Movie Makers (Jan-Dec 1949)

55 League loses pioneer leader Roy W. Winton, ACL, Managing Director since the League's founding, passes at sixty five Movie Makers announces with profound regret the death, on January 1, 1949, of Rov W. Winton, ACL. managing director and secretary of the Amateur Cinema League since its organization in 1926. Colonel Winton — oi, more simplv. The Colonel, as he was known to a generation of amateur filmers — gained his familiar title from sixteen years of service in the United States Army. Today, in that great organization, his name will be known only to the yellowing files of the Adjutant General's Office. But for today and for tomorrow and tomorrow, in an almost equally great army of amateur filmers. his name will be known by the thousands who have benefited, either directly or indirectly, from his devotion to the Amateur Cinema League. For in any attempt to write a history of Roy W. W inton. the man. one finds immediately that he must write also a history of the League, the organization he so truly made. That history began on July 23. 192C. with a luncheon gathering of fifty five persons at the Hotel Biltmore, in New Vork City. Among those present were Joseph H. McNabb. ACL. president of the Bell & Howell Company: L. B. Jones, a vicepresident of the Eastman Kodak Company: Alexander Victor, president of the Victor Animatograph Corporation: Hiram Percy Maxim. FACL. president of the Maxim Silencer Company and founder of the ACL: Roy W Winton and others who were soon to join with him on the League's first board of directors. They listened eagerly to Mr. Maxim's outline of the proposed league's purposes, and before the luncheon had adjourned they voted unanimously that it be formed. The League's early7 years, devoted to establishing and strengthening the young organization, passed swiftly. The first hundreds of members enrolled in the fall of 1926. In December of that year there appeared the first issue of the League's monthly magazine, known then as Amateur Movie Makers. The membership roll had swelled to 1338 by May. 1927, date of the first annual meeting of ACL, to 2193 in May, 1928, and in June of that year the magazine shortened its name to the current Movie Makers. By the third annual meeting in 1929, the Amateur Cinema League was firmly established. Its first major public service to the cause of amateur motion pictures was initiated in that year, and it was symptomatic of the militant leadership which Colonel Winton was to bring to that cause. In those days, movie makers who traveled out of the United States with amateur film made in the United States still had to pay duty on that film when it was returned by them to the country of its origin. Acting for the Amateur Cinema League, the Colonel took up the fight to correct this obvious injustice. ROY WALTER WINTON 1883-1949 Lnderwood & Underwood His first move was to appear, together with Mr. Maxim, before the House Ways and Means Committee, in W ashington, in the spring of 1929. They presented at that time an amendment to the existing Tariff Act providing for the free entrv of returned amateur film of original American manufacture. By the time of the League's fourth annual meeting, in May, 1930. thev were able to announce that the amendment had been included in the proposed Tariff Act of 1930. On June 24 it was enacted into law. The Amateur Cinema League, the amateur filmer — and Colonel Vv inton — had won their first great battle. In December of the same year the League announced its first selection of the Ten Best Amateur Films of the Year. Maintained in unbroken continuity since that time; enhanced in 1937 by the establishment of the Hiram Percv Maxim Memorial Award. ACL's Ten Best competition was to grow into the most coveted international honor in the world of amateur filming. In 1932, under Colonel Winton's leadership, the League wrote and published its first full length handbook of the hobby, Making Better Movies. It was to go through three editions and some 25.000 copies before advances in technique caused its replacement by a second volume. The ACL Movie Book. In the same year, the League was successful in getting film restrictions removed by the Empire State. Chrysler and Woolworth Buildings, the first of many successes in clearing away such restrictive red tape. The middle vears of that decade were to be busy ones for Colonel Winton and rewarding ones for the cause of amateur movies. Perhaps the Colonel's greatest personal triumph came in 1933 and '34 when, as the chosen representative of the amateur filmer and of the entire nontheatrical film industry, he single-handedly fought for and won an NRA code wholly separate from that of professional Hollywood. During the same period he succeeded in killing a New York State bill proposing censorship of amateur movies, and he worked in close cooperation with the amateur industrv in defeating similar censorship, licensing and restrictive legislation in six other states and cities. The year 1936 was saddened for the Amateur Cinema League by the passing, in February, of Mr. Maxim. Founder President. In October of that same year, the League's first decade of activity was marked by ACL's Tenth Anniversary Dinner. This happy gathering was from its inception to its triumphant finale the Colonel's creation. More than 400 members — from as far north as Canada, as far west as Missouri and as far south as VIexico — gathered in New York's Hotel Roosevelt for a suavely planned evening of fun and films. Even the maitre d'hote] in charge of the dinner [Continued on page 78]