Movie Makers (Jan-Dec 1949)

MOVIE MAKERS 365 Closeups— What filmers are doing With twenty years of membership in New York's Metropolitan Motion Picture Club. Sidney Moritz. ACL. really writes from experience when he advises with other cine club executives in Break It Up! Secretary, treasurer, director, contest chairman, program chairman or what have you, Mr. Moritz has been them all— and ably. Around MMPC they've revised the old expression to: "Let Sidnev do it." Two American amateur movies were entered this year in the Internationa] Festival of Amateur Films recently concluded at Cannes, France, and both have been awarded the Grand Prix. The award winners were No Credit, by Leonard W. Tregillus, ACL, and Ralph Luce, of Berkeley. Calif., and Her Heart's Desire, by Othon Goetz, ACL, of Chicago. No Credit had previously received Honorable Mention in Movie Makers Ten Best selections for 1948. Production of the film, which was done in animated clay, was discussed in Try Clay for Comedy, in July. We don't suppose that our hobby of home movies has ever actually broken up a happy household — but we sometimes wonder why not. The amusing account by Cyril Stevens in this issue is a case in point. Embarking on a simple film of the family's pet Australian terrier, Mr. Stevens, an able amateur from Melbourne, shot over a thousand feet of 16mm. film and disrupted his en tire household for a period of eight weeks. Our accompanying picture will give you some idea of the lengths for perhaps we should say "heights") to which he went for just the right camera viewpoint. One way to get new ideas is to keep your eyes open. That's apparently just what Lewis C. Cook was doing when he spotted the makings of an editing rack in son Lewis, junior's Tinkertoy doodlings. Besides the pix on page 371 which illustrate his gadget, Mr. C. also submitted the evidence on this page of where it came from. QUIZ PROBLEM: Find the poor pup in this production shot from film described on page 367. BEGINNING of a gadget is seen in this shot of Lewis Cook, Jr., toying with Tinkertoy. Home, to Capt. Rex G. Combs, is where he hangs his hat, be it Worth, Missouri, Timbuctu or the Smoky Mountain Movie Club in Asheville, N. C, of which he is a member. Just returned from a year of filming in Africa with the Elk-Combs African Expedition, he gave us a stimulating account of some hair-raising adventures in big game shooting, during the course of a visit to League headquarters. Narrow escapes became almost commonplace during the expedition's trek through the Dark Continent. But these were as nothing compared with the heart-breaking discovery that an assistant had shot several hundred feet of top drawer stuff with the lens cap on. Another time some equally precious footage was shot with an empty camera. Just goes to show. . . . A CROSS the Threshold : Recent visitors to the ACL office have included Ray Lawson, ACL, of Warrague, Australia, K. C. Rappell, ACL, of Ottawa, Canada, and Oluf A. Martins, of Oslo, Norway. ^COMMONWEALTH1 proudly announces IMMEDIATE DELIVERY of 2 additional Major Company HITS of the Edward Small Group i r. BEHIND i slashed his way through a thou \ sand Intrigues! j THE man in the mon nm$K I | Oumas" | Advtnturt pfi* LOUIS 3? HAYWARD § JOAN 0 BENNETT KIT CARSON Jon Hall, lynn Bari, Dana Andrews THE CORSICAN BROTHERS Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Ruth Warw.ck, Akim Tamiroff SHIRLEY TEMPLE as MISS ANNIE ROONEY William Gargan, Guy Kibbee, D.ck.e Moore, Peggy Ryan JAMES FENIMORE COOPER'S LAST OF THE MOHICANS Randolph Scott, Binnie Barnes, Henry Wileoxon FRIENDLY ENEMIES Charles Winniger, Charles Ruggles, James Croig, Nancy Kelly For Rentals Communicate with your leading I6MM. FILM LIBRARY EXCLUSIVE I6MM DISTRIBUTORS COMMONWEALTH PICTURES CORP. 723 Seventh Avenue. New York 19, N.Y.