful. She
only had 275 seats and she'd pack them
every night. The Shea Circuit would
play first runs, she'd play second runs
and the Rex Theater played third runs.
They all made money, and she made
really a lot of money.

She retired when she was very old,
never had any children but helped a lot
of college boys through school. Her
husband used to be very friendly with
the bankers but he didn't do much
work. He didn't have to she was
making enough money.

Childhood

I belong to St. Anthony's parish in Man-
chester. I went to school there up to ten
years old. Then ten to fourteen years
old I was at the convent in Boscawen,
New Hampshire. I stayed there as a
boarder. I felt as if I was in jail. But
today I realize the good that it did me.

Audience Relations
I don't know how many people say, "Hi,
Theresa," "How are you, Theresa?" I
don't even know their names. But they
know mine.

Just a few months ago I did have a
woman who walked out with her hus-
band, the language was very bad. They
showed sexy scenes, you know. She
walked out. She said, "I didn't think
that they showed things like that on the
screen." And I looked at her and I felt
like saying, "Where do you come from?"
But I didn't. I said, "I'm so sorry, we
don't make them you know."

Reference by Mail

Here are some of the newest additions
to Reference by Mail. The complete list
of VHS videotapes contains many more
titles and other topics including Woods
Work, Early Film, Franco-American
Life, Television and Oral History.

Return Instructions

The borrower is responsible for return
postage to NHF via First Class mail or
UPS. Tapes must be in the mail on their
way back to NHF five days after they
are received.

Public Performance

Videotapes listed here are offered as a
reference service. Where possible,
public performance rights are included.
Please be sure to check each tape's

Members of Northeast Historic Film
are invited to borrow from the circu-
lating reference collection of Videos of
New England Life. For the list of over
60 videotapes, please call or write.

See order form for details.

status: PERF means public performance
rights are included. If you have a par-
ticular date in mind, call ahead to en-
sure availability. Where there is no
PERF, the tape is for home use only
and may not be shown to a group.

Videos for Sale

Many of these tapes are available for
purchase through NHF; tapes that may
be bought are listed with a check mark.

City Life

Roughing the Uppers: The Great Shoe Strike

/of 1937, a documentary by Robert
Branham and students of Bates College
about the ClO-organized shoe strike in
Lewiston & Auburn, Maine. 1992. 55 mins.,
col., sd.

Country Life

Ben's Mill, a documentary about a Vermont

/water-powered mill. 60 mins. col., sd.
PERF

Dead River Rough Cut, the lives and philoso-

/phies of two woodsmen-trappers, rough
language and all. A film by Richard
Searls and Stuart Silverstein. 1976. 55 mins.
col., sd.

Down East Dairyman, produced by the Maine
Dept. of Agriculture to demonstrate work in
a dairy, including beginning a herd and
processing milk. 1972. 14 mins., col., sd. PERF

Sins of Our Mothers, presents the hearsay and

/legends of Fayette, Maine, as living
things. 60 mins. col., sd. PERF

Fisheries

The Maine Lobster, lobster fisheries and
consumption with unusual footage including
the assembly of frozen lobster TV dinners,
ca. 1955. 30 mins., col., sd. PERF

Tuna Fishing off Portland Harbor, Maine,
off-shore fishing with a Maine sea and shore
warden and intertitles, e.g., "Oh Boy! This is
a small one, but look what he did to the har-
poon iron!" ca. 1930. 10 mins., b&w, si. PERF

Geography

Mount Washington Among the Clouds, a

/history of the hotels, newspaper and cog
railway, 1852-1908. 30 mins., col., sd.

Mysteries of the Unknown: A Documentary
about our Community, an outstanding
student video about Bucksport, Maine, with
original music. 1990. 30 mins., col., sd.

Performing Arts

Bonsoir Mes Amis, a portrait of two of Maine's

/finest traditional Franco-American
musicians, Ben Guillemette and Lionel
"Toots" Bouthot. By Huey. 1990. 46 mins.,
col., sd.

Political Discourse

Jerry Brown Speaks in New Hampshire, from
the 1992 presidential campaign. 28 mins., col.,
sd. PERF

Ella Knowles: A Dangerous Woman, a video
documentary on a leading 19th-century
suffragist & Bates College graduate by
Robert Branham and students. 1991. 25 mins.,
col., sd.

Transportation

Around Cape Horn, Captain Irving Johnson

/aboard the bark Peking films everyday
activities and spectacular storms round-
ing the Horn. 1929. 37 mins., b&w, sd.

Ride the Sandy River Railroad, one of the

/country's best two-foot-gauge railroads.
1930. 30 min., b&w, si. with intertitles.

Welcome, New Members!

NHF is pleased to welcome 70 new
members. Thank you all for taking a
special interest in the work of the orga-
nization, and for helping us succeed.

Corporate and Associate Members
Lewis & Malm, Don Lewis
Modular Media
Clare Sheldon

Nonprofit Organizations

The American Experience, WGBH-TV,

Eileen Mulvey
Boothbay Railway Village,

Maureen Stormont
Coastside Parks & Recreation, Inc.,

Ken S. Lundie

Ellsworth Public Library, Patricia R. Foster
Essex Shipbuilding Museum,

Diana H. Stockton

Farmington Public Library, Jean Oplinger
Farnsworth Museum, Deborah Vendetti
Lake Champlain Maritime Museum,

Art Cohn
Margaret Chase Smith Library Center,

Gregory Gallant
Market Square Health Center
Pemetic Elementary School, Ellen Gilmore
Pittsfield Public Library
Reiche School, Judd Evans
Vassalboro Public Library, Betty Taylor
Vinalhaven Historical Society
Wiley House Treatment Center, John Waters
Wilton Historical Society
Yarmouth Historical Society,

Ms. Marilyn Hinkley

Regular Members

Herb Adams

Kathy Anderson

Esther Jones Bissell & Roy V. Heisler

Ben & Jeannette Blodget

Neal & Betty Butler

Charles S. Commiskey

David & Dani Danzig

Peter Dickey

Neal C. Dow

Calvin W. Dow

Lynn Farnell

Steven Feia

Ann & Everett Foster

Yves Frenette

Terry Hoffer

Ned Johnston

Audrey & Larry Kolloff

Mark Letizia

Roy Lockwood

Eugene Mawhinney

Lewis Nichols

Ruth & Bill Pfaffle

Annie Proulx

Ken Quimby, Jr.

Mr. & Mrs. Charles Reid

Mr. & Mrs. Robert E. Rosie

Dr. Marshall Smith

Pat & Roy Snell

Drs. L. & M. Temeles

Ethel B. Turner

Arthur C. Verow

Nola Wass

Tappy & Robin Wilder

Educator/Student Members

Mark L. Anderson

Scott Andrews, Chewonki Foundation

Thomas Boelz

Patricia Conant, Dirigo High School Library

Eithne Johnson & Eric Shaefer

Carol King, Wells Jr. High School Library

Jim Laukes

AJex Silverman

Michelle B. Stevens

Gifford Stevens, Hampden Academy

Richard & Laura Stubbs

D. Tibbetts, Lincoln Middle School

Seth Wigderson, Univ. of Maine, Augusta I

Available for Purchase
by Institutions Only

Ben 's Mill, a film by Michel C haluf our and John
Karol. In Barnet, Vermont, Ben Thresher runs a
waterpower mill, a link between the age of craft
and the industrial age. Using an amazing array of
tools, Ben makes a wooden tub for watering
cattle and a horse-drawn sled. Without Ben,
recycler and hoe-handle fixer, "there's going to
be a lot of people who'll say where they hell are
we going to get this work done?" 60 mins., col.,
sd. $59.95 includes public performance rights.

Sins of Our Mothers, written and directed by
Matthew Collins. "Every small town in Maine
has its legends, some of them true." This is the
story of Emeline, who went to the Lynn textile
mills at the age of thirteen and suffered a
shocking fate. Her story, told only in whispers in
the tiny town of Fayette, is retold here by people
of the town and its landscape. It gives insight into
the taboos and punishments of women's lives in
the past. 60 mins., col, sd. $59.95 includes public
performance rights.

Other titles available for purchase by individuals
and groups. Call or write for complete list.

NHF Membership

As an independent nonprofit organiza-
tion, NHF depends on its members.
Please join and renew!

Regular members, $25 per year, receive a
subscription to Moving Image Review and
discounts on materials distributed by NHF.

Educator/Student Members, $15 per year,
receive all regular membership benefits.
This category is for teachers and students at
any level.

Nonprofit Organizations, $35 per year,
receive all regular benefits of membership,
additional copies of Moving Image Review
on request and reduced rates for consulta-
tion, presentations and professional ser-
vices.

Associates (Individuals) and Corporate
Members, $100 per year, receive the ben-
efits of regular members, special recogni-
tion in Moving Image Review.

Friends, $250 per year, receive all benefits
of regular membership and a hug.

Membership and Order Form Northeast Historic Film, P.O. Box 900, Bucksport, ME 04416 USA
Free Reference by Mail!

Educator/Student Members, Regular Members and Nonprofit Orga-

nizations may borrow a total of THREE tapes (one shipment in any
one membership year) without any charge. Includes free shipping!

Associates (Individuals) and Corporate Members may borrow a total
of 15 tapes (five shipments of up to three tapes each) without charge.

Friends may borrow a total of 30 tapes (ten shipments of up to three
tapes each) without charge.

Tapes in addition to those allowed free with your annual membership
may be borrowed (up to three at a time) for a $5 shipping and han-
dling fee to cover each shipment.

Ordered by

Name

Address

Cay

State _

Ship to (if different from above)

Zip

Name

Address
City _
State _

Zip

Purchase or Reference by Mail

Qty.

Total

Purchases: Subtotal
"] Special Fourth Class mail: add $2.00
plus $1 each additional item Tax: ME residents add 6%

fj Priority Mail: add $3.50 Shipping and handling
plus $1 each additional item
n UPS: add $3.50 plus $1 each
additional item

CU Please send Video Sales Catalog!
O Please send Reference by Mail list!

Payment Method

\ I Check or money order make check payable to Northeast Historic Film
I I Visa I I MasterCard Credit card #

Questions? Call Libby Rosemeierat (207) 469-0924

Membership/Specify level, please:

TOTAL

LJ Institutional purchase order #
Expiration date

Credit card signature .

Members call toll free 800 639-1636 Thanks to Long Distance North, Burlington, Vermont

Way Back Home

Phillips Lord plays the whiskered Seth Parker in Way Back Home. Thanks to Basil Seguin of Bryant
Pond, Dr. David A. Taylor of the American Folklife Center, Library of Congress, and James
Phillips and Michael Fiori of Bangor, Northeast Historic Film has opened a file on Phillips Lord.

NORTHEAST

HISTORIC

FILM

BUCKSPORT, MAINE, USA
0-1410-0900 (207)469-0924

ADDRESS CORRECT/ON REQUESTED

Check your mailing label. Your membership
expiration date should appear there. Visa and
MasterCard renewals are welcome. If there's
no date on the address label, please turn to
page 7 and join.

In the 1920s Phillips Lord of Ellsworth,
Maine, left Bowdoin College and went
to New York where on NBC radio he
created a folksy Down East character,
Seth Parker, ostensibly drawn from his
experiences as a boy in rural Maine.

Lord's mission was to deliver "sto-
ries based on country life designed to
heal the jaded souls of New Yorkers."

Lord marketed spinoff books: the
Seth Parker Hymnal, the Seth Parker
Album, Seth Parker's Sunday Evening
Meeting and Uncle Hosey, the Yankee
Salesman, followed by phonograph
albums and a motion picture.

RKO Radio Pictures produced Way
Back Home (1931) starring Lord and
the ingenue Bette Davis.

Seth Parker, the radio sage, is shedding a
rather appealing sweetness and light. . . .
His Maine sketches, authentic and
amusing studies of the Down East
farmers, have made an original contribu-
tion to the entertainment of the air. . . .
The twangy speech, the homely wit, the
barn dances, taffy-pulling gatherings,
singing bees all the real and mellow
phases of Yankee village life are shown
humanly and without the elephantine
burlesque that might have killed the
illusion.

New York Times, 16 January 1932.

NHF Looks at Maine Myths
The archives asks whether Lord's
Maine sketches bear any relation to
Yankee village life.

Down East film comedy and its
reception deserve investigation. To our
eyes, "elephantine burlesque" is essen-
tial: spinster, bumpkin, lovable farm
boy. Griffith's Way Down East con-
tained the same elements with senti-
mental songs, a moral dilemma, and
uncouth farmyard comedy.

Way Back Home, and the City

Twentieth-century regional loyalty
(honored at a distance) and geographic
mobility are at play. Shuttling between
country and city, one can more readily
accept myths about "home." Many of
the players came and went from Maine,
trailing stories from their other lives:
Phillips Lord claimed a Maine heritage,
perhaps built primarily on years at a
prestigious private college. |

Northeast His tor it Film

MOVING

IMAGE

REVIEW

Deditated to the Preservation
of Northern New England
Motion Pictures

Winter 1994

Executive Director's Report p. 2

One Hundred Years: Illustrated

Lectures p.-*

Library of Congress Film Study p. 5

New at the Archives p. 11

All Our Members p. 12

Membership Info p.15

Moving Image Review ISSN 0897-0769 is a
semiannual publication of Northeast His-
toric Film, P.O. Box 900, Bucksport, Maine
04416. David S. Weiss, executive director,
Kara* Sheldon, editor. 207-469-0924

The Archives, Briefly

Northeast Historic Film is
a nonprofit organization
founded in 1986 for the
purposes of cultural pres-
ervation and education.
Like a library, Northeast
Historic Film cares for
research materials, prima-
rily films and videotapes,
and makes them available
to the public.

Moving Image Collections

NHF safeguards more
than 3 million feet of film
and thousands of hours
of videotape, a deep and
varied record of the
region's culture.

Paper Documents and
Other Materials
In addition to moving
images, the archives col-
lects information on film
and video, oral histories,
books and periodicals and
related documents.

Independent and Publicly
Supported

Northeast Historic Film is
supported by donations
from individual and insti-
tutional members, corpo-
rate donations, foundation
grants, and fees for services.

INSPIRATIOM PICTURES. IMC

Richard

Barthelmess

'/,

THE SEVENTH DAY

v Ponren CMBBSOM oowrse

DIRECTED BV WBNRV KIM

Individuals and organiza-
tions are invited to join
NHF to help support the
preservation of the region's
culture and history.

This issue of Moving Image
Re-view is the longest ever.
It reflects increased activi-
ties both in Bucksport with
community involvement
planning and renovating
NHF's home in the Alamo
Theatre building, and in
the wider world, partici-
pating in the national film-
preservation plan and
regional arts and culture
initiatives.

This one-sheet Poster was
acquired at the end of 1993, the
first poster for a Maine film in
the collections. Thank you, Q.
David Bowers and the Maine
Humanities Council Northeast
Historic Film is interested in
posters and lobby cards from
these films: Lost Boundaries,
Timothy's Quest, Way Down
East, Carousel, Peyton Place,
Deep Waters, Rider of the King
Log, Way Back Home, The
Whales of August and other
regional titles.

Executive Director's Report

A BIG Mess

Renovations to the Alamo Theatre
building are progressing well, as many
people saw at our holiday open house.
A "peanut gallery" window looked
over the back half of the building.
Visitors enjoying cider and cookies
looked into the auditorium space where
the first and second floors have been
mostly removed, revealing the dirt
basement that will be sealed in prepara-
tion for the new public space. We are
still on track to have the mess cleaned
up so that we can hold events in the
space this summer. What would you
like to see: film, video, music, dramatic
readings, vaudeville? Drop me a line,
call or try. . . .

Electronic Mail

NHF's e-mail address is

OLDFILM@aol.com
Our long-range planning committee is
grappling with defining what kinds of
services we will be able to provide as
new technologies arrive. A goal for the
not-so-distant future is to provide on-
line access to our databases. Eventually
we will be able to provide images. In
the meantime, if you have an e-mail
address, let us know.

What's With This Handle?

OLDFILM? There are a couple of
reasons. Northeast Historic Film is too
long, NHF is too opaque. We wanted
something that represented our mis-
sion. Film deserves the chance to be-
come old film. NHF is trying to make
this a reality for northern New England
by safeguarding surviving film that fits
our collections criteria. The alternative
is GONEFILM. See page 5 of this
issue, the Library of Congress Film
Preservation Survey, for a look at how
real that option is.

Bulletin Boards

The Maine State Archives has a com-
puter bulletin board called the Maine
Archives INformation Exchange (or

MAINE). To subscribe, use your mo-
dem to dial 207 287-5797. It's a 24-hour
free service. MAINE allows you access
to many of the Maine State Archives
databases including information on
6,000 photographs and 5,000 maps. You

can also get information and notices
from the Maine Society of Archivists,
the Maine Association of Museums, the
Cultural Resources Information Cen-
ter, and more. E-mail addressed to
Oldfilm will reach us.

The Celebration Shop bulletin
board (run from Noel Paul Stookey's
henhouse building, NHF's home until
1992), will have monthly reports from
the archives. To subscribe to Celebra-
tion Shop, call 207 374-5161. You can
explore it at no charge. If you sign up
the charges are very modest. E-mail to
Oldfilm reaches us there too.

Information on bulletin boards
related to independent media appears in
"The Art of the Internet" by Luke
Matthew Hones in the January /Febru-
ary issue of The Independent.

Newest Board Member

Shan Sayles is the newest member of
NHF's nine-member board of directors.
Shan is a resident of Carmel-by-the-
Sea, California, and Cape Rosier, Maine.
He has more than 40 years' experience
in the film-exhibition business.

Our long-range plan, with many
thanks to committee chair Alan
McClelland, directs the board to con-
tinue growing from 9 to 1 1 members
this year. I look forward to reporting
additions to the board in the next
Moving Image Review. And please, if
you have an interest in serving on the
long-range planning committee, on the
video advisory committee, or becoming
involved as a volunteer in another
capacity, we would be delighted to hear
from you.

Lost Friends

We mourn the recent deaths of mem-
bers, donors to the archives and friends
Earle Fenderson, Benjamin Bigelow
Snow, Otto Siebert and Reverend
Curtis Beach.

David S. Weiss
Executive Director

Alamo Gatherings
for Volunteers and Friends

On the third Wednesday of every
month NHF will hold "Open Alamo"
evenings from 5:30 P.M. to 8:30 P.M.
The public is invited.

Many Activities Offered

There will be screenings of recent
additions to the archives, tours of
changes to the building and discussion
of upcoming public programs. Dinner is
pot luck. Coffee and cider are provided
by NHF. Families are invited.

It will be a time for people of all
ages to talk with NHF staff about plans
and to share their own interests.

Opening the Doors

"Open Alamo" came about because of
the success of Wednesday-night com-
munity screenings in 1993. Even though
there is less space for public screenings,
the staff, board and community advi-
sors wanted to keep the doors open and
to involve more people in the archives'
activities.

Volunteer Sign-Up

People who are interested in volunteer-
ing at the archives can sign up for orien-
tation and training sessions in collections
care, office help and clean-up.

NHF Statement of Purpose

The purpose of Northeast Historic
Film is to collect, preserve, and make
available to the public, film and
videotape of interest to the people of
northern New England.

Activities include but are not
limited to a survey of moving pic-
tures of northern New England;
Preserving and safeguarding film
and videotape through restoration,
duplication, providing of technical
guidance and climate-controlled
storage; Creation of educational
programs through screenings and
exhibitions on-site and in touring
programs; Assistance to members of
the public, scholars and students at
all levels, and members of the film
and video production community,
through providing a study center,
technical services and facilities.

mty,

iter,

Grants in Action

W. K. Kellogg Foundation

The W. K. Kellogg Foundation, Battle
Creek, Michigan, made a grant of
$20,000 to assist in renovating the
Alamo Theatre building. "We are
pleased to be able to play a major part
in this important project," wrote Dr.
Joel J. Orosz, Coordinator, Philan-
thropy and Volunteerism. The Kellogg
support will help with the demolition,
basement preparation, concrete slab
and construction.

The W. K. Kellogg Foundation was
established in 1930 "to help people to
help themselves." As a private grant-
maker, it provides seed money to orga-
nizations that have identified problems
and designed action programs aimed at
solutions. Most foundation grants are
awarded in the areas of youth, leader-
ship, philanthropy and volunteerism
and rural development.

Davis Family Foundation

The Davis Family Foundation provided
$10,000 to help create a public-program
space in the first floor of the building.
} The project will help restore a signifi-
cant and centrally located structure to

use, creating a cultural focal point for
the area.

The Davis Family Foundation was
founded in 1986 by Mr. & Mrs. H.
Halsey Davis of Falmouth, Maine, to
support educational institutions, hospitals
and organizations promoting the arts.

Maine Arts Commission,
Rural Arts Initiative

$10,000 was received from the Advance-
ment Grant Program, Rural Arts Initia-
tive, of the Maine Arts Commission.
This amount, matched three to one, will
help establish a space for public events
beginning in the summer of 1994.

The grant was recommended by the
commission's interdisciplinary review
panel. The panel found that NHF had
shown steady growth, had widespread
membership and specifically articulates
its goals.

A grant of $1,500 was also awarded
by the Maine Arts Commission for
work with independent filmmaker
Gabriel Coakley in the production,
presentation and preservation of a
documentary film about Deer Isle
sculptor George Hardy.

American Film Institute/National
Endowment for the Arts film-preser-
vation program granted $2,900 for lab
work on 2,000 ft. of 35mm film discov-
ered at the Braden Theater in Presque
Isle, Maine, that conveys the social and
economic life of Maine in the early 20th
century. The film was donated by
Michael Bernard and contains Aroos-
took County agricultural activities.
Sequences were composed with
attention to the landscape and the
human figures. Presque Isle downtown
footage is the only coverage of any
town in this northernmost (and largest)
Maine county.

The National Trust for Historic
Preservation

A final report was submitted for the
grant of $1,500 to help plan for the
future of the Alamo building, one of
northern New England's oldest struc-
tures built as a cinema. Architect Chris-
tian H. Fasoldt of Camden, Maine,
wrote a report, "Review and Analysis
of the Alamo Theatre Building."

In-Kind Services

Long Distance North of Burlington,
Vermont, donated $1,200 in free long-
distance phone service. This company
provides a toll-free number used by
members and people ordering video-
tapes.

E-Media Manufacturing, Sanford,
Maine, donated 1,000 blank VHS video-
tapes thanks to NHF president Paul
Gelardi.

Matching Programs

Current employees and retirees can
make their gifts to NHF go further,
sometimes doubling or tripling the gift,
by using corporate matching-gift pro-
grams.

In 1993 NHF benefited from a num-
ber of corporate matching gifts thanks
to people who knew about and used
their company's programs. Cash matches
were received from IBM, New England
Electric Company, AT&T Foundation
and Time Warner.

Renovations on the Alamo Theatre building are
bringing the ground floor back down to its
original level for a 120-seat auditorium. Photo:
Alan McClelland

One Hundred Years:
THE ORMAN B. HUMPHREY ILLUSTRATED LECTURES

Advertising slides once used by manager
Robert Rosie in the Alamo Theatre,
Northeast Historic Film's home, were
donated to the archives by Herbert
Silsby of Ellsworth, Maine. Glass slides
were part of the program in many
theaters, often used before shows and
between reels.

Slides were also used as entertain-
ment, to illustrate songs performed on
stage. NHF's friend Samuel Taylor of
East Blue Hill, Maine, remembers
helping sell sheet music as a child in San
Francisco. Attired in a tuxedo, he sang
along with "songslides," colored photo-
graphic illustrations alternating with
type verses.

Many rurn-of-the-century lecturers
used slides. The Orman B. Humphrey
Illustrated Lectures: Paris-Versailles,
India, Westminster Abbey and other
"speech support" slides were donated
to NHF by the Maher family.

The Orman Humphrey slides are a
type of informative entertainment
supplanted by motion pictures. The
lectures included the cultural highlights
suggested by the titles above, local
views, and dramatic colonial events:
Boers hurrying to the front, 1899; views
of the Philippines.

GOSSARD

june ^Beauty

\j4n exQuisitt princess
combination of rose*
beige lace, satin taut
hand-loomed elastic

J/'ry Goods

Advertising slide used in the Alamo Theatre.

Humphrey's promotional literature
stressed "oriental splendors and reck-
less extravagance." One offering was
100 hand-colored views of Asia pro-
duced by Underwood & Underwood.

Along with about 800 slides, the
Maher family donated Lantern-slide

projection equipment including a Stereo-
motorgraph Model C made by the
Charles Beseler Corp., NY. These rare
examples of technology help demon-
strate the evolution of projected presen-
tations in the region.

A White auto (191 1-1912); Main Street, Bangor. Photo: Maher Collection, "Paris, Horse Butcher Shop," T. H. MacAllister, NY. Photo: Maher
NHF. Collection, NHF.

Library of Congress Report on Film Preservation

Last summer the Librarian of Congress
submitted Film Preservation 1993, A

II Report on American Film Preservation
in the Film Industry and Public/Non-
profit Organizations as pan of the devel-
opment of a national film-preservation
program. The national program's goals
are to help coordinate public and private

U activities in the field, increase awareness
of the need to preserve motion pictures,
and promote accessibility of films for
educational purposes.

The multi-volume study contains a
summary report, transcriptions of

u National Film Preservation Board

hearings held in Washington, D.C., and
Los Angeles, and written submissions
from scores of individuals and institu-
tions around the country. For archivists
it provides insight into the expressed
priorities of many of their colleagues.
Note: This is a Film study electronic
media are not included.

The report signals some directional
changes in the field since Northeast
Historic Film entered it seven years
ago. For example, film-storage condi-
tions are gaining importance, and the
impermanence of safety film stock is
causing more concern.

A reading of the report is recom-
mended for those interested in learning
more about the present state of film
preservation. From it one can learn some
of the thorny issues, and discover who
are individuals and institutions with
interesting perspectives on the problems
and possible solutions. It is available
from the U.S. Government Printing
Office for $47, order number 030-000-
0251-2. GPO Order Desk, 202 783-
3283 or FAX 202 5 12-2250.
Three excerpts follow.

Preservation is a Process

In practice and in casual language, preser-
vation has usually been synonymous
with duplication. The archival rallying
slogan for the last two decades has been
"Nitrate Won't Wait," and the primary
preservation task still far from accom-
plished has been to copy unstable,
nitrate-base film without significant loss
of quality onto more durable "safety"
stock. For a variety of reasons, this def-
inition of preservation is being rethought
and broadened to include the costly issue

of storage conditions, as well as the
apparently contradictory issue of public
access. Preservation is increasingly being
defined less as a one time "fix" (measur-
able in footage copied) than as an ongoing
process.

Storage Conditions are Crucial

Vinegar syndrome [a form of safety-film
deterioration], color fading, and the
retention of nitrate after copying have
conspired to give a new prominence in
current preservation practice to storage
conditions. The combined effect of
lowered temperatures and lowered
relative humidity in retarding both
vinegar syndrome and color fading is
startling and increasingly well docu-
mented. The one encouraging finding
about these deterioration processes is
how significantly both can be slowed by
the right storage conditions.

Towards a National Program

As the over 100 submissions to this
study have made clear, motion pictures
have become popular memory, art form,
historical document, market commodity,
anthropological record, political force
and medium for disseminating American
culture around the world. A narrow
"entertainment" definition of film no
longer matches the diverse concerns of
scholars, students, advocacy groups,
social planners, ethnic communities, and

the broader American society. To best
serve the public interest, a national
program must recognize the evolving
applications for American film as well as
current needs of users, copyright hold-
ers, and the many types of institutions
throughout the United States that have
motion pictures of cultural and historical
significance. . . . The current level of
support a patchwork of federal money,
foundation grants, and donations only
chips away at the problem.

Task Forces

Between now and June, task forces
consisting of groups of individuals from
the film industry, archives and educa-
tion who participated in the film preser-
vation study, will work on a planning
document to be completed over the
summer and then made available for
public comment. These groups include
a special funding committee from the
National Film Preservation Board and
task forces on Redefining Preservation,
Public Access and Educational Use,
Public-Private Cooperation and Public
Awareness.

For more information on the task
forces contact Steve Leggett, National
Film Preservation Board Assistant, at
the Library of Congress, 202 707-5912;
FAX 202 707 2371.

30%

o
O

25% -
20%
15%
10%

25%

22% 23%

17%

nm HIM
1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

'14 '15 '16 '17 '18 '19 '20 '21 '22 '23 '24 '25 '26 '27 '28

Year of Release

Survival Rate of American Feature Films,

based on working lists of holdings in U.S. and foreign archives

Fewer than 20% of the feature films of the 1920s survive in complete form. This
graph from the report, Film Preservation 1 993, makes clear why it is not surprising
that Holman Day's Rider of the King Log (1921) and the Annette Kellerman
Queen of the Sea (1918) are not known to exist.

Northeast Historic Film's Collections Criteria

Technical Services

Excerpt from Northeast Historic Film's Operational Policies

with thanks to board member Pam Wintle of the Human Studies Film Archives.

Acquisition and accessioning of films, priority for acceptance; footage

videotapes and related materials into
Northeast Historic Film (NHF) shall
proceed according to criteria which
are intended to maximize usefulness
through preservation and for research
purposes. NHF does not as a point of
policy purchase film/ tape from orga-
nizations or individuals, recognizing
that such purchase would place the
archives in a position of assigning a
monetary value to unique historic and
cultural materials which would be
otherwise unavailable to the public.
Where possible as outlined below,
NHF will accept donation or deposit
of moving image and related material.

Criteria for Acceptance

of Films/Tapes

High priority will be given to film/

videotape having the characteristics

listed below, although these measures

answering few or none will have low
priority.

a. Related to the northern New En-
gland region through location,
subject, maker, source or other
connection.

b. Unique, or inaccessible to the
northern New England population.

c. Otherwise likely to be damaged or
lost.

d. As close to the original film or tape
generation as possible and is of
good picture quality.

e. Well-documented, and where
possible accompanied by related
non-motion-picture references
such as notes, still photographs,
audiotapes.

Low priority will be assigned to
widely distributed finished films/
tapes, to material preserved elsewhere

will not be mechanically applied in

determining whether or not to accept and to film/tape requiring donor

footage. Generally film/tape meeting copies and/or severely restrictive

many of these criteria will have high conditions.

Northeast Historic Film is interested in
moving-image documents that describe
people and their environment. NHF
archives dramatic film, newsreels,
works of independents, industrial films,
television material of all kinds, and
amateur footage.

If it was made in northern New
England, we'll consider it.

Amateur Footage: Elusive Perspectives

One area in which NHF has further
refined its collections criteria is amateur
footage.

Amateur creators record their envi-
ronment motivated by their own inter-
est, and therefore capture an otherwise
elusive personal view of our culture.
When a regional archives gathers ama-
teur material together, we begin to see a
source of valuable comparative data:
select an era, a socioeconomic group or
a particular location. Scholarship has
yet to catch up with the immense po-
tential of this primary source material.

Because of the latency of scholarly
interest in the material, NHF has set
some standards with consideration for
an unknown future. One of these stan-
dards is that where possible the goal is
to keep a home movie collection intact
as a whole document. Thus a collection
might include summer and winter homes,
travel, and other material that on its own
would not fit NHF's collections criteria.

Collections Characteristics

The NHF collections contain amateur
material from 1916 on with particular
strength in 16 mm. black and white film
from the 1930s. NHF seeks amateur
film with these characteristics:
1. A single creator covering a long span
of time, particularly if the material
has been or could be annotated by
the creator and/or close family
members. An example of this is the
Meyer Davis Collection, shot by
the band leader between 1926 and
1974; another example is the David

NHF will transfer 16 mm. film to video-
tape using Elmo equipment at 24 frames
per second or 1 5 frames per second.
Also available, 8 mm. and Super 8 mm.
transfers to videotape for reference;
evaluation of film's physical condition;
perforation repair and appraisal.

These services, using NHF staff's
expertise and on-site equiment, help
support the organization by providing a
revenue source. Some equipment acqui-
sition is the result of a generous gift
from the Betterment Fund.

Soule Collection shot in Portland,
Maine, between 1938 and 1966.

2. A single community documented by
multiple creators offering a varied
perspective such as several portraits
of a town called Cherryfield.

3. Rare ethnic or cultural coverage.

4. Business, crafts or professions
covered in depth, and film that
reflects the creator's vocation.

5. The work of an individual with ties
to the region whose home movies
can be annotated and whose mov-
ing image work might not other-
wise by archived.

NHF is interested in safeguarding ama-
teur material because it is almost always
unique camera original, it is inaccessible
and unknown, and it's extremely likely
to be lost. The archives accepts motion
picture cameras and projectors when
they are offered and is interested in the
technology and how it was used. |

Community Advisory Group

A community advisory group has
convened to focus on plans for NHF's
role developing useful public space and
programs in Bucksport.

There were several meetings in early
November. Meetings began with a tour
of the back half of the building. Phil
Yates, in charge of the demolition,
confirmed that the previous construc-
tion had not been safe. Beams had not
been anchored, and the ceiling was
ready to fall. Yates and Jim Fletcher
removed the unsafe structures and were
beginning to reveal the theater's origi-
nal floor level.

Suggestions

Discussions determined that Bucksport
needs cultural activities and a place for
community meetings.

A regular music series would be
excellent for the community and could
draw from a number of towns. The
high school has no auditorium other
than the gym.

NHF can be responsive to people
who want to use the building and, with
their help, can develop a flexible space.

Everyone feels it is important to
keep the building open to the public
during the renovation period to allow
for maximum community involvement.

Santa at the Alamo

NHF held a holiday open house, coordi-
nated with the Bucksport Chamber of
Commerce.

Santa visited the Alamo on Decem-
ber 11. Parents went away with video-
tapes of their children talking with the
jolly fellow.

Many people helped with prepara-
tion, decorations and refreshments: Phil
Yates, Libby Rosemeier, Lynne Blair,
Esther Austin, Lisa Whitney, Jim
Fletcher, Judy McGeorge.

Alamo Gatherings

The third Wednesday of every month is
"Open Alamo" from 5:30 to 8:30 P.M.
This time is for people to stay abreast
of project development, archival acqui-
sitions, and see where they can lend a
hand.

Community Group Members
Teeter Bibber, Alamo neighbor for 12
years. A parent of three school-age

Richard Rosen, Teeter Bibber, Phil Yates, David Weiss, Elsie Good, Judy McGeorge and George
MacLeod discuss the Alamo Theatre building's future.

children, she regards NHF's presence

as a cultural opportunity.
I Jim Campbell, board member of

WERU-FM community radio, is a

partner in Modular Media, across the

street from the Alamo.
I Elsie Good is the director of Senior

Citizens programs in town; many of

her clients came to see movies here
years ago.

I Bill Grady, public relations director,
Champion International Corporation
paper mill in Bucksport.

I Barbara Larson, a volunteer at
H.O.M.E. Coop in Orland, serving
low-income people in the area, helped
run H.O.M.E./NHF's screenings.

I Judy McGeorge, a board member of
WERU-FM community radio, a partner
in Modular Media, Bucksport.

I George MacLeod, owner of
MacLeod's Restaurant, Bucksport, is
involved in many business and civic
activities.

I Alan McClelland, treasurer of NHF, is
chairman of membership for the
Society of Maine Archivists and
active at the Owls Head Transporta-
tion Museum.

I Richard Rosen, third-generation
owner of Rosen's Department Store,
Bucksport. Parent of school-age
children, and a board member of
NHF.

i Denis Thoet, director of Friends of
the Maine State Museum, was once a
commercial fisherman in the area.

I Lisa Whitney, Bucksport town coun-
cil member and member of the
town's Economic Development
Committee.

Planned Giving

The idea began with 1,000 feet of silent
film recording the last days of a Maine
lumber company. That film and its
original script were used to produce
From Stump to Ship in a University of
Maine-sponsored project. People were
fascinated by moving images of a life
that is gone.

Northeast Historic Film was
founded shortly after Stump to find,
preserve and distribute moving images.
In 1992, NHF acquired the Alamo, once
a movie theater. With your support,
this will be a unique facility: a small
theater, a museum, archival storage
space and a study center. It will be a
center for preservation and distribution
of our region's history as portrayed in
moving images.

People who care about preserving
what evidence remains of a unique
regional heritage have made significant
contributions to the work of NHF. Our
members' annual fees are indispensable,
as are the generous donations some of
you have made in response to specific
appeals.

Now, we are asking you to help
build our future in a new facility.

Ways to Give

Every contribution is an important one,

Penobscot River, Bucksport.
Photo: Gretchen Gaffney.

for we have a lot to accomplish. You
may want us to use your gift to support
the ongoing work of NHF; or you may
direct that it be used in the restoration
of the Alamo. Indeed, you may want to
underwrite a particular part of the
building, its furnishings or equipment,
which may then bear your name or that
of someone you wish to remember.

What to Give

Because NHF is a nonprofit organiza-
tion, a gift has important tax advan-
tages. When considering the tax and
estate-planning implications of a dona-
tion, it is always wise to consult your
lawyer or tax advisor.

Cash A check is a convenient and
useful way to contribute to NHF. A
cash gift qualifies as a charitable contri-
bution for federal income-tax purposes.

Securities Gifts of securities held
long-term (stocks, bonds and stocks in
closely-held companies) are an excel-
lent way to make a donation. NHF
maintains a brokerage account to
receive such gifts. By transferring the
securities to NHF you may avoid
capital-gains tax, while securing an
income-tax deduction for the full
current fair market value of the gifted

securities equaling up to 30% of ad-
justed gross income in the year of the
gift-
Real Estate As in a gift of securi-
ties, a gift of real estate whose value has
appreciated enables you to take a deduc-
tion for the full fair market value of the
property and avoid capital-gains tax.

Gifts to the Museum Collection

Some gifts of objects may have a mon-
etary value, and may thus qualify as a
charitable contribution for federal
income-tax purposes.

Bequests Remembering NHF in
your will with a gift of cash, securities,
real estate or artifacts of value to the
collection will help forward the work of
Northeast Historic Film in years to
come.

Matching Gifts Many companies
will match employee gifts to NHF. If
your company is one of them, please
take the necessary steps to get the match.

If you would like to discuss giving
strategies in detail, NHF's executive
director would be pleased to talk about
these and other options.

Video Preservation

Things We Need

The longevity of videotape has been
receiving attention from mainstream
press and archival communicators. In
November the New York Times ran a
piece, "Memories Linger but the Tapes
Fade."

The article, datelined Redwood
City, California, home of Ampex
Recording Systems Corporation,
also featured Jim Lindner of Vidipax,
a New York company that does
videotape restoration and archival
consulting.

A six -step program for the videotape-
owning public outlined ways to get
longer life from videotapes, including:

1. Keep videotapes consistently cool
and dry and away from small chil-
dren and electromagnetic fields.

2. When taking tapes from a cold to a
warm place allow them to reach
room temperature over two hours
or so before playing them.

3. Exercise tapes by rewinding and
fast-forwarding them to the end at
least once every six months.

4. View tapes at least once a year, and
at the first sign of degradation have
a copy made professionally.

5. Label your tapes.

6. Make sure the VCR works properly
before playing a tape.

A Media Alliance Publication
Video Preservation: Securing the Fu-
ture of the Past by Deirdre Boyle and
Media Alliance (1993) is the result of a
survey of video collections and a sym-
posium on video preservation primarily
focused on independent video. It in-
cludes a bibliography and a directory of
facilities dealing with video and people
knowledgeable about it. The 66-page
book is available from Media Alliance,
212 560-2919.

Electronic Communications

The Association of Moving Image
Archivists' electronic bulletin board,
AMIA-L, is serving as a forum for,
among other things, discussion of video
issues. To subscribe to the bulletin
board, send a message to

LISTSERV@UKCC.UKY.EDU.

In the message field type your name
preceded by

SUBSCRIBE AMIA-L.

Tom House at the University of Ken-
tucky set up this discussion list. He can
be reached at 606 257-8372, or

TMHOUSE01@UKCC.UKY.EDU.

Volunteers' area

IBM Selectric typewriter Correcting or

not, for labeling jobs and other odd typing.

Microwave oven For leftovers and cold

coffee.

Hot water heater For handwashing.

Collections and Administration

File cabinets Four-drawer preferred.
Could use half a dozen.
Rugged steel shelving

Office chairs This is being written from a
1975 Hon chair with broken plywood and
dead foam rubber.

Work tables Folding or otherwise. Every
surface is chronically full.

Technical Services

Film editing table

Small monitor For the video editing sys-
tem. The present monitor is on its last legs.

Video projector NHF has rented various
video projectors, and otherwise relies on a
workhorse 27-inch monitor on a stand. For
traveling shows and in-house events, a very
good video projector is needed.

Auditorium

Theater seats 120 excellent ones, for
audiences starting this summer. Otherwise
it's standing room only.
An elevator There are three stories to the
top of the fly, currently accessible by
ladder.

Maine Touring Artist

The Maine Arts Commission, Augusta, underwrites a
number of valuable program for arts organizations
throughout Maine. One of these is the Maine Touring
Artist program. It is a way to help bring performers to
communities by helping presenters underwrite a
portion of their fees.

Danny Patt, a silent-film accompanist who
began his career playing for films in Union, Maine,
in 1924, is a Maine Touring Artist. The Arts Com-
mission will underwrite one third (one half in some
cases) for programmers interested in having Danny
play for silent films a school program, or screen-
ing for the public. Contact Northeast Historic Film
for information. Applications to the Maine Arts
Commission for Touring Artist support must be
submitted at least two months in advance of the
date of the performance.

School Programs

Volunteer Activities

\L*Am J

Sixth-grader Jason Tourtellottc was one
of 60 students from the Center Drive
School, Orrington, who wrote letters
after their visit to NHF in September.
The students watched videos containing
lobstenng, ice harvesting and Bangor
television stories from the 1950s. The
trip was organized by Judy Clough and
Pam Flood.

The letters focused on many of the
issues NHF staff encounters every day
such as cataloguing, preservation and
archival appraisal. Beverly Flood made
cataloguers happy by noting the advan-
tages of detailed descriptive records. "I
learned a lot about Maine and old
movies . . . the computer was neat, too.
I liked how you could just put in a
subject and get a whole report on it.
Good luck on the movie theater!"

Another student asked about the
curatorial decision-making process.

"Thank you for giving us a tour of
your building. . . . Have you ever
found a film (still on the reel) too
worn out, and fragile to play? If so
what do you do with it? Do you
keep it or do you throw it away?
Sincerely, Abby."

Film arriving at the archives can
range from pristine original to severely
damaged prints with no perforations or
fused nitrate requiring a chisel to re-
move damaged portions from the sal-
vageable sections (see photo).

One of the goals of the archives is
to offer students an opportunity to
become involved in the process, includ-
ing assisting with accessions, viewing
and helping to describe the contents
of collections. In February George
Stevens Academy senior Azariah Aker
will arrive for his independent study
project. |

Lynne Blair, Paul Greenlaw, Prudy
Heilner, Barbara Larson, Chuck Matson,
Judy McGeorge, Robert Rosie, Pam
Smith, Vern Weiss and Phil Yates all
put in valued volunteer time in the last
year helping with public programs,
curatorial activities and office work.

New volunteers Clarence Thomp-
son, Faith Young and Gretchen Gaff-
ney have stepped up to bat. Faith
Young has been helping with adminis-
trative activities and is mastering the
shrink-wrap system for videocassettes.
Gretchen Gaffney has printed frame
enlargements, made internegatives
from glass slides, and most recently
set out on snowshoes with two large-
format cameras and a tripod in sub-
zero weather to shoot the Bucksport
bridge (page 8). Clarence Thompson's
enthusiasm for classic films and west-
erns is being expanded with work on
16 mm. collections.

New at the Archives

50 "ANNIVERSARY
( Tilotion fli

PEOPLE OAZED INTO THE FIRST
MOVING PICTURE MACHINE

mitfU'H

FIRST DAY I'! |jf ;-i jlj'"

^ ^ISSUEV!

... ,;-

THOMAS AlVA EDlSON

Four hundred thousand feet of film and
250 hours of videotapes were received
in the last year in 115 accessions, rang-
ing from the briefest look at the Orland
Great River Raft Race, 1976 (30 ft. of
fine b&w footage) to a 9.5 mm. projector
and film from Pam Smith of Bucksport.

Elizabeth Woodman Wright bought
a Kodak 16 mm. camera in 1928. She
filmed her family's summer activities
around Paris, Maine, with an eye for
character and agricultural detail. Accord-
ing to Walter Woodman Wright, donor
of the footage, much of the film was
taken on Uncle El's farm. Ellsworth
Thayer grew shell beans and corn,
which helped pay the taxes. The farm
had been in the family since 1 800. There
is outstanding footage of mowing with
a horse in the apple orchard, and haying,
and spectacular views of the White
Mountains.

The footage is an affectionate look
at family activities over several sum-
mers, including the "last" birthday
celebrations of a very elderly woman
. . . several times.

The Janet and Tim Fogg Collection
consists of 13 reels of 16 mm. home
movies, from 1930 to 1950. The con-
tent includes Commander MacMillan
on the schooner Bowdoin.

Blanche Geer PhD Memorial Collec-
tion, home movies of O. P. Gccr, is 17

reels of 16 mm. home movies from the
1930s. Geer, a member of the Amateur
Cinema League, summered in Boothbay
Harbor. Film from the early 1 930s
depicts East Coast travels (Washington,
D.C., New York, the Adirondacks), the
commuter's life between Montclair, NJ,
and Manhattan, and Maine seaside
summers. Geer records himself in his
living room preparing to project his
1932-34 reels; father and daughter
target practice, shooting bottles in the
surf; a color tour of Boothbay Harbor;
a color Esso gas station sequence with
good close-ups, ca. 1939.

Wohelo-Luther Gulick Camps, Casco,
Maine, deposited 16 mm. girls' summer
camp footage: The Luther Gulick Camps
1926, Sebago-Wohelo, and Luther
Gulick Camps, 1926, Little Wohelo.
"Such a lovely shallow beach! Even
Mildred and Barbara can play with
safety here," reads one intertitle pre-
ceding views of little girls building sand
castles and wading in the lake. Film of
uniformed campers was used to pro-
mote the camps, which are still operat-
ing, among urban parents during the
winter.

Video accessions include the Women

America Goes
to the Movies

The National Association of Theatre
Owners, a trade group, has released the
book America Goes to the Movies: 100
Years of Motion Picture Exhibition by
Barbara Stones. The volume includes
exhibitors' reminiscences and is very
well illustrated, but does not include
either stories or images from any north-
ern New England theaters.

Over the century, Maine, New
Hampshire and Vermont have had
more than 1,000 places that showed
movies from palaces to art houses to
drive-ins. For some reason they have
not been making it into the mainstream
histories.

The book is available from NATO,
800843-5860.

Works Collection from Karen Saum,
3/4-inch video copies of productions She
Knew a Phoenix, about poet and Maine
resident May Sarton, This Land: The
Story of a Community Land Trust and
a Co-op Called H.O.M.E., and others.

Books and Other Things

Pamela Wintle donated film reference
books including Peter Bogdanovich's
John Ford and Producing Industrial
Films by Jack DeWitt. John Greenman,
Audrey Kupferberg and Diane Lee also
added to the research library.

Rod Hook sent a first-day cover,
"50th Anniversary of Motion Pictures."

Video Display
for Retailers

Photo: Darwin Davidson

Videos of Life in New England is a
selection of programs that shows impor-
tant, often vanished, ways of life. Avail-
able in a counter-top stand, the videos
are an ideal product for bookstores, gift
stores and museum shops. Included is
Tales of Wood and Water, a documen-
tary on Maine's wooden boat culture,
and Mt. Washington: Among the Clouds,
an early history of life at the top.

Thirteen titles are available at whole-
sale prices. The point-of-purchase
stand is included free of charge. For
an illustrated catalog and order form
describing the complete Videos of Life
in New England line, call 800 639-1636
and ask for Libby Roscmcier.

Members

Friends

Alan & Eleanor McClelland
Robert & Elizabeth Saudek
David C. Smith
MacKay Wolff

Corporate and Associate Members

John Bragg, N.H. Bragg & Sons

Darwin Davidson, Darwin K. Davidson, Ltd.

Marcia Fenn

Nancy Gray, Harraseeket Inn

Ernest & Kathryn Gross

Donald Hammond, Hammond Lumber

Company
Miriam Hansen

Mark Henderson, VP Film & Tape
Robert Jordan
Don Lewis, Lewis & Malm
Larry Lichty
Edgar & Sally Lupfer
Patricia McGeorge
Modular Media
Charles & Charlotte Morrill
John Mucci, VisNet East, GTE
Richard Rosen, Rosen's Department Store
McKie Wing Roth, Jr.
Clare Sheldon
Nancy Sheldon
Peter & Ann Sheldon
Noel & Betty Stookey
Lynda Tyson, Tyson & Partners, Inc.
Eric von Hippel
Joel & Allene White
Pamela Wintle
Dr. & Mrs. Stewart Wolff

Nonprofit Organizations

Abbott Memorial Library

The American Experience, WGBH-TV,

Eileen Mulvey

Bangor Daily News, Mrs. Joanne Van Namee
Bangor Historical Society, Pamela McTigue
Boothbay Railway Village, George McEvoy

and Maureen Stormont
Calais Free Library, Marilyn Diffin
Cherryfield Narraguagus Historical Society,

Mrs. Margery Brown
Coastside Parks & Recreation, Inc., Ken

Lundie

College of the Atlantic, Marcia Dworak
Dirigo High School Library, Patricia Conant
Ellsworth Public Library, Patricia Foster
Essex Shipbuilding Museum, Diana H.

Stockton

Farmington Public Library, Jean Oplinger
Farnsworth Museum, Deborah Vendetti
Alicia Condon & Bill Gross
H.O.M.E. Inc. Learning Center

Indiana Historical Society, Stephen Fletcher
Kidspeace New England, John Waters
Lake Champlain Maritime Museum, Art

Cohn
Maine Forest & Logging Museum, Susan

Jenssen

Maine Historical Society, Elizabeth Miller
Maine Medical Center, Elaine Solesky
Maine Public Broadcasting System, Bernard

Roscetti

Maine State Library, J. Gary Nichols
Margaret Chase Smith Library Center,

Gregory Gallant

Thank you, Current Members!

Check your mailing label. Your
membership expiration date should
appear there. Save NHF a mailing
by sending your renewal check
now! VISA and MasterCard renew-
als are welcome. If there's no date
on the address label, please turn to
page 15 and join.

Special Thanks to All
Our First Members

Eighty members from 1989, the first
year of membership, are still with
us! Our "longest surviving mem-
ber," Windy Wincote Schweikert,
who joined Northeast Historic
Film on February 3, 1989, is the
recipient of a free NHF sweatshirt.

An NHF sweatshirt, not otherwise
available, will be awarded to all
members upgrading their member-
ship level from Regular ($25) to
Associate ($100) between now and
June 1.

Market Square Health Center

Northeast Harbor Library, Polly Cote

Orland Historical Society, William Larkin

Pemetic Elementary School, Ellen Gilmore

Prime Resource Center, Keith Leavitt

Reiche School, Judd Evans

DeWitt Sage

Harold & Janet Simmons

Simmons College Library

Sultan Technikon Library, A. Raju

Pittsfield Public Library

South Portland High School Library

Sumner Memorial High School, Caroline

Allen

Union Historical Society, Alison Metcalfe
Vassalboro Historical Society, Betty Taylor

Vinalhaven Historical Society

Waterville High School Media Center, Dan

McCarthy

Wilton Historical Society
Women Unlimited, Dale McCormick
Yarmouth Historical Society, Marilyn

Hinkley

Regular Members

Herb Adams

Joan Amory

Kathy Anderson

Tom Armstrong

James & Esther Austin

Jean Barrett

Phyllis & Bob Beallor

Henry Becton, Jr.

Mark Belisle

Paul & Mollie Birdsall

Esther Jones Bissell & Roy V. Heisler

Lynne Blair

John Blitzer

Ben & Jeannette Blodget

Richard Bock

Nat Bowditch

Q. David Bowers

Benjamin & Joan Branch

Julie Bressor

John M.R. Bruner

Fred Buechner

George Buehler

Neal & Betty Butler

Mrs. Frederic Camp

Mary Grace Canfield

Dr. Constance Carlson

Robert Carnie

Michel Chalufour

Brenda Condon

Charles S. Cummiskey

Wallace Cunningham

David & Dani Danzig

Dave 8c Ginny Davis

Clarence DeRochemont

Josephine Detmer

Peg & John Dice

Peter Dickey

Daniel Donovan

Calvin W. Dow

Neal C. Dow

Shirley Dutton

Bob Eggleston

Lloyd Ekholm

John Ellingwood

Mrs. Anna Mary Elskus

Lynn Farnell

Carroll Faulkner & Ann Holland

Steven Feia

Joseph Filtz

Ann & Everett Foster

Yves Frenetic

Eugene Fuller

Kathryn H. Fuller

Peter Gammons, Jr.

H. William Geoffrion

John Gfroerer

Julia Gilmore

Lea Girardin

Jim Goff

Martha Goldner

Douglas Gomery

Terry Grant

Mr. & Mrs. Clarence Hamilton

Jim Hamlin

Francis Hatch

George Hatch

Fred & Prudy Heilner

Rand Herbert

Charles Hesse

Terry Hoffer

C.A. Porter Hopkins

John Howard

Sherman Howe, Jr.

Stanley Howe

David Huntley

Douglas Ilsley

Ann Ivins

Jeff Janer

Ned Johnston

Thomas Joyce

Susan Kaplan

John Karol, Jr.

Ron Kiesman

Richard Kimball, Jr.

Nancy King

Ernest Knight

Audrey & Larry Kolloff

Diane Kopec

Mark Letizia

John Lickerman

Stephen Lindsay

Bill Lippincott

Betty Ann & Donald Lockhart

Roy Lockwood

Bonnie Lounsbury

Howard Lowell

Mr. & Mrs. George MacLeod

Wendy P. Matthews

Eugene Mawhinney

Valerie Felt McClead

Judith McGeorge

Carl McGraw

John Mcllwaine

Charles Ray McKay

Franklin & Phyllis Mellen

Bruce Meulendyke

Faith Moll

Betsy Montandon

Betty & Hugh Montgomery

Henry Moulton

Francis Moulton, Jr.

Lewis Nichols

John O'Brien

George O'Neill

Kathryn Olmstead

Glenn & Joy Olson

Patricia Packard

George Paquette

Ed Pert

Ruth & Bill Pfaffle

James Phillips, Jr.

Annie Proulx

Ken Quimby, Jr.

Elvie Ramsdell

Sally Regan

Mr. & Mrs. Charles Reid

Dr. & Mrs. Edward Rendall

Windsor Robinson

George & Barbara Rolleston

Mr. 8c Mrs. Robert E. Rosie

Charles Ryan

Harriet H. Sands

Shan Sayles

Ronald Schliessman

Wendy Wincote Schweikert

Mr. & Mrs. P.H. Sellers

Jennifer Sheldon

Dr. Marshall Smith

Thomas Smith

Pat & Roy Snell

Gifford Stevens

John Stillman

Lynda Sudlow

Mr. & Mrs. Samuel Taylor

William Taylor

Drs. L. & M. Temeles

Denis Thoet

Charles & Cathy Thompson

Ethel B. Turner

Robert Tyler

Arthur C. Verow

Mrs. Barbara Wakeman

Robert 8c Julia Walkling

Mary Anne Wallace

John Ware, Jr.

Seth Washburn

Nola Wass

Vern & Jackie Weiss

Lisa Whitney

Tappy & Robin Wilder

Johff Wilson & Sherry Streeter

Bonnie Wilson

Carter Wintle

Edith Wolff

Cynthia Wood

Bob Woodbury
Roger York

Educator/Student Members

Mark L. Anderson

Scott Andrews, Chewonki Foundation

Miss Rosemary Anthony

Albert Belanger

Deborah Belyea

Thomas Boelz

Michelle Branigan

Brick Store Museum

Carol Bryan

Prof. William Burgess

Richard Burns

Carnegie Library, Good Will-Hinckley

Patricia Conant, Dirigo High School Library

Dr. Richard Condon, Univ of Maine,

Farmington

Joseph Conforti, New England Studies, USM
Alvina Cyr, Dr. Lewis S.Libby School
Rudolph Deetjen, Jr.
Elaine Gardner
Christopher Glass
Joe Gray, Mid-Coast Audubon
Gray-New Gloucester Middle School

Library
Cora Greer

Eithne Johnson & Eric Shaefer
Thomas Wayne Johnson, Chico Folklore

Archive
Richard Judd

Janice Kasper, Penobscot Marine Museum
Carol King, Wells Jr. High School Library
Jim Laukes
Robbie Lewis
Dean Lyons
Todd Mclntosh, Rockland District Middle

School

Tim O'Keefe, NRM Department
Sanford Phippen
Joan Radner
Paige Roberts

Mrs. Rowell, Fogler Library, Univ of Maine
George Sarns, Traverse City Area Public

Schools

Gladden Schrock, Bennington College
Gail Shelton
Alex Silverman
John Somerville
Michelle B. Stevens
Richard & Laura Stubbs
D. Tibbetts, Lincoln Middle School
Juris Ubans

Dr. Richard E.G. White, Queens College
Seth Wigderson, Univ. of Maine, Augusta
Steve & Peggy Wight, Sunday River Inn

Reference by Mail

New Title for Sale

Members of Northeast Historic Film
are invited to borrow from the circu-
lating loan collection, Reference by
Mail. For the full list of over 60 video-
tapes, please call or write.

The complete list of VHS videotapes
contains other topics including Woods
Work, Early Film, Franco-American
Life, Television and Oral History.

Many organizations historical
societies, libraries, schools use tapes
from the Reference by Mail collection
for public programs.

Each NHF member is invited to
borrow a shipment of up to THREE
tapes free of charge, including free
shipping! Additional tapes may be
borrowed (up to three at a time) for
a $5 fee to cover each shipment.

Associate and Corporate members
can borrow up to fifteen tapes at no
charge; Friends of NHF can borrow
thirty tapes at no charge.

Return Instructions

The borrower is responsible for return
postage to NHF via First Class mail or
UPS. Tapes must be in the mail on their
way back to NHF five days after they
are received.

Public Performance

Videotapes listed are offered as a refer-
ence service. Where possible, public
performance rights are included. Please
be sure to check each tape's status:
PERF means public performance rights
are included. If you have a particular
date in mind, call ahead to ensure avail-
ability. Where there is no PERF, the
tape is for home use only and may not
be shown to a group.

Selections from 60 Titles
Available on Free Loan

Many of these tapes are available for
purchase through NHF; a check mark
(/) identifies tapes that may be bought.

City Life

Roughing the Uppers: The Great Shoe Strike

j of 1937, a documentary by Robert
^T Branham and students of Bates College
about the ClO-organized shoe strike in
Lewiston & Auburn, Maine. 1992. 55 mins.,
col., sd.

24 Hours, a professional dramatization of fire
fighting in Portland, Maine, with music and a
memorable narration. A fascinating views of
the city and its people by Earle Fenderson.
1963. 27 mins., b&w, sd. PERF

Country Life

Paris 1929 and other views, the home movies
of the Wright family in Paris, Maine. Includes
excellent agricultural scenes: haying, mowing
an orchard. 1929-30s. 80 mins. b&w, si.

Dead River Rough Cut, the lives and philoso-

- phies of two woodsmen-trappers,
^T rough language and all. A film by

Richard Searls and Stuart Silverstein.
1976. 55 mins. col., sd.

Fisheries

The Maine Lobster, lobster fisheries and
consumption with unusual footage including
the assembly of frozen lobster TV dinners,
ca. 1955. 30 mins., col., sd. PERF

Performing Arts

Bonsoir Mes Amis, a portrait of two of

/Maine's finest traditional Franco-
American musicians, Ben Guillemette
and Lionel "Toots" Bouthot. By Huey.
1990. 46 mins., col., sd.

Geography

Assignment in Aroostook, Loring Air Force
Base in northern Maine closes this year. This
orientation film shows the woman at home,
the sergeant at work, the family at play. 1956.
27 mins., col., sd. PERF

Mount Washington: Among the Clouds, a

/history of the hotels, newspaper and
cog railway, 1852-1908. 30 mins., col.,
sd.

Check "Reference by Mail List" on the
order form, or call, to receive the full
list of videos for loan.

The Maple
Sugaring Story
for young
viewers,
interweaves
the legend,
science,

history and geography of the sugar-
maple industry. Produced by Betty Ann
and Donald Lockhart of Charlotte,
Vermont. The Lockharts have Masters
of Science degrees in Education.

Winner CINE Golden Eagle.

28 mins. col., sd. Public Performance
Rights included. $29.95/NHF members
$24.95

COMPANION BOOK

The Maple Sugaring Story:
A Guide for Teaching and Learn-
ing about the Maple Industry,
includes pre-Kindergarten to Grade
6 lessons, recipes and a resource
guide. 80 pages, $4.50

Fifth Anniversary
Members' Special

FREE VIDEO PROGRAM!

If you renew your annual member-
ship, or become a new member, or
give a gift membership, between
now and May 1, 1994, you can
select one free video from this list:
From Stump to Ship, Woodsmen
and River Drivers, Earliest Maine
Films, Ice Harvesting Sampler,
Maine's Television Time Machine.
Just write "Member Offer" on the
order form when you send in your
renewal, new membership or gift
membership.

In Video: The Year's
Best Sellers

Videotape distribution helps moving
images of northern New England reach
homes and institutions all over North
America and overseas. Revenues from
videotape sales support the NHF cura-
torial program.

In 1993 Northeast Historic Film's
top ten best sellers were:

1 . From Stump to Ship

2. Woodsmen and River Drivers

3. Dead River Rough Cut

4. Earliest Maine Films

5. King Spruce

6. Around Cape Horn

7. Ice Harvesting Sampler

8. The Robert McCloskey Library

9. Ride the Sandy River Railroad

10. Mt. Washington: Among the Clouds
Check "Video Sales Catalog" on the
order form, or call, to receive a list of
tapes for sale. H

NHF Membership

Regular members, $25 per year, receive
a subscription to Moving Image Review,
notice of screenings and events, loan of
one reference tape at no charge, and dis-
counts on materials distributed by NHF.

Educator/Student Members, $15 per
year, receive all regular membership
benefits. This category is for teachers
and students at any level.

Nonprofit Organizations, $35 per year,
receive all regular benefits of member-
ship, including loan of one reference
tape at no charge, plus additional copies
of Moving Image Review on request

and reduced rates for consultation,
presentations and professional services.

Associates (Individuals) and Corporate
Members, $100 per year, receive the
benefits of regular members, special
recognition in Moving Image Review,
and loan of five reference tapes at no
charge.

Friends, $250 per year, receive all
benefits of regular membership and, in
addition, loan of ten reference tapes at
no charge.

Membership at any level is an oppor-
tunity to become involved with the
preservation and enjoyment of our
moving-image heritage. I

Your dues are tax-deductible to the extent
allowed by law.

Membership and Order Form Northeast Historic Film, P.O. Box 900, Bucksport, ME 04416 USA

207 469-0924
. . . FAX 207469-7875

Join How!

Free Gift Tape!

free Reference by Mail!

Ordered by

Name

Address
City _
State _

Ship to (if different from above)
Name

Zip

Address
City _
State _

Zip

Purchase or Reference by Mail

Qty.

Total

Purchases: Subtotal
~~\ Special Fourth Class mail: add $2.00
plus $1 each additional item Tax: ME residents add 6%

Q Priority Mail: add $3.50 Shipping and handling
plus $1 each additional item

n UPS: add $3.50 plus $1 each
additional item

D Please send Video Sales Catalog!
d Please send Reference by Mail list!

Payment Method

\ I Check or money order make check payable to Northeast Historic Film
DviM D MasterCard Credit card*

Questions? Call Libby Rosemeierat (207) 469-0924

Membership/ Specify level, please:

TOTAL

LJ Institutional purchase order It
Expiration date

Credit card signature .

Orders Call toll free 800 639-1636 Thanks to Long Distance North, Burlington, Vermont

Holman Day Productions, a Maine film company, made more than twenty 2-reelers in 1919-1920.
Photo: Everett Foster Collection, NHF.

NORTHEAST

HISTORIC

RUCKSPORT, MAINE, USA
04416-0900 (207) 469-0924

ADDRESS CORRECTION REQUESTED

Looking Into the Future

An archives has to look both ways at
once. While researchers look back into
the past at turn-of-the-century textile
mills, early automobiles, World War II
home front, Jewish family life in the
1950s and many other retrospective
topics . . . people responsible for the
collections and administration have to
look into the future.

For Generations To Come

As a public institution, Northeast
Historic Film is responsible for build-
ing the archives for future generations.
David Weiss addressed the issue of
archival appraisal (the art of judging
what to save and where to spend lim-
ited resources) in a presentation at the
American Historical Association's
annual conference in January.

Historically Important

Weiss called for more attention from
historians to moving-image acquisitions
policies around the country. While
many archives like NHF try to respond
to users' needs in the moment, they also
need to look over the horizon to estab-
lish long-term goals for collecting and
making material available. Weiss noted
that there are few forums for discussing
what makes moving images "histori-
cally important."

Farsighted Donors

Archives are dependent on uncommonly
farsighted donors who understand the
significance of saving moving-image
material for the future.

People who saved film over the
years before donating it to groups like
NHF are doing something important for
the future. So are people who help plan,
gather resources and build an archives'
curatorial and outreach functions by
donating time, money and expertise.

Northeast Mrsfor/r Film

MOVING

IMAGE

REVIEW

Dedi<ated to the Preservation
of Northern Hew England
Motion Futures

Summer 1994

Executive Director's Report p. 2

One Hundred Years: Millennial

News by Rick Prelingcr p. 4

New York Film Collections by Kcnn

Rabin p. 5

New Members p. 8

Reference by Mail Videos p. 9

Calendar p. 10

Moving Image Review ISSN 0897-0769 is a
semiannual publication ot Northeast His-
toric Film, P.( ). Box 900, Bucksport, Maine
04416. David S. Weiss, executive- director,
Karan Sheldon, editor. 207 469-0924

Vision of the Future

The Alamo Theatre building on Main
Street in Bucksport, Maine, is a 1916
cinema, now home to Northeast Historic
Film. When the theater closed in 1956 the
600-seat auditorium was gutted for an
A&P grocery. Moviegoers in Bucksport
and a dozen surrounding towns have
since had to drive half an hour north to
Bangor, south to Belfast or east to
Ellsworth.

NHF will be returning community
moviegoing to the area in the historic
building with a new 120-seat theater. The
theater is a part of a renovation project
creating space to carry out Northeast
Historic Film's integrated mission of
preservation, education programs and
outreach.

Space for All Functions

Serving the local community is one goal.

The auditorium incorporates a stage and
will be made available for many types of
events: movies, live music, lectures and
meetings. The moving image collections
are the heart of the organization. Climate-
controlled storage is set aside in the
building. Technical services and film/
video distribution serve the curatorial
and outreach functions and are a source
of operational revenue. Research and
interpretive space furthers the educational
goals of NHF. All areas will welcome
continuing volunteer participation at
many levels including students and seniors.

The A Team

The team responsible for the building
plan is Roc Caivano of Bar Harbor,
Maine, with Terry Rankine of South
Thomaston, Maine, and Cambridge,
Mass., acting as design and planning

consultant. Rankine was one of the
founding principals of the well-known
architectural firm of Cambridge Seven
Associates, and has considerable experi-
ence in architecture, planning and exhibit
design.

Project Has it All

Rankine is intrigued by this project to
bring the Alamo back to life. "Once
again it will be an important part of the
world of film," he said recently. "It
brings together the restoration of a build-
ing that gave so much to the life and
culture of the area, with the need to
preserve the visual records of the North-
east. It has it all. The kind of project that
one can really get into."

Roc Caivano has been a College of
the Atlantic faculty member; his work
can be seen on the COA campus and
many other Mount Desert Island loca-
tions. Caivano was recently joined by
John Gordon, project manager, who lives
with his family in Bucksport. Gordon
says, "This project will help Bucksport
continue to mend the fabric of its down-
town and further realize the potential this
town possesses."

Perspective view of proposed theater
drawn by John Gordon.

Executive Director's Report

This has been a time of great energy and
progress for the archives with an expanded
team and new cooperative efforts on many
fronts.

Over the last several months we have
been working with an increasing number
of organizations providing technical
services and consulting.

Harvard University Archives
Recently Roberta Kovitz, assistant cura-
tor at the Harvard University Archives,
contacted us about evaluating their mov-
ing image collections.
Kovitz reports,

Over the years the Harvard University
Archives has collected a wide variety of
moving image formats. We needed
someone fully versed in the medium,
with the equipment to view it, and
capable of evaluating the collections
from the perspective of preservation and
user needs. David brings together all
these attributes, in addition to being a
patient teacher. Working with the data-
base designer from the Harvard Univer-
sity Library Preservation Office, David
helped us develop a survey instrument
to provide a basis for dealing with our
moving images.

Staff Support

Lori Lovell is our new office manager, a
Bucksport resident who has worked at
the Training & Development Corp.,
Bucksport, and University of Maine
College of Education, Orono.

Volunteer Corps

Broad-ranging volunteer involvement at
NHF has been essential to our program on
every front. Terry Rankine has been work-
ing pro bono directing our building plan.

Curatorial and outreach activities
have been enhanced by work of Yvette
St. Peter several times a week, by Jim
Phillips's projection services and prints,
William McKinley's wonderful collec-
tions, and by such talented folks as Phil
Whitney who saw a need our silent Ice
Harvesting Sampler and provided a
wonderful narration. Tim Emerson lent a
hand with construction. Contributors at a
distance include the researchers men-
tioned in the update on Phillips Lord (see
page 9).

Phil Yates has continued to be a
stalwart and much-appreciated team

member, contributing
countless hours of
volunteer time. Lynne
Blair has also volun-
teered on top of her
regular schedule. The
Community Advisory
Board helped plan the
next Alamo renova-
tion phase. We all
enjoyed monthly
potlucks and screen-
ings this winter and
thank all who contrib-
uted to the good cheer.

I'm pleased to introduce two new
board members, Michael Fiori and James
Henderson, who generously bring their
experienced voluntary leadership to the
organization.

The Board of Trustees

Michael J. Fiori, Bangor, Maine President
and COO, Downcast Pharmacy Inc., a Maine-
based chain specializing in geriatric and long-
term care. CEO of ODV, Inc., South Paris,
Maine, manufacturers and distributors world-
wide of narcotic identification and forensic
equipment. Director/Trustee Bangor Histori-
cal Society. '

Paul Gelardi, Cape Porpoise, Maine
PRESIDENT President, Electronic Media
International, Kennebunkport. Entrepreneur
and international consultant whose specialty
is manufacturing and electronic media; his
company, Global Zero, produces video-
cassettes in Westbrook, Maine.

James S. Henderson, Orr's Island, Maine
Maine State Archivist, administrative head of
the State Archives with fifteen staff members.
Education includes PhD in political science,
Emory University. From Skowhegan, Maine.
Interest in Maine history, politics 8c arts.

Alan J. McClelland, Camden, Maine
TREASURER Retired defense electronics
executive from Ford Aerospace and Gilfillan
In. Volunteer archivist and photographer,
Owls Head Transportation Museum, Owls
Head, Maine. On executive board of the
Society of Maine Archivists. Interested in
video, photography and computer technology.

Richard Rosen, Bucksport, Maine
VICE PRESIDENT Owner, Rosen's Depart-
ment Store, Bucksport, third-generation. V.P.
board of Bucksport regional health center
and cofounder, Bucksport Bay Area Cham-
ber of Commerce. Active in Republican state
politics.

David Weiss, executive director (left), and Terry Rankine, architect,
go over plans for the NHF building renovation. The current plans are
on page 6.

Robert Saudek, Washington D.C. and
Boothbay Harbor, Maine Retired Chief,
Library of Congress Motion Picture, Broad-
casting and Recorded Sound Division, Wash-
ington, D.C. More than 40 years in television.
Board, Marlboro Music Festival, Vermont.

Shan Sayles, Carmel by the Sea, Calif, and
Cape Rosier, Maine More than 40 years'
experience in the film-exhibition business.
Active in California film exhibition. Arts and
AIDS philanthropy. Summer and winter
visitor to Cape Rosier.

Karan Sheldon, Blue Hill Falls, Maine
Staff, NHF. Cofounder of NHF, previously at
WGBH-TV Boston. Serves on Library of
Congress task force on public access and
educational use of film.

Dr. David C. Smith, Bangor, Maine Prof,
of History, University of Maine, Orono. Bird
8c Bird professor of history and cooperating
professor of quaternary studies; at the Uni-
versity of Maine for 25 years. Author of
books on World War II.

David S. Weiss, Blue Hill Falls, Maine
Executive Director and cofounder of NHF.
Previously media producer in Boston. Degree
in film and semiotics from Brown University.
Past chair of Media Arts review panel, Maine
Arts Commission. Serves on Maine's Histori-
cal Records Advisory Board.

Pamela Wintle, Washington D.C. Founder,
Smithsonian Institution Human Studies Film
Archives. One of the country's authorities on
the physical care and preservation of 16 mm.
archival film, as well as anthropological film
study. Family roots in Skowhegan, Maine.

David S. Weiss
Executive Director

Projection

Where the Rivers Flow North

There isn't as much 16 mm. film being
projected as there used to be. Still, many
independent filmmakers create and
distribute work on 16 mm. NHF has
publicly screened documentaries includ-
ing Ned Johnston's beautiful film about
African desert life, Mauritania The
Wealth of Blood, and Kevin Rafferty and
James Ridgeway's funny political picture,
Feed.

Gorgeous Prints . . . Or Garbage

There's nothing like a beautiful new print.
A ruined print is a heartbreak. Scratches,
dirt and torn perforations are a waste of
an increasingly scarce resource.

Because at many institutions 16 mm.
projection occasions are infrequent, fewer
people are familiar with equipment and
procedures. Three guidelines are of utmost
importance: 1) Projectionists must be
trained; 2) The projectionist must not
leave the projector; 3) Damage occurring
in projection should be reported without
delay to the lender of the film.

The torn perforations occurred because the
projectionist was not paying attention.

NHF Statement of Purpose

The purpose of Northeast Historic
Film is to collect, preserve, and make
available to the public, film and
videotape ot interest to the people of
northern New England.

Activities include but arc not
limited to a survey of moving pic-
tures of northern New England;
Preserving and safeguarding film
.ind videotape through restoration,
duplication, providing of technical
guidance and climate-controlled
storage; Creation of educational
programs through screenings and
exhibitions on -site and in touring
programs; Assistance to members of
the public, scholars and students .it
all levels, and members of the film
and video production community,
through providing a study center,
technical services and facilities.

Howard Frank Mosher's Vermont novel
is now an independently produced and
distributed feature film shot on location
in Vermont and New Hampshire. Set in
1927, the film tells the story of a woods-
man (played by Rip Torn) who refuses to
sell his timberland to the power com-
pany. His companion, Bangor (Tantoo
Cardinal, who had lead roles in Dances
with Wolves and Black Robe), is a strong

woman as Cardinal says, "She didn't
sweat the small stuff."

Where the Rivers Flow North is about
these characters and about logging, river
driving and cultural change. "Moderniza-
tion is a sub-text," states Jay Craven in
his director's notebook.

It all ends in a movie theater.

Caledonia Pictures of Barnet, Vermont,
802 633-3220,
plans a barn-
storming tour of
the film through
northern New
England. They
are also distrib-
uting an educa-
tional package
including video-
tapes and cur-
ricular print
materials. The
videotape will be
available from
Northeast His-
toric Film.

Main Street, St. Johnsbury, Vermont. Photo: Joseph Mehling/ Caledonia
Pictures.

Maine Humanities Resources

Maine Humanities Resources, with a new
service called "Ideas to Go," has been
established by the Maine Humanities
Council, a private, nonprofit foundation
affiliated with the National Endowment
for the Humanities. Ideas to Go consists
of a circulating film/video collection,
traveling exhibits for loan, and reading
and discussion programs.

Film/Video

Northeast Historic Film is administer-
ing the film and video programs from
its offices in Bucksport. Nonprofit
organizations in Maine may borrow
from a collection emphasizing current
productions including Anchor of the
Soul on African-American life in Maine.
Humanities Council-supported 16 mm.
films are also available. Many videotapes
complement the Council's latest state-
wide initiative, The Century Project:

Modern Times in Maine and America,
1890-1930.

Traveling Exhibits

Twenty exhibits on subjects including
Wordsworth and the Age of English
Romanticism and Martin Luther King,
Jr. are available. All exhibits are low
security and contain no artifacts. They
are administered by Lynne Blair, also in
NHF's building.

Let's Talk About it in Maine

Maine libraries can create reading and
discussion programs using book sets from
Ideas to Go in cooperation with the
Maine State Library. Twenty themes are
available including The Journey Inward:
Women's Autobiography.

To request the Ideas to Go brochure
call 469-6912 or write to Maine Humani-
ties Resources, PO Box 1026, Bucksport,
ME 04416.

One Hundred Years:
Jumping on the Millennial Bandwagon, Archives Await End of Century

Five years before the year 2000, the media
race to portray the last hundred years is
on. These projects are planned for release
by 1997, leaving an open window for
other shows not yet envisioned when the
thousands digit actually rolls over.

Archives & Researchers at Work

This flurry of millennial interest promises
to consume the efforts of archives and
archival researchers over the next few
years. It also promises increased income
for stock-footage libraries and copyright
holders. With a warning that things can
change rapidly in the media world, here's
a brief rundown of some 20th-century
projects:

ABC News is producing an ambitious
series currently known as The 20th
Century Project in partnership with
Japan's publicly funded NHK network.
ABC's contribution, slated to air monthly
beginning in January 1997, consists of
twelve programs formatted to fit a two-
hour commercial time slot. Each show
will be set in a particular U.S. city or
town and will draw on personal stories.
NHK and ABC are mounting a worldwide
research effort for the series.

The British Broadcasting Company
(BBC) and Boston's public TV station
WGBH are coproducing The People's
Century. Of 26 total hours, WGBH is
producing eight and BBC eighteen. A
topical series depending heavily on archi-
val footage, the theme is "mass movement
and the common man." Episodes may,
for instance, cover how sport lost its
elitist nature.

Although not a formal wrap-up of the
century's events, Walter Cronkite's TV
series The Twentieth Century is being
revived by CBS News Productions, pick-
ing up in the mid-1950s (roughly where
Cronkite left off). Most airtime in the
series will be composed of CBS News
archival footage plus CBS News reporting
(e.g., coverage of events by correspon-
dents). Hosted by Mike Wallace, the
series includes 22 hours that will initially
air on the Arts and Entertainment Net-
work this fall.

In collaboration with CBS News
Productions, Grinker and Company is

by Rick Prelinger

now producing a four-hour series called
The Century That Made America Great,
scheduled to air beginning in January
1995. The series is composed of archival
footage (mostly drawn from the CBS News
Archives) and interviews.

Turner Broadcasting (TBS Productions)
has commenced production on a ten-hour
series tentatively titled Century. Under
the direction of executive producer
Jonathan Taplin, Turner's twist involves
the participation of feature-film directors
and producers such as Paul Schrader,
Philip Kaufman and David Puttnam.
Each episode deals with a topic whose
treatment will be up to the individual
director; a Turner spokesperson indicated
that some episodes may include historical
reenactments.

TBS Productions is creating other
documentary series relating to this cen-
tury, including A Century of Women,
which aired in early June and featured
dramatized sequences; The Native Amer-
icans; and Driving Passion, on the history
of the American automobile.

The Voyager Company, a producer
of interactive software and laserdiscs,
plans to release Rick Prelinger's Our
Secret Century in early 1995. This CD-
ROM project includes twelve discs, each
an anthology of ephemeral films, film
clips, text and graphic materials relating
to a different 20th-century subject or
preoccupation. The first two discs,
Capitalist

Realism, on
American labor
and industry,
and The Rain-
bow is Yours,
on design and
consumerism,
are in produc-
tion. In col-
laboration with
Kathy High,
Prelinger has
begun to pro-
duce a feature
film with the
same title.

Germany's ZDF plans a 12-part series
for worldwide distribution entitled A
Century Takes Off. Producer Dieter
Franck will examine the first 30 years of
this century in the context of issues
important to us today such as the envi-
ronment, the status of women, migration
and emigration.

Cronkite/Ward and Company (New
York and Washington) will soon an-
nounce a ten-hour series for worldwide
broadcast, cable and other media, includ-
ing new media, for presentation at the
end of 1995.

Chance to Present Unseen Images

With a profusion of media outlets and
five more years before 2000, this report is
surely incomplete. But even as the list
grows, most archivists will see these
programs as a chance to place unseen and
provocative images before the public and
to present history as more than simple
nostalgia. The ultimate success of these
projects, and possibly the way the 20th
century is finally remembered, will rest
on the creativity of their producers.

Rick Prelinger has lived through two-
fifths of the twentieth century, the last ten
years as an archivist of advertising, indus-
trial and educational films in New York.
He is publisher of Footage 91: North
American Film and Video Sources and
currently Director of Archival Develop-
ment at Home Box Office in New York
City.

Eleanor Roosevelt from A Century of Women, Turner's 6-hour documentary
series. Photo: Archive Photos.

Changes in New York
Film Archives

Grants in Action

by Kenn Rabin

Radical changes have been occurring in
the New York archival scene, the home
of many of the largest privately owned
historic film collections in the country.
Though the shifting of these assets, which
constitute a vital record of our society,
may mean in some cases increased acces-
sibility, in one case at least, we may all
suffer a tremendous loss.

Grinberg

Grinberg Film Libraries, which operates
in New York and Los Angeles, represents
the ABC News Collection, Paramount
and Pathe newsreels, and various smaller
collections. Last month Grinberg was sold
to Sequent Communications, the real-
estate company that owns the Charles
River Studios in Boston. Bernie Chertok,
who has run Grinberg/New York for
over 35 years, is serving as a transition
consultant but will be leaving to start his
own stock-footage research agency. As
well, Linda Grinberg, daughter of the
original founder, has stepped down on
the West Coast. The staff librarians, who
know the collection intimately, will
remain in place for now, and ABC News
will (at least for the present) continue
their association with the archives.'

Prelinger

Prelinger Archives, which is the best
source of sociologically oriented material
from the 1920s on, will soon be repre-
sented by another New York library,
Archive Films, though collector Rick
Prelinger will retain actual ownership.
This will free him up to concentrate on
building the best collection he can by
unburdening him of day-to-day business,
and, through Archive, researchers will
have increased access to the collection.
Patrick Montgomery, owner of Archive
Films, has always been sympathetic to
independent filmmakers and has empha-
sized computerized cataloging and direct
access to screening materials. A major
new cataloging effort is already underway
at Prelinger in anticipation of the change.

Fox Movietone

Potentially the most disastrous event in
the New York shuffle is the closing of the

Fox Movietonews collection on June 30.
From 1919 to 1963 Fox was the most
comprehensive theatrical newsreel in the
country. In addition to newsreels and
their outtakes, the archives includes count-
less theatrical shorts and travelogues, and
therefore constitutes one of the largest
privately owned collections of American
historical audiovisual materials. Fox Inc.
has recently underwritten a major effort
to transfer the collection to digital video-
tape, but some of the transfers have been
quite poor. Luckily, the film masters will
be retained, contrary to earlier reports.
Many believe Fox will close its doors to
the public permanently next month and
will be available exclusively to 20th
Century Fox features, television, interac-
tive, and cable.

In the 1970s and 1980s studios such as
Universal received large tax write-offs in
exchange for donating their collections.
When the Universal newsreels were given,
unrestricted, to the National Archives,
the American people benefited, getting
unprecedented access to their own audio-
visual history. However, changes in the
tax code later in the 1980s rendered
donating disadvantageous, as Fox discov-
ered when it tried to donate its collection
to the University of South Carolina some
years ago.

The Fox situation reminds us of the
dark side of copyright ownership that,
in fact, the public can be deprived of its
own historical record if finances warrant
it. We will continue to watch the New
York events unfold with great interest.

Kenn Rabin is the founder of Fulcrum
Media Services and has been nominated
for two Emmy Awards for his archival
film research. He has developed produc-
tion archival systems for many series,
including Eyes on the Prize, Vietnam: A
Television History, and Kevin Conner's
500 Nations. Rabin teaches workshops on
the production of compilation documenta-
ries and consults with multimedia produc-
ers in the San Francisco Bay area. 415
459-4429, e-mail 74064.1351
@compuserve.com.

Maine Arts Commission,
Rural Arts Initiative
The Advancement Grant Program, Rural
Arts Initiative, of the Maine Arts Com-
mission made a second grant of $10,000
in support of developing public space and
programming in the Alamo Theatre
building. This amount, for use between
July 1994 and June 1995, will be used for
technical consulting for stage, projection,
lighting and sound systems; and for
accessibility plans, arts management
expertise and initial programs.

The organization's strengths noted by
the reviewing panel include NHP's long-
range planning process, understanding of
the community and cooperative projects.

Thanks to the Commission staff for
their continued support, to the panel, and
to letter writers Jackson Gillman, Stand-
up Chameleon; Glenn Jcnks, Bonnie
Banks Productions; Melba C. Wilson,
Executive Director, Arcady Music Festi-
val; Roger Raymond, Bucksport Town
Manager; Lisa Whitney, Bucksport Town
Council member.

Aroostook Project

The Expansion Arts Fund of the Maine
Community Foundation gave $1,500 to
support "Aroostook County Film and
Music Performance," which will bring
film to the county in cooperation with
people in Presque Isle, Fort Fairfield and
Fort Kent.

Presque Isle's Braden Theatre donated
the only surviving 35 mm. nitrate him
made by the Frontier Film Co., a visual
catalog of some of the County's primary
economic and social activities: Main
Street, potato farming, apple growing,
hunting and tourism. The Braden Theatre
closed in December 1994 following the
opening of a New York-owned eight-
screen facility in the town. The Braden's
owner has agreed to assist with screenings
this fall even though his vintage theater
will not otherwise be open for business.

Matching Programs
Current employees and retirees of many
companies can make their gifts to NH1 go
further, sometimes doubling or tripling
the gift, by using corporate matching-ptt
programs.

Plan for the Alamo Theatre Building

The Alamo Theatre, which fronts on Main Street (at the bottom of this space, now the theatrical fly, will offer storage. The basement will hold a

page), will use all four levels for public and archival functions. The first climate-controlled vault for archival storage. Linking the floors is an

floor will hold a theater and public exhibition space. The second floor elevator and stairway planned for the Alamo's parking lot area (at the top

includes offices, technical services and reference materials. The third floor of this page).

First Floor

Main Street

Second Floor

Library of Congress
Film Preservation Plan

The National Film Preservation Public
Access and Educational Use task force
met May 23 in Los Angeles. NHF co-
founder and task-force member
Karan Sheldon participated in the
meeting, the first face-to-face session
after a series of conference calls. Recom-
mendations from this and other task
forces will result in a national film preser-
vation plan to be released by the Librarian
of Congress. The plan will be available
for public comment for 60 days beginning
in early August.

Public Access

Increasing availability of film prints for
exhibition has been a task-force concern.
The scope of the repertory exhibition
market was one topic. A recommenda-
tion is a "print bank" from which other-
wise unavailable films can be loaned to
exhibitors. Making information on
existing sources for 35 mm. and 16 mm.
prints more easily available was also
discussed.

Proposed Legislation
The film preservation plan may lead to
proposed legislation to establish a Film
Preservation Foundation supported by
federal appropriations and private match-
ing funds. The foundation will assist the
effort to save America's film heritage and
bring it before the public.

Film ID Card

There's a pile of old film cans up in the
attic. What the heck is in them? You
know we don't have that old projector
any more. . . .

For those unlabeled cans and boxes,
and for the times you can't quite re-
member the difference between 16mm.
and Super 8 because Uncle Ed didn't
tell you what was going through his
camera consult Northeast Historic
Film's FILM ID CARD.

The card identifies key dates and film
stocks with brief helpful notes. The
card is useful for small nonprofits and
people with family film. It's free. Just
call NHF.

Your Comments Needed
For a copy of the national film preserva-
tion plan contact Steve Leggett, National
Film Preservation Board Assistant at the
Library of Congress, 202 707-5912; FAX
202 707-2371.

Regional Grant Opportunities

EARNEST (Exchange of Arts Resources
among the New England States) is a New
England Foundation for the Arts program
that makes funding available to presenters
who engage New England artist groups
based outside the presenter's home state.
The artists engaged must be members of
their own state's touring roster. So New
Hampshire and Vermont sponsors could
book Maine silent-film accompanists
Danny Patt (Portland) or Glenn Jenks
(Camden). Maine and New Hampshire
sponsors could book Peter Tavalin (Put-
ney), also an accompanist for silent film.
The deadline is September 1 for events
beginning after December 1. Call for the

New England Foundation for the Arts
guide to programs, 617 492-2914.

Maine Historical Records Advisory
Board Regrant Program is funded by
the National Historical Publications and
Records Commission to provide modest
funding for projects to adopt proper
archival planning and management tech-
niques to preserve and improve access to
important historical records. This in-
cludes manuscripts, photographs, movie
films, video or audio recordings. February
1, 1995, is the next deadline. Call Janet
Roberts at the Maine State Archives, 207
287-5791.

New at the Archives

'Significant 16 mm. collections have been
coming to the archives, including the life
work of Archie Stewart, a 92-year-old
photographer. His granddaughter, Mary
Kelly, describes how Stewart "lovingly
filmed his subjects hunting, fishing,
canoes and canoemanship, Maine guides
ca. 1926 on and scrupulously docu-
mented his films." The preservation
project is in partnership with the Maine
Folklife Center at the University of
Maine.

Amateur collections documenting the
region directly fit the archives' collecting
mission. NHF has another function,
which is to assist with the preservation of
footage that would otherwise be lost.
Unpreserved nitrate film continues to be
of concern and arrives at the archives
thanks to alert friends.

Teens Films Found

In May NHF member James Phillips
found five reels of 35 mm. film from the
teens. One reel of International Newsreel
(1919) contains footage of returning
World War I troops and a Gregory
LaCava animated short by T. A. Dorgan.
It was donated to the UCLA Film Archive,
accepted by newsreel preservationist
Blaine Bartell and curator Eddie Rich-
mond. A copy will be available for pre-
sentation to NHF's audiences.

From the same collection, four one-
reel comedies were donated to the Inter-
national Museum of Photography at
George Eastman House. James Phillips
studied in Rochester and was glad that
the archives agreed to preserve the films.
The comedies include the 1915 Vitagraph
Co. The Professor's Painless Cure with
Mr. and Mrs. Sidney Drew, best known
for A Florida Enchantment. GEH curator
Dr. Jan-Christopher Horak will research
an unidentified Lubin comedy with an
epistolary hook penned by a British
fellow, "Your American girls have no
charm for me, they are too mannish."

Film books, sheet music relating to
movies, including Evangeline, and film-
advertising materials were received from
Michael Fiori, Kathryn Fuller, Douglas
Gomery, Pam Wintle and Sam Taylor
among others. Many thanks!

American Memory:
Multimedia Historical Collections from the Library of Congress

New means of access to historical records
including moving images are being
created. One example is the American
Memory project at the Library of Con-
gress. Conceived as a way to help Library
collections reach new audiences, more or
less unmediated, the project has had a
pilot period and is awaiting further
funding before wider distribution.

Interactive Future

According to information put out by the
Library, "Future researchers will be able
to visit an American Memory workstation
at a local library or school and search
through collections, view interactive
exhibitions that introduce specific collec-
tions, and electronically 'copy' data for
further study."

While the Library is investigating
digital motion-picture technology and
on-line delivery, moving images are
available on analog (CAV) laserdisc. One
project still in production is The Ameri-
can Variety Stage, 1870-1920. LeeEllen
Friedland, who is working on preparing
this collection, says,

A librarian in the motion picture divi-
sion, Gene DeAnna, and I did a survey

of all the Paper Print films. We made a
selection focusing on vaudeville, bur-
lesque and musical revue. We found
many vaudeville bits just like you would
have seen on stage: trained dogs, contor-
tionists, comedy vignettes. There were
dance performances, short dramas and
tableaux.

American Memory drew from many
divisions of the Library. Variety Stage
was the first example that was explicitly
an anthology, drawing from several
special collection divisions film, sound,
photos, manuscripts. The pilot project
brought attention to collections that
needed processing and preservation.
American Memory has always tried to
dovetail with ongoing preservation and
be a catalyst for it.

For research access, "We will make
our own item-level records for the Paper
Print films which will be part of the on-
line collection."

A two-year test-site evaluation,
conducted in 44 schools and libraries
across the country, has been completed.
To give American Memory a test drive,
visit the Library of Congress motion-
picture reading room.

New Members

Corporate and Associate Members

Beverly Bibber & Charles G. Tetro
Catie Marshall & Nelson Bakerman
Sky Dog Productions

Nonprofit Organizations

Graves Memorial Library, Kennebunkport
Jay-Niles Memorial Library, North Jay
York Institute Museum

Regular Members

Coco Adams

I .im is Ames

John Brooks

Mr. & Mrs. Donald Buffington

Paul Cady

James Carter

Dennis Ekberg

Austin Goodyear

Eric Handley

Lorraine Hanson

Charles Hoag

Glenn Jenks & Faith Getchell

Mary Kelly

JohnMacFadyen

Kenn Rabin

William Rand

Bill Robertson

Pat & Tom Schroth

Evelyn Snell

Philip P. Thompson

Danna Ware

Heather White

Frank & Catherine Wiers

Educator/Student Members

D. Blanchard, Jordan Small School

Tom Rankin, Center for Southern Studies

Tony Smith

Peggy Wiles

Windham School Department

Renewal Time? Members!

Check your mailing label. Your member-
ship expiration date should appear there.
Save NHF a mailing by sending your
renewal check now! VISA and MasterCard
renewals are welcome. If there's no date
on the address label, please turn to page
11 and join.

Further Information

Carl Fleischhauer, Coordinator
American Memory, Library of Congress,
Washington, DC 20540-1300
202 707-6233.

Moving Images in American Memory

The Life of a City: Early Films of New York,

1897-1906

Paper Print Films of President William McKinley

and the Pan-American Exposition, 1901

On videodisc but not yet searchable in American
Memory: Early Films of San Francisco Before and
After the Great Earthquake, 1897-1907
Collections in production: The American Variety
Stage, 1870-1920
Early Films of the Westinghouse Factory, 1904

Video Preservation

Jim Lindner of VidiPax, New York,
likes to help people with video restora-
tion issues. Lindner has been an active
contributor to AMIA-L, the Association
of Moving Image Archivists computer
bulletin board.

The Worst Cases

An article he wrote for the AMIA news-
letter called "Confessions of a Videotape
Restorer" focuses on differences in design
of videotapes and machines. He notes that
some of the worst problems his company
has encountered "are caused in production
long before storage has occurred. What
single restoration solution could handle
the abuse given by a well-intentioned
crew member who placed a tape inside a
sandwich bag (that apparently previously
held a sandwich), where it remained for
20 years? Some of my personal favorites
include the tape that broke in production
and was taped together with duct tape, and
the tape that had paper "bookmarks" to
mark where an important scene started.
And of course there have been tapes that
have been visited by living creatures over
the years, some microscopic and some
generally characterized as 'vermin.'"

Jim Lindner's VidiPax helpline is
800 653-8434. E-mail will reach him at
VIDIPAXJIM@delphi.com.

Lindner describes himself as "the guy
who used to be in your high school and
run the projector, but is now 40 years old
and 6' 7" tall."

Reference by Mail

Members of Northeast Historic Film are invited to borrow
from the FREE circulating loan collection, Reference by Mail.
Return Instructions

Borrowers are responsible for return to NHF via First Class
mail or UPS. Tapes must be on their way back to NHF five days
after they are received.

Public Performance

Videotapes are offered as a reference service. Where possible,

public-performance rights are included. Please check each tape's
status: PERF means public performance rights are included. If
you have a date in mind, call ahead to ensure availability. Where
there is no PERF, the tape is for home use only and may not be
shown to a group.

Videos for Sale

Many of these tapes are available for purchase through NHF;

tapes that may be bought are listed with a check mark.

Artists and Authors

/ NlViBerenice Abbott: A Viewofthe Twenti-
eth Century, life and work of one of America's
most significant photographers; she lived in
Maine into her 90s. 1 992. 56 mins., col., sd.
/ Bonsoir Mes Amis, portrait of two of
Maine's finest traditional Franco-American
musicians. By Huey. 1 990. 46 mins., col., sd.
NEW Master Smart Woman, Maine novelist
Sarah Orne Jewett (1850-1909) by Jane
Morrison. 1 984. 28 mins., col., sd.
NEW May Sarton: She Knew a Phoenix, the
poet reads and talks at home. Produced by
Karen Saum. 1 980. 28 mins., col., sd. PERF

City Life

/ NWNAnchorol the Soul, African-American
history in northern New England through
the story of a Portland church. 1994. 60
mins., col., sd.

NEWCon / Cet Therefrom Here? Urban Youth,
families, work, homelessness in Portland,
Maine. 1981. 29 mins., col., sd. PERF
/ Roughing the Uppers: The Creat Shoe Strike
ol 1937, documentary by Robert Branham
and Bates College students about CIO shoe
strike in Lewiston & Auburn, Maine. 1992.
55 mins., col., sd.

24 Hours, fire fighting in Portland, Maine,
with memorable narration. The filmmaker,
Earle Fenderson, died this year at age 90.
1 963. 27 mins., b&w, sd. PERF

Country Life

The Batteou Machias, studen t project on con-
struction of a traditional river-driving boat.
1 990. 22 mins., col., sd. PERF
/ Ben's Mill, a documentary about a Ver-
mont water-powered mill by NHF members
Michel Chalufour and John Karol. 60 mins
col., sd.

/ A Century ol Summers, the impact of a
summer colony on a small Maine coastal
community by Hancock native and NHF
member Sandy Phippen. 1987. 45 mins.,
b&w and col., sd. PERF
/ Cherryfield, 1 938, a terrific home movie
about rural spring. 6 mins., b&w, si. PERF
/ Dead River Rough Cut, lives and philoso-
phies of two woodsmen-trappers by Richard
Searls and Stuart Silvers tein. 1 976. 55 mins.,
col.,sd.

Down last Dairyman, produced by the Maine
Dept. of Agriculture. 1972. 14 mins., col.,
sd.PERF

/ NEWGiont Horses, draft horses and their
drivers. 28 mins., col., sd.
/ Ice Harvesting Sampler, five short silent
films showing a near-forgotten New En-
gland industry. 26 mins., b&w, sd. PERF
The Movie Queen, Lubec, pretend movie
queen visits her home town in down east
Maine. 1 936. 28 mins., b&w, si.

Nature's Blueberry/and, Maine's wild blue-
berries. 1 3 mins., col., sd. PERF
Paris, ! 92 9 and other views, home movies of
the Wright family in Paris, Maine, haying,
mowing, picnics. 80 mins., b&w, si.
Part- Time Farmer, promotes agriculture as an
after-hours pursuit, ca. 1 975. 1 7 mins., col.,
sd.PERF

/ Sins of Our Mothers, girl who went to the
Massachusetts textile mills from Fayette,
Maine. 60 mins., col., sd.PERF

Early Film

/ All But Forgotten, documentary on the
Holman Day silent-film company in Maine.
1 978. 30 mins., col. and b&w, sd. PERF
Cupid, Registered Guide, a two-reel North
Woods comedy by Maine writer Holman
Day. 1 921 . 20 mins., b&w, si. PERF
/ Earliest Maine Films, lobstering, trout fish-
ing, logging, canoeing on Moosehead Lake
and potato growing, from 1 901 to 1 920. 44
mins., b&w, si. PERF

lust Maine Folks, a bawdy hayseed one-reeler.
Poor image quality. 1913.8 mins., b&w, si.

PERF

The Knight of the Pines, another North Woods
adventure by Maine writer Holman Day.
1 920. 20 mins., b&w, si. PERF

Ecology

/ NEW Rachel Canon's Silent Spring, her
1963 book about pesticides helped raise
ecological consciousness. 1993. 60 mins.,
col., sd.

Fisheries

8os/c Net Mending, how to repair fish nets.

1951.16 mins., col., sd. PERF

It 's the Maine Sardine, catching, packing and

eating Eastport fish. 1 949. 1 6 mins., col., sd.

PERF

Maine's Harvesters of the Sea, fisheries includ-
ing shrimp, cod and lobster. 1 968. 28 mins.,
col., sd.PERF

The Maine Lobster, lobster fisheries and con-
sumption with unusual footage including
the assembly of lobster TVdinners. ca. 1 955.
30 mins., col., sd.PERF
Tuna Fishing off Portland Harbor, Maine, off-
shore fishing with a Maine sea and shore
warden, ca. 1930. 10 mins., b&w, si. with
intertitles.PERF

Turn of the Tide, drama about formation of a
lobster cooperative; from the Vinalhaven
Historical Society. 1 943. 48 mins., col., sd.

Franco-American Life

Reflets et Lumiere, three seasons of a televi-
sion series on Franco-American culture pro-
duced by the Maine Public Broadcasting
Network (MPBN). The programs aired from
1979 to 1981. Sound and image quality
varies. PERF

Potato Harvest Northern Maine. Interview
and poetry reading by Norm Dube in
Bedford, NH. 1979, 39 mins.
Acadian Villages Acadian history interview
with Guy Dubay of Madawaska, Maine. Visits
to the Acadian Village near Van Buren, Maine,
and le Village Acadien in Carquet, New
Brunswick, Canada. A short visit to Quebec
City. 1979. 27 mins.

Lowell Mills Irene Simoneau, Franco-Ameri-
can historian on the role of women in the
mills. Roger Paradis of Fort Kent, Maine,
about Franco-American folklore and music.
1979. 29 mins.
Many more . . . call for the complete list.

Geography

Assignment inAroostook, Loring Air Force Base
in northern Maine closes this year. Mom at
home, the sergeant at work, the family at
play. 1 956. 27 mins., col., sd. PERF
</ Mount Washington Among the Clouds, a
history of the hotels, newspaper and cog
railway, 1 852-1 908. 30 mins., col., sd.
Mysteries of the Unknown: A Documentary
about our Community, an outstanding stu-
dent video about Bucksport, Maine, with
original music. 1 990. 30 mins., col., sd.
/ Norumbega: Maine in the Age ol Exploration
and Settlement, early Maine history, based
on maps. 1 989. 1 6 mins., col., sd. PERF
NEW This Land: The Story of a Community
Land Trust and a Co-Op Called H. O.M. E., Karen
Saum's documentary on Orland, Maine, or-
ganization. 1 983. 26 mins., col., sd.PERF
A Quiet Frontier, produced for the City of
Bangor to promote economic development
during urban renewal. 1 969. 30 mins , col
sd.

Winter Sports in the White Mountain National
Forest, skiing, sledding and snowshoeing in
New Hampshire. 1934. 28 mins., b&w, si.
PERF

Oral History

/ Hap Collins ol South Blue Hill, |eff Titon's
oral history interview with field footage of a
lobsterman, painter and poet. 1989. 56
mins., col. .sd.PERF

/ An Oral Historian's Work with Dr. Edward
Ives, "how to" illustrating an oral history
project by the founder of the Maine Folklife
Center. 1987. 30 mins., col., sd.PERF
Corlton Willey, baseball pitcher, 1 958 rookie
of the year, interviewed in a high school
project. Unedited interview from VHS mas-
ter. 1 990. 39 mins., col., sd. PERF

Political Discourse

lerry Brown Speaks in New Hampshire, from the
1 992 presidential campaign. 28 mins., col.,
sd. PERF

lohn f. Kennedy Speech, anniversary of the
Cuban Missile Crisis, October 1963 at the

Univ. of Maine homecoming. 30 mins.,
b&w, sd. PERF. Sent with lull transcript of
speech.

Margaret Chase Smith Speech, declaration of

intention to run for President, includes Q&A.

1 964. 1 7 mins., b&w, sd. PERF

[Ha Knowles: A Dangerous Woman, video on a

suffragist & Bates alumna by Robert

Branham & students. 1991. 25 mins., col.,

sd.

Television

The Cold War/Transportation/TVCommercials.
three compilation tapes from the Bangor
Historical Society/WABi collection. 40 to 50
mins. each; b&w, si. and sd.PERF
J Maine's TV Time Machine, the 1 950s and
early 60s in news, sports and local commer-
cials. 1 989. 34 mins., b&w, sd. PERF

Transportation

/ AroundCape Horn, Captain Irving Johnson
aboard the bark Peking. 1929. 37 mins,
b&w, sd.

/ Ride the Sandy River Railroad, one of the
country's best two-foot-gauge railroads
1930. 30 min., b&w, si. with intertitles.

Woods

In the Public Interest: The Civilian Conservation
Corps in Maine, the federal work program
from Acadia National Park to Cape Elizabeth
1 987. 58 mins., sd., col. and b&w.
/ From Stump to Ship, complete look at the
long-log industry from forest to shipboard
1 930. 28 mins., b&w, sd. PERF

S King Spruce, harvesting pulpwood, in-
cludes horses and mechanical log haulers ca
1940. 23 mins., col. ,sd.
Little Log Cabin in the Northern Woods, ama-
teur film of a young woman's hunting trip
near Brownville, Maine, with a professional
guide ca. 1 930. 1 3 mins., b&w, si PERF
Our White Pine Heritage, how the trees are
harvested for use in construction, papermak-
ing, etc. 1948. 16 mins., b&w, sd
Pilgrim Forests, about Civilian Conservation
Corps work in New England Acadia Na-
tional Park and White Mountain National
Forest, ca. 1933. 10 mins , b&w, si. PERF
/ Woodsmen and River Drivers. "Another day,
another era, " unforgettable individuals who
worked for the Machias Lumber Company
before 1 930 1 989 30 mins., col and b&w,
sd.PERF

Women's Issues

NEW Working Women ol Waldo County: Our
Heritage, documentary basketmaking,
farming and other work 1979 26 mins.,
col., sd.PERF
Also in this series. Today and Her Story

Calendar
and Call for Volunteers

Passes are available for people who would
like to enjoy the fair season and help run
the booth at the Blue Hill, Common
Ground and Fryeburg Fairs. It's a great
way to participate as an insider! Call 469-
0924 for details.

A special film event will be held on
August 29 at the Neighborhood House in
Northeast Harbor, Maine. Call Crystal
Hall at 207 288-4947 for more information.

July 28 Bristol, Maine, The Seventh Day
(1921) with piano accompaniment by
Danny Patt, hosted by the Damariscotta
River Assoc. and the Pemaquid Water-
shed Assoc. Call Carolyn Landau, 207
563-8645.

August 17 Vinalhaven Historical Society,
Vinalhaven Island, Maine, sponsors The
Seventh Day (1921) with piano accompa-
niment by Danny Patt. Call Roy Heisler,
207 863-4318.

August 21 Saco River Grange Hall, Bar
Mills, Maine, silent films with Danny
Patt. Call Pat Packard, 207 929-6472.

September 1-5 Blue Hill Fair, Blue Hill,
Maine, visit NHF's booth on the midway.

September 23-25 Common Ground
Fair, Windsor, Maine, in the film building
(turn left inside the main gate). The
screening schedule is printed in the 1994
Fairbook.

October 2-9 Farm Museum at the
Fryeburg Fair, NHF is in residence at one
of northern New England's largest agri-
cultural fairs.

November 15-19 The Association of
Moving Image Archivists (AMIA) annual
conference will meet at Boston's Omni
Parker House, organized by the WGBH
Educational Foundation and the National
Center for Jewish Film. The New England
Archivists (NEA) meeting, focusing on
audiovisual records, will follow. AMIA
will provide two days of training during
the NEA meeting. Call Mary Ide at WGBH,
61 7 492-2777 ext. 2368.

Ice Harvesting Sampler
with Narration

and Other New Videos

SPECIAL, now through January 1 , 1 995 !
NHF members may return their silent
Ice Harvesting Sampler videotape and
receive a narrated copy FREE. Non-
members, $5 handling fee for trade-ins.

Philip C. Whitney, pictured here at work,
has narrated an annotation to NHF's Ice
Harvesting Sampler, bringing his knowl-
edge of the tools and the process to the
existing images.

The narration turns the moving images
into a vivid cultural-preservation and
education tool, showing how things were
done and aurally presenting what is not
visually evident.

Phil, president of the New England
Tool Collectors Association, lives in
Fitchburg, Mass. He specializes in living
history field demonstrations of ice
harvesting, grain flailing, millstone dress-
ing, making shingles and scarecrows.

His ice-exhibit trailer tours New
England and New York every winter.
Whitney Historic Programs, 508 342-1350.
Ice Harvesting Sampler 26 mins., b&w.,
sd. $16.95/NHF members $14.95

Berenice Abbott: A View of the 20th
Century, One of the greatest American
photographers of the century. From Paris
portraits in the '20s to her Maine life, age
90. 60 mins., col., sd. $49 for Home Use/
$99 to Institutions/Sorry, no member
discount.

Rachel Carson 's Silent Spring, the 1 963
book about environmental poisoning
helped raise ecological consciousness. 60
mins., col., sd. $69.95 Institutions Only/
Sorry, no member discount.

Phillips Lord: Maine Comic

The Summer 1993 Moving Image Review
reported on Phillips Lord, a Maine come-
dian whose one movie, Way Back Home
(1931), invokes rural Maine icons reel
after reel: the saintly orphan, lovely
farmgirl, hilarious bumpkin, woman
who went wrong in the city, and sharp-
tongued spinster, surrounded by the
wrong-headed but educable townspeople.
Led by, of course, the wise old Maine
farmer Seth Parker played by Phillips
Lord.

David A. Taylor of the Library of
Congress American Folklife Center
worked on a Phillips Lord bibliography,

while retired broadcaster Norman Gal-
lant put out the word for recordings of
Lord's radio shows. Darrell Anderson of
Renton, Washington, crossed the country
with three 78 rpm recordings and a copy
of a Seth Parker and His Jonesport Folks
lobby card. Virginia Whitney of Blue
Hill, Maine, shared recollections of the
family. Her father and Phillips Lord were
first cousins in a close family. "All of the
tribe couldn't wait to get out of Maine
and make their fortunes," she said. "Then
they couldn't wait to get back."

Way Back Home is available from
NHF on videocassette for $19.95.

For Sale

NHF Membership

Anchor of the Soul

African-American history and race rela-
tions in northern New England. Story of a
Portland, Maine, church spiritual home,
community center and leader in fight for
racial equality. 60 mins., col., sd.
$24.95/NHF Members $19.95

Giant Horses

Documentary on draft horses and the
relationship between humans and domes-
tic animals. 30 mins., col., sd.
$19.95/NHF Members $16.95 W

As an independent nonprofit organiza-
tion, NHF depends on its members. You
help us set priorities, you pass the word
about the significance of cultural preser-
vation, and your dues help keep us oper-
ating. Please join and renew!
Regular members, $25 per year, receive
a subscription to Moving Image Review,
notice of screenings and events, loan of
three reference tapes at no charge, and
discounts on materials distributed by NHF.
Educator/Student Members, $15 per
year, receive all regular membership
benefits. This category is for teachers and
students at any level.
Nonprofit Organizations, $35 per year,
receive all regular benefits of member-
ship, including loan of three reference
tapes at no charge, plus additional copies

of Moving Image Review on request and
reduced rates for consultation, presenta-
tions and professional services.
Associates (Individuals) and Corporate
Members, $100 per year, receive the
benefits of regular members, special
recognition in Moving Image Review,
and loan of five reference tapes at no
charge.

Friends, $250 per year, receive all benefits
of regular membership and, in addition,
loan of ten reference tapes at no charge.
Membership at any level is an opportu-
nity to become involved with the pres-
ervation and enjoyment of our moving
image heritage.

Your dues are tax deductible to the extent
allowed by law.

Technical Services

NHF transfers 16 mm. film to videotape
using Elmo equipment at either sound or
silent speeds. Also available, 8 mm. and
Super 8 mm. transfers to videotape for
reference; evaluation of film's physical
condition; perforation repair and appraisal.

These services, using NHF staff's
expertise and equipment, help support
the organization by providing a revenue
source. Some equipment acquisition is
the result of a generous gift from the
Betterment Fund.

Membership and Order Form

Ordered by

Northeast Historic Film, P.O. Box 900, Bucksport, ME 04416 USA

Name _
Address

City

State _

Ship to (if different from above)

Zip

Name

Address
Cay _
State _

Purchase or Reference by Mail

Qty.

Total

fj Special Fourth Class mail: add $3.00 Subtotal
plus $1 each additional item Tax; ME residents a jd 6%
Q Priority Mail: add $4.50
plus $1 each additional item Shipping and handling
fj UPS: add $4.50 plus $1 each
additional item

I Please send Video Sales Catalog!

Membership/ Specify level, please:

Payment Method

I I Check or money order make check payable to Northeast Historic Film

H Visa J MasterCard Credit card #

TOTAL

LJ Institutional purchase order *
Expiration date

QuiH*M? Call Libby Rosemeier at (207) 469-0924

Credit card signature .

Evangeline

Longfellow's famous poem, the hope and despair
of thousands of school children and their
elders has again been brought to the screen,
this time with Dolores Del Rio as the Acadian
maiden.

New York Times, 29 July 1929

Thanks to Madeline Matz, Library of Congress
M/B/RS for research on Evangeline; and to
Eddie Richmond, Bob Gittand Charles Hopkins,
UCLA Film and Television Archive, photo:
Museum of Modem Art, Film Stills Archives.

NORTHEAST

HISTORIC

: LM

Nonprofit Org.

1 .stage

PAID

ill Falls,

ME 046 15
Permit

AI'DKl-NN CORRECTION REQUESTED

Dolores Del Rio starred in the 1929
feature film Evangeline, produced and
directed by Edwin Carewe. The film was
released with music and effects on disc,
including Del Rio singing a French
chansonnette. Variety said,

Allowing for the great beauty of produc-
tion, fine quality and appeal of the great
American love epic, the picture carries
with it the handicap of being somewhat
an educational (sic). Commercially it
looks a bit doubtful; artistically it is a
credit to everybody concerned.

The film has lain quietly awaiting
restoration. NHF's attention was drawn
to it by people of Acadian heritage in
northern Maine whose French-speaking
ancestors were driven out of Nova Scotia
by the British. Evangeline is a vehicle for
examining the mythification of Acadian
history, according to Lisa Ornstem,
director of the Acadian Archives/Ar-
chives acadiennes at the University of
Maine, Fort Kent. Once it is preserved,
screenings will be a chance to focus on
the "historical development of the adop-
tion of Evangeline as a cultural icon."

Barry Jean Ancelet, who teaches
French and Folklore at the University of
Southwestern Louisiana, studies the
culture, language and history of t