Documentary News Letter (1940)

14 DOCUMENTARY NEWS LETTER JULY 1940 THE RETURN OF ZORRO FOR THE first time in movie history, the whole career of a famous screen star is being put on view to the general public. Ever since the death of Douglas Fairbanks in 1939, the Museum of Modern Art Film Library has been besieged by requests from all over the country to present a memorial programme of the works of the famous actor-producer. Fortunately, last year Mr Fairbanks had generously presented to the Film Library his entire private collection of his o<vn films. From this material the Film Library has selected sixteen films arranged as a series of eight separate programmes. They survey the whole screen character and career of Douglas Fairbanks, from his first to his last American films : The Lamb, 1915, to Mr Robinson Crusoe, 1932. Douglas Fairbanks was a leading Broadway actor when the newly-formed Triangle Corporation persuaded him to make movies. He made altogether 48 films. In later years, he became a good friend to the Museum of Modern Art and before he died had made a gift to the Film Library of 2,700,000 feet of film. This, aside from the D. W. Griffith collection, is the only complete assembling of one man's film career in the possession of the Film Library. In the programme note, Mr Alistair Cooke, who saw over a half million feet of Fairbanks celluloid in order to prepare the programmes, says : "In kidding almost every fad and affectation of the war and post-war years, Fairbanks held a flattering mirror up to the average American. For a whole generation, he made physical wellbeing and infectious optimism the essence of heroics and was so immensely popular at the time that he was able to sign up d'Artagnan, Robin Hood, Petruchio and other literary heroes, to play Douglas Fairbanks — to the enhanced prestige of them all. "In his early comedies he usually starts out as one of his own luckless disciples. In the last reel he soars beyond Horatio Alger to become a boy's hero who cannot be matched today in the movies and approximates most nearly to the comic-strip Superman. Incidentally, he is probably the only screen star to relegate the professional athletic stand-in to the status of a lagging amateur." The first programme of the series is a Film Library innovation. Called The Screen Character of Douglas Fairbanks, it sketches in two hours the whole Fairbanks' movie career, showing by what means he was able over seventeen years of movie productions to keep his title of "the best liked figure on the screen". This programme uses excerpts chronologically from The Lamb (1915), A Modern Musketeer (1917), Say Young Fellow (1918), Knickerbocker Buckaroo (1919), The Mollycoddle (1920), Don Q (1925), and The Taming of the Shrew (1929). After the exhibition in New York, these programmes will become available for non-commercial circulation to museums, colleges, schools, and film-study groups throughout the country. The programme schedule is as follows : When the Clouds Roll By and The Nut. The Mark of Zorro. The Three Musketeers. The Thief of Bagdad. The Black Pirate. Around the World in 80 Minutes. Fairbanks' Screen Character. Manhattan Madness and Wild and Woollv. FILM ASSOCIATES, INC. FILMS NOT normally "Hollywood", yet not limited to "documentary", will be produced by a new motion picture company whose formation was recently announced. Named "Film Associates, Inc." (620 Fifth Avenue, New York City), the company is composed of well-known figures in motion picture and radio, including the English novelist, Aldous Huxley. First of a projected series of timely features and shorts, will be a feature-length film scripted by Joseph Krumgold, which treats of historic events between the last and present great wars. The Krumgold script is almost ready for shooting; stockshot material is being purchased; and the company expects to start production shortly in New York, on location and in Hollywood. Negotiations for distribution are under way. The members of the company, equal shareholders constituting an equal partnership, are as follows: Felix Greene, formerly American representative of the British Broadcasting Corporation. Theodore Lawrence, formerly research engineer in charge of recording development. United Research Corporation; sent by Paramount to Europe as chief sound engineer and later technical supervisor; later European technical supervisor to 20th Century-Fox. Has since been employed with United Artists in Hollywood. Aldous Huxley, of world-wide reputation as novelist ; for the past two years has been working for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Irving Reis, originator and first director of the Columbia Workshop of the Columbia Broadcasting System ; for the past two years writer and director for Paramount and R.K.O. Henwar Rodakiewicz, formerly director for Paramount, and writer for Metro-GoldwynMayer in Hollywood, and with production experience in Mexico and New York. Gerald Heard, author oi Science in the Ma king. The Emergence of Man, The Third Mortality, Pain, Sex and Time, etc. tin tea:. Obi NEWS FROM CANADA Canada at War The war has caused a burst of activity in th production of documentary and informations films in Canada. New Canadian films are attune-*! . to the Dominion's role as provider for the AUieii ai They are intended "to give public information o what Canada is doing in the war; particular! Jjeji on how the war affects the lives of ordinar people". Principal productions are undcifsl.h. government supervision and work is we organised. Theatrical distribution is expected t be extended to Australia, New Zealand, and thjfoi United Kingdom. Outstanding is a new series of one-reeler entitled Canada at War. First of the series is Atlantic Patrol, which wa released April 26th and is currently showing i first run houses from coast to coast in th Dominion. Film is reported made chiefly o existing material from England and other placeSi Distribution Columbia. , Second is Private Lives, concerning "a lette home from lads at Aldershot". Production i almost completed. Third is Women in the War, which is in produc tion. Two units are now in the field. The easter unit is under the direction of Stanley Hawes an accompanying him is cameraman Roger Baric who worked on Design for Education and Tl,' City. I r Society Set up to distribute art films in 1935, tY National Film Society of Canada incautious! pioneered into the educational field, which now its chief interest. Last week it signed a agreement with the International Film Centr smoothing details of shipping and previewin preparatory to interchange of American an Canadian films. The Film Society showed Canadians their fir foreign language films. Then, tempted by the in portant audience sprinkled through the hinte: lands, it undertook 16mm. distribution. Proj» tors were few and far between ; the prospect t audience-building in semi-wilderness was grin The Society started with the few projectors could muster from schools and university extei sion systems. To its surprise, it found that peopi gathered more readily in rural districts than i towns, where film showings had to compete wit other attractions. Slowly the interest of schoo prompted the Government to subsidise moi projectors. This year industry is lending ii equipment. The Shell Oil Company, producer of Transfer of Power, one of the outstandin films at the World's Fair last summer, is spot soring an educational programme on the Britis Empire which will ultimately go before 40i audiences. Growing interest in study guide; follow-up lectures, and film libraries, means thj the Society's spade-work is done. m :•:,