Please note, that the film sale is ongoing throughout 2012! Give us a call or email to claim titles. We can ship as well (all shipping charges handled by customer).

Below is an inventory of films for sale. We have listed titles, length (in feet), as well as notes on color fading. We cannot confirm the exact condition of the reels beyond what is listed below (so purchase at your own risk! or if possible, feel free to stop by to examine the conditions yourself). If you are looking for more information on the titles, please consult databases such as imdb or WorldCat.

*Also please note that 2 of the 3 series (AMERICA and ROOTS) below are presumed color faded. We looked at the first reel of each series to determine the fading of prints, so there’s a small chance that all episodes may not be faded (emphasis on *small*). The opposite goes for the FAT ALBERT series, whose first episode appears to be in great shape. If you are interested in purchasing a series, please contact us before the sale to reserve this purchase.

COST:
$5/faded film, $10/film in good condition, $15/Disney film, $200/ROOTS series (presumed faded), $200/AMERICA series (presumed faded) & $400/FAT ALBERT series.

Inventory list date: February 17, 2012

NEW ADDITIONS!! (3/9/12)

NEW ADDITIONS!! (3/10/12)

Can you believe it? This year marks the 10th anniversary of Home Movie Day – the international, annual, all-around good time BYO home movie event.

Home Movie Day is a celebration of amateur films and filmmaking held annually at many local venues worldwide. It was conceived by the Center for Home Movies in 2002 as a means to promote the preservation and appreciation of home movies. Chicago Film Archives has been honored to host an annual Chicago Home Movie Day for the past 9 years!

Like years past, CFA archivists will hand inspect your celluloid (16mm., 8mm., & Super 8mm.) home movies and project them in front of a live audience. As always, this event depends on YOU and your family or found treasures (of course those without films are welcome as well!!). This year’s event will also feature a curated screening of home movies from CFA and local film collectors (expect some surprises!).

CFA firmly believes that the public presentation of these family legacies builds and strengthens communities. This event is not only a celebration of lives well lived, it is an opportunity to reconsider these home movies as historical records that have value to our culture, reaching far beyond the family.

More information TBA.

Chicago Film Archives and portoluz present:

FEMININE RECALL

Featuring EVERYDAY PEOPLE (JoAnn Elam, 1979-1990) and UNION MAIDS (Klein, Reichart, Mogulescu, 1976) – two Chicago-based films that take a look at gender issues related to labor. This program contributes to portoluz’s year long program “WPA 2.0,” about the depression-era WPA and it’s relevance to the current economic and labor situation today.

EVERYDAY PEOPLE, 1979-1990, JoAnn Elam, Video, 22 min.
JoAnn Elam (1949-2009) was a feminist, experimental filmmaker whose films and papers were recently donated to Chicago Film Archives. Her unfinished project, EVERYDAY PEOPLE (filmed from 1979 to 1990), is based on her experiences as a letter carrier for the US Postal Service in Chicago. Camera in hand, Elam follows co-workers as they deliver the mail throughout various Chicago neighborhoods. Elam’s construction of this film-in-progress creates a lovely cadence and rhythm that transforms the repetitive motions of the postal worker – pushing the mail cart, carrying the bag, avoiding the dogs, opening the gates, and climbing the steps to the front door – to something poetic yet startlingly familiar. Their stories (heard mostly in voice-over) are those of everyday people who at the time struggled with issues of race and gender in relationship to their work. Papers suggest that Elam intended to expand the story into the political struggles they faced with the administration and the union, as well as larger issues related to the history of labor struggle and activism in the United States. EVERYDAY PEOPLE was never released. This is the first public screening of this film in the form of a rough-cut and works as an introduction to Elam’s creative processes that spanned over a decade.

UNION MAIDS, 1976, Jim Klein, Julia Reichart, Miles Mogulescu, 16mm., 55 min.
Nominated for an Oscar as Best Documentary Feature in 1976, UNION MAIDS is a film about three Chicago women who lived through the raucous and sometimes violent era of the 1930s depression. Forty years later, Kate Hyndman, Stella Nowicki and Sylvia Woods recall with surprising clarity the labor movement that took hold during the worst economic downturn in US history. Stella worked in the Chicago Stockyards, Kate worked in a factory that made athletic supporters and Sylvia did laundry. Their stories are intercut with historical footage, and, according to Pauline Kael in 1976, present “one of the most blithe and humorous reports of social struggle we have seen on film.”

We have selected a handful of our favorite Chicago-centric shorts to share with you! From vintage sponsored films to 1950s women’s wrestling, this program highlights the varied (and often delightfully bizarre) scope of CFA’s unique film collections.

This is the first time CFA has teamed up with Catalyst Ranch (a whimsical meeting/event space located in Chicago’s West Loop), and we’re pretty excited about it!

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Pabst Brewing Company “Old Milwaukee” (from the Mort & Millie Goldsholl Collection), Goldsholl Associates, 1964, 16mm., color, sound, 4 min.

A sponsored film made by Morton Goldsholl Associates for Pabst Brewing Company. Morton & Millie Goldsholl ran Morton Goldsholl Associates, one of Chicago’s leading graphic design studios in the 1950s. The studio became recognized for their animations, progressive hiring practices and developing corporate branding packages for various companies. This particular sample gives a taste of the firm’s playful design aesthetic.

June Byers vs Penny Banner (from the Russ & Sylvia Davis Collection), 1950s, 16mm., b&w, sound, 14min.

An episode of a syndicated wrestling show shot at Chicago’s International Amphitheatre. Shot live on film with three-camera coverage, it features a witty and entertaining narration from announcer Russ Davis (who always seems to be less enthused to announce a “gals match” over a men’s match). This one-fall bout features the then world’s women’s wrestling champion, June Byers, versus the platinum blonde Penny Banner. Fringe and sequence abound!

Air Traffic Controller (from the Harry Mantel Collection), 1970s, 16mm., color, sound, 2 min.

A short film made by Harry Mantel that documents the chaotic air traffic control tower at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport. Harry Mantel (1923-2007) was a Chicago cameraman, producer, and journalist. This title is part of Mantel’s series “Vignettes,” which was funded in part by Encyclopedia Britannica for television broadcast.

The New World of Stainless Steel (from the Chicago Public Library Collection), Made by Wilding Studios for Republic Steel, 1960, 16mm., color, sound, 15 min.

Originally found in a film can labeled “Iran,” The New World of Stainless Steel is a wonderful example of the industrial film genre that flourished with the creation of 16mm film gauge. Chicago’s Wilding Picture Productions provides us with an introduction to the wonders of stainless steel in all of its various forms and applications.

Mister E (from the Margaret Conneely Collection), Margaret Conneely, 1960, 16mm. (preservation print struck in 2007!), color, sound, 11min.

Chicago movie-maker Margaret Conneely (1915-2007) was active in amateur filmmaking both locally and internationally for nearly half a century. Her domestic “black comedy,” Mister E, expresses some of the edgier mischief and discontent that women of the 1950s could rarely express openly. This short film narrates the revenge acted out by a young wife, left at home while her husband is at a card game; by staging a rendezvous with a mannequin, this woman provokes an eruption of jealousy and violence before bringing about the desired marital tenderness. Thanks to the Women’s Film Preservation Fund, this film (along with two other Conneely shorts) were preserved back in 2007.

Chicago World’s Fair 1933 (from the David Gray Collection), 1933, 16mm., b&w, silent, 6min.

A home movie of the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair in all its troubled splendor. Highlights include an animatronic tyrannosaurus rex, that crazy Radio Flyer sculpture and a building titled “Infant Incubators – with living babies.”

Super Up (from the Chicago Public Library Collection), Kenji Kanesaka, 1966, 16mm., color, sound, 13min.

Kenji Kanesaka, one of the founding members of the “Film Independent” group and the Japan Filmmakers Co-op in Tokyo, is an experimental filmmaker and photographer who organized an experimental film festival with Takahiko Iimura at the Sogetsu Art Center in Japan (probably the most important exhibition space for alternative and avant-garde art in Japan in the 1960’s), and documented Fluxus happenings – art performances by collectives such as Hi-Red Center – and the vibrant, often chaotic, underground art scene in Tokyo at the end of the 1960’s. Kanesaka visited the States frequently in the 1960’s, and while little is known about his time in Chicago, he was commissioned by local producer Marv Gold to make Super Up while he was visiting here in 1965/66. The film is an exceptional critique of the structures of racial and class segregation, consumerism and lust, sexual energy and desire, and the domination of (and link between) advertising, consumption, sexuality, and the police.

Close to You by the Carpenters (from the Chicago Public Library Collection), 1971, 16mm., color, sound, 5 min.

A Chicago high school student’s take on a 1970 Carpenters’ classic. This stop-animation film went onto win an award from the “Young Chicago Filmmakers Festival” back in 1971. CFA has 14 other Young Chicago Filmmakers Festival award winners from the years 1971-1974. All reside in the Chicago Public Library Collection.

Out of the Vault 2012: THE SPIRIT OF AMERICA

For this year’s Out of the Vault program, CFA offers films that speak to the spiritual realms that cleanse, cure, uplift and replenish the American soul. Religion and spirituality are deeply ingrained in our history and culture. Enhanced drama and high ritual spring from religious ceremony and are reflected in many films from CFA’s collections. Join us for an unusual Sunday afternoon with films of the devoted and infuse your souls with some of the good stuff.

Be sure to come a bit early, as we will project excerpts from our collections before the screening.

Featuring: POMO SHAMAN (1964), LAUDATE (1966) and  HOLY GHOST PEOPLE (1967)
Total Running Time: 84 minutes

Film program curated by Nancy Watrous & Anne Wells

TRAILER:

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POMO SHAMAN (from the Minnesota University Collection), William Heick, 1964, b/w, sound, 16mm, 22 min.

POMO SHAMAN documents the second and final night of a Kashaya Pomo healing ceremony lead by Essie Parrish (1903-1979), a spiritual, cultural and political head of the Kashaya Pomo community and one of the only southwestern Pomo sucking doctor who still practiced this ancient form of doctoring. Along with her good friend, Cache Creek Pomo medicine woman and fellow basket weaver Mabel McKay, Parrish would be the last of the sucking doctors in California—and probably the last in the entire country.

The ceremony took place June 1, 1963 in a ceremonial roundhouse of the Southwestern Pomo (now more commonly referred to as Kashaya or Kashaya Pomo) near Stewarts Point, California. During the ceremony (which is presented without narration), Parrish enters a trance and cures a patient with the aid of a spiritual instrument used to suck out the patient’s illness. Parrish only gave the film crew one chance to shoot the ceremony, with no equipment allowed inside the roundhouse where the ceremony took place. All cameras and lighting were setup to shoot through knot holes in the walls, which explains the films dark, high contrast appearance.

William Heick made POMO SHAMAN while Director and Chief Cinematographer for the University of California at Berkeley’s National Science Foundation supported Amercian Indian Film Project. It is an edited version of Heick’s larger work SUCKING DOCTOR (1963, 45 minutes). Heick’s POMO SHAMAN grants us a rare chance to experience a ceremony generally off-limits to cameras. According to Essie’s son, Parrish only agreed to be filmed knowing that their traditions were going to be preserved on film for both their community as well as the outside world. To this day, the Kashaya watch this film before performing healing ceremonies since the film, according to Essie’s son, is “infused with her healing powers.”

CFA is aware of the sensitivity in presenting indigenous cultural heritage and have sought permission from the Kashaya Pomo of Northern California, or more specifically Essie’s son Otis Parrish, to present this film. He has given us their blessing, as well as a warning that our audiences may feel signs of his mother’s healing powers and begin to “heal for ourselves individually.”

LAUDATE (from the Margaret Conneely Collection), Nicholas Frangakis, 1966, b/w, sound, 16mm, 9 min.

This experimental student film shot in California is about a young boy who must choose between the Benedictine Community and the industrialized modern world. Images of both worlds race through his mind and are set to the score of Igor Stravinsky’s “Symphony of Psalms.” It even features real monks and nuns from the Valyermo, California Benedictine Community! Found in the Margaret Conneely collection, this film is in keeping with her weird and sometimes barely twisted notion of life. Beware of a birth scene that catches by surprise!

HOLY GHOST PEOPLE (from the Southern Illinois University Collection), Peter Adair, 1967, b/w, sound, 16mm, 53 min.

Tucked away in Scrabble Creek, West Virginia, faith is alive and trying to be well. Filmmaker Peter Adair and his crew are welcomed and then ignored at this Pentecostal service where speaking in tongues is considered evidence that God exists. Who hasn’t wanted the concrete proof that we’re sheltered and protected by some higher power? The shrieking and convulsive dancing seem fun and democratic and even cleansing… the testimonials not really that crazy. But the Copperheads and Rattlers bring a touch of tension to the room and once again we’re reminded of the camera crew as they keep a bead on the snakes that are passed around, slithering on the floor and wrapped around the arms of the devoted.

Holy Ghost People was directed by Peter Adair (1943-1963), a documentary filmmaker best known for his film “Word is Out” (1977).

The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Chairman Rocco Landesman announced today that Chicago Film Archives is one of the 788 not-for-profit national, regional and state organizations nationwide to receive an NEA Art Works grant.  These Art Works grants support the creation of art that meets the highest standards of excellence, public engagement with diverse and excellent art, lifelong learning in the arts, and the strengthening of communities through the arts.  The NEA received 1,624 eligible applications under the Art Works category for this round of funding.  The Chicago Film Archives has been awarded its full request from the NEA and expects to meet the required match this coming year to stabilize the Ruth Page Dance Collection in its entirety.

Illinois’ 7^th District Representative Danny Davis remarked,

Ruth Page was an extraordinary pioneer of dance in America.  The moving image collection acquired by the Chicago Film Archives is an irreplaceable treasure.  The Archives, by preserving and protecting this legacy, are ensuring that this treasure will be available for generations to come.  I congratulate the Archives, and all the dedicated people who work there, on winning this grant and applaud their vision and initiative in undertaking this project.

We are ready to get started on this fascinating collection from Chicago’s premiere and iconic twentieth century dance figure.  Containing nearly 1,000 items, CFA will stabilize, digitize and catalog this collection over a three-year period.  It’s with great honor that as a result of this grant, CFA will soon be able to publicly present the history, accomplishments and artistry of the Chicago dancer and choreographer, Ruth Page. By building upon both the Ruth Page and the Morrison-Shearer Foundation dance collections, CFA can begin to retell Chicago’s history of dance.

- Nancy

This past Saturday, I was lucky enough to attend the final day of the 8th Orphans Film Symposium. For those unfamiliar with this NYU biennial symposium, it is a “gathering of scholars, archivists, curators, and media artists devoted to saving, screening, and studying neglected moving images.” These neglected moving images are often referred to as “orphan films,” which encompass films outside the commercial mainstream (i.e. amateur, educational, ethnographic, home movies, medical, newsreels, kinescopes, ect).

The collections here at CFA consist almost entirely of “orphan films,” ranging from home movies and amateur film club productions to educational or instructional films within our Chicago Public Library Collection.

CFA has even presented at Orphans in years past. At Orphans 7, CFA’s Nancy Watrous and Andy Uhrich (who is also affiliated with NYU and the University of Indiana) premiered “A Pictorial Story of Hiawatha.” Discovered in the Special Collections Library at Valparaiso University, this 35mm nitrate film was shot between 1901-1903 by Charles L. Bowden and Katharine Ertz-Bowden, lecturers and headliners for the Circuit Chautaugua. It captures members of the Garden River Ojibwe (of Desbarats, Ontario, Canada) performing Longfellow’s poem, “The Song of Hiawatha.” To read more about this film and its restoration, click here.

Below, I’ve provided a few highlights from Saturday’s presentations (and provided streaming videos and links when possible!). All relate to this year’s theme: “Made to Persuade.”

1. THE JUNGLE (1967, 12th and Oxford Street Film Makers) – presented by Jay Schwartz (Secret Cinema) and Louis Massiah (Swarthmore College; Scribe Video Center)

In the 1960s, Temple University administrator and social worker Harold Haskins started working with the young members of North Philadelphia’s 12th & Oxford Street gang on a project for community development. A few years later, they became the 12th & Oxford Filmmakers Corporation. In 1967, they made and released The Jungle. It was one of the first films in the US directed by youth detailing the inner workings of their own gang, and in 2009 it was selected for inclusion in the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress.

Community filmmaking in its rawest form, with the 12th & Oxford Street gang writing, directing, shooting, and acting as well as creating hand written title cards and an original soundtrack (I’ve had the film’s pounding trash can soundtrack in my head since Saturday afternoon). I will be sure to link to Jay Schwartz’s great slide show presentation with archival photos, newspaper clippings and news reel footage once it becomes available online.

THE JUNGLE (part 1):

THE JUNGLE (part 2):

2. MEN AND DUST (1940, Sheldon Dick; produced by Lee Dick) – presented by Dan Friedlaender (Temple U) & Adrianne Finelli (U of Michigan)

MEN AND DUST is an exposé based on the findings of the Tri-State Survey. It depicts the lead and zinc mining communities at the junction of Kansas, Missouri, and Oklahoma, and their problems of survival. In the film we see the fight led by the Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers Union for improved mine owners efforts to eliminate silicosis, lead poisoning, and tuberculosis. As Temple University’s Dan Friedlaender pointed out, the film’s campaign led to legislation for safer conditions and for better wage and hour agreements.

The film contains experimental elements (both in image and voiceover) that aid in persuading viewers of the dire situation within the region. It ends with a haunting memorial of those who had died due to the region’s deplorable living conditions.

3. WHEN THE ORGAN PLAYED “O PROMISE ME” (Cecil Stokes w/Bing Crosby soundtrack, 194?) – presented by Robert Martens & Walter Forsberg

An auroratone produced and created by British filmmaker Cecil Stokes for use in the treatment of mental disorders (most likely aimed at those suffering from PTSD). Robert Martens acquired this super rare film from his grandfather who worked as a film projectionist at various psychiatric institutions in the New York-New Jersey area during the 1940′s. Robert posted the film on Youtube (under the title “Psychedelic Bing Crosby Video”), where it puzzled viewers until it was confirmed as an official auroratone by Crosby aficionados. The film was later restored by Film Technology Co.

4. THE WORLDS OF DR. VISHNIAC  (Educational Testing Service, 1959) – presented by Heather Heckman and Mark G. Cooper (U of South Carolina MIRC)

A glimpse into the work, or worlds, of Dr. Roman Vishniac – a photographer, biologist and pioneer of photomicroscopy. Vishniac altered light to penetrate moving specimens and colorize their cell structures. University of South Carolina’s Heather Heckman and Mark G. Cooper also presented clips of reversal original film prints, which more accurately reflect the true detail of Vishniac’s colorful research films. Although a bit duller in color (due to reversal printing processes), THE WORLDS OF DR. VISHNIAC provides a valuable narrative of Vishniac and his photomicroscopy research.

The film also shows us how Vishniac’s humanist nature and respect for all creatures (even the one-celled ones!) seeps into every aspect of his work. In this case, we see him returning his specimens to their respective ecosystems after successfully photographing their varied formations. What a sweetheart! An excerpt of the film can be seen here (via the U of South Carolina MIRC).

5. LIGHT CAVALRY GIRL (轻骑姑娘, Jie Shen, Central Newsreel and Documentary Film Studio, Beijing, 1980) – presented by Lydia Pappas and Yongli Li (U of South Carolina MIRC)

Lady motorcycle stunts from China! Produced by the Central Newsreel and Documentary Film Studio in China,  Jie Shen captures the Bayi Women Light Motorcycle team performing complicated maneuvers on their bikes. View the entire film here (via the U of South Carolina MIRC).

6. CHUCKY LOU: THE STORY OF A WOODCHUCK (Indiana University Audio-Visual Center, 1948) – presented by Rachael Stoeltje and Martha Harsanyi (Indiana U)

According to Rachael Stoeltje and Martha Harsanyi, this film about a well trained woodchuck was at one point in time the most rented film in their collections. You can view the entire film here (via Indiana University’s Libraries Film Archive). Beware of woodchuck costumes! and why does that man leave his wife (the woman who “does not know how to care for a woodchuck”) behind at the park?!

Other Saturday highlights of the symposium include University of Oregon’s Michael Aronson and Elizabeth Peterson presentation of Lester Beck (psychologist, educational filmmaker and lover of small rodents – his film HUMAN GROWTH can be viewed here), Moscow Research Institute of Film Art’s Sergei Kapterev presentation of “The Flight to Thousands of Suns” (Aleksei Yerin, 1963), Manthia Diawara (NYU) and Louis Massiah (Swarthmore College; Scribe Video Center) on finding The Burial of Dr. Du Bois (1963, Ghanafilm), and Dartmouth’s Mark J. Williams reminding us how unedited local news reel footage can inform us of both our collective as well as regional histories.

“Babbit Blast” was originally a sponsored film Jack made for the Reserve Mining Corporation, who mined Tachonite in the surrounding area. According to Jack, they would “ drill holes 50 feet deep every 10 feet for a quarter of a mile, fill them with explosives and then blow them in a sequence to loosen a huge amount of rock which would be hauled to a rock crusher and made into pellets.” They hired Jack in 1961 to shoot an explosion at high speed (10,000 frames/second) when they presumed that one of their explosives was defective. It took the company two months to set up an explostion, so a lot was riding on Jack to successfully capture it in one go. What resulted were two 16mm. films, one unfortunately color faded and the other (which Patrick is screening) in good shape.

CFA first screened the film back in 2007 as part of “The Big Picture” series at Chicago’s Gene Siskel Film Center (series curated by Michelle Puetz and Andy Uhrich). This was the first time the film was recontextualized as an experimental or “accidental” avant-garde film. The film’s slow motion explosion has meditative qualities that at times resemble a far-distant nebula coming into existence via supernova explosion. We’re super excited that Patrick has chosen Jack’s film for his program, and that he too is placing this film into new frameworks. When I asked Jack if he ever thought this film would be screened as an experimental film, he replied, “No, I would never have thought it would be the least bit interesting to anyone.”

For more information on the Iowa City Documentary Film Festival’s schedule, click here.

& for more information on CFA’s Jack Behrend Collection, click here.

CFA houses and manages the Morrison-Shearer film collection on behalf of the Morrison-Shearer Foundation (founded in 1991). The collection contains just under 900 films and audio reels, the majority of which document the creative process and fruitful collaboration between Helen Morrison and Sybil Shearer. The collection itself includes complete works, rehearsal footage, production materials as well as a hand full of home movies and interviews.

Just this past month we completed the hand inspection and archival re-housing of the collection’s 16mm. film elements (totaling just over 400 reels). We are now onto digitally transferring these 16mm. film elements and beginning to discover (as well as understand) this largely unpublished and unknown collection of films.

To celebrate Sybil and what would have been her 100th birthday (February 23, 2012), we have put together a sequence of some of our favorite film segments – all from the reel titled EARLY NORTHBROOK.

Enjoy!

Also! Hear Sybil in her own words! you can view an excerpt from a 1980 interview between Sybil Shearer and dance critic Walter Terry here.