Movie Makers (Jan-Dec 1947)

JANUARY 1947 BROTHERHOOD Closeups — What filmers are doing GAY • BRILLIANT Animated, Color-Sound Motion Picture Cartoon The basic, widely approved film on the inherent equality of men, whatever their race or color . . . for School, Home, Church, Industry . . . for the entire American Community. For fun, for educa tion, for everybody ... a fresh, colorful technique. Produced By UNITED PRODUCTIONS OF AMERICA, Inc 1 Reel • 10 Min. • 16mm Soundfilm RENTAL $3.00 PER DAY Available At All Film Libraries SALE $80.00 PER COPY Printed Discussion Guide Included With Sale or Rental Released by m FILM ALLIANCE OF AMERICA, INC 1600 BROADWAY NEW YORK 19, N. Y. One of the most devastating lampoons of personal filming it has yet been our pleasure to see is Lenses and Shudders, an innocent looking little reel of 8mm. film spliced together with good humored venom by Dr. J. W. Sovine, ACL, of Indianapolis. The picture even starts off with a "phony" lead title, which is first out of focus, then upside down and, at last, purposely unspliced to the rest of the footage. After the customary "lights on" period and assorted alibis for the "accident," the reel continues with a sweeping and awesome indictment of all those familiar failings which, on occasion, we have each known so well. Lenses and Shudders is in the same satiric tradition as is Home Movies, that uproarious 1946 Ten Best winner by Fred Evans, ACL, of Los Angeles. When practicing filmers can make, and other filmers can look at, pictures of such acid content, amateur movies must indeed be coming of age. More than three hundred invited guests — some of them standing for the hour and one half show — crowded the auditorium of the American Club, in Mexico City, for the recent first public screening in that country of Typical Times in the Tropics, 1946 Maxim Award winner by Ralph E. Gray, FACL. Primitive Patzcuaro, an earlier Ten Best award winner, rounded out the gala program. The third annual contest for amateur films of pets, domestic animals, birds and wild life has been announced by the American Humane Association, 135 Washington Avenue, Albany 6, N. Y. There will be $300.00 in cash awards, to be distributed on a sliding scale governed by the number of entries, and all films must be on original 16mm. stock, monochrome or color. The board of judges will include Dr. Irene F. Cypher, audio visual supervisor for the American Museum of Natural History; Louise Branch, ACL, vicepresident of United Specialists, New York City film producers; William Bridges, in charge of photography for the New York Zoological Society; Leo J. Heffernan, FACL, Maxim Award winner and past president of the Metropolitan Motion Picture Club, ACL, and J. Seth Jones, general manager of the Connecticut Humane Society. This year's contest closes on March 31, 1947, at which time all entries must be in the offices of the American Humane Association. Official entry blanks and complete contest information may be had on application to the Association, at the address above. For a man who has been making commercial movies for some fifteen years, Vincent H. Hunter, ACL, chief of photography for the Union Pacific Railroad, is still one of the keenest amateurs it is our pleasure to know. To our fairly jaded eye, he seemed like a kid with a new toy during the recent running of Union Pacific contest films here at ACL headquarters. And, mind you, Mr. Hunter had already screened every film in the contest once before out in Omaha! Incidentally, it seemed quite like old times finding Frederick G. Beach, FACL, alongside us in the League's projection room. In between reels, he and Vince Hunter argued the pros and cons of railroad film making with all the fury of Westbrook Pegler at a C.I.O. convention. Well, after twenty years in the Orient with Socony and four years of emergency war work with North American Aviation near Los Angeles, Fred C. Ells, FACL, has retired for the second and — as he vehemently declares — last time. Furthermore, as an added gesture of independence, he has sold his house at Pacific Palisades, Calif., and moved with his wife — and an incredible amount of stuff — into a trailer. Just to give you an idea: Mr. Ells starts off surrounded by such domestic "necessities" as a four burner gas range, a fifty pound icebox, sink, electric hot water heater, gas fireplace, a four place dinette and a full scale double bed. Tucked into this cozy little nest, now, are such far more important items as a 16mm. sound projector and speaker, a Cine-Kodak Special and tripod, a four foot beaded screen, a double turntable and records, rewinds, splicer and some twenty 400 foot cans of film . . . Says it's a swell life! Bill Haddock, that aging hut aggressive pioneer of the D. W. Griffith era of theatrical movies, has been holding the artistic mirror up to life with a vengeance in a recent six months U.S.O. tour of the Pacific theatre. Mr. Haddock's play was, by rare coincidence, You Can't Take It With You, that hilarious saga of the indomitable Sickamore family— and it is our bet that he has been playing it to the hilt. Mr. Haddock, who has recounted in Movie Makers some of his unique experiences in the early, you might say amateur, days of film making, lost no time in Japan in checking up on local production methods. Says the technical arrangements are adequate (though worn), but that much of the scripting is still pretty much "on the cuff."