The Treasures From American Film Archives series of DVD

DVD

A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....

s is produced by the National Film Preservation Foundation

National Film Preservation Foundation

The National Film Preservation Foundation is an independent, nonprofit organization created by the U.S. Congress to help save America’s film heritage. Growing from a national planning effort led by the Library of Congress, the NFPF began operations in 1997. It supports activities nationwide that...

 (NFPF), a nonprofit organization created by the U.S. Congress in 1997. The NFPF publishes these DVD sets, with accompanying booklets and extensive commentary, to promote the preservation of American film.

For more than a decade, the NFPF’s Treasures DVD series has made available preservation work on rare, vintage movies from the archival community. In collaboration with archives, scholars, and musicians, the sets present long unseen American films with new musical accompaniment, onscreen program notes, and a printed catalog. Many of these films are silents, but other genres include films produced for the government, commercial, political, industrial and promotional films, home movies, and art shorts. Experimental films that test early advances in sound or color are included as well as early, rare, curious, unique, or important films by familiar or obscure film makers. The works are digitally mastered from the finest archival sources available and newly recorded music in two-track stereo is provided.

To date, five sets of DVDs have been released comprising 214 films on 16 discs for a total run time of 2,861 minutes (47.7 hours). These sets are:

• Treasures from American Film Archives: 50 Preserved Films (2000), 50 films on 4 discs.
• More Treasures from American Film Archives, 1894-1931 (2004), 50 films on 3 discs.
• Treasures III: Social Issues in American Film, 1900-1934 (2007), 48 films on 4 discs.
• Treasures IV: American Avant-Garde Film, 1947-1986 (2008), 26 films on 2 discs.
• Treasures 5: The West, 1898-1938 (2011), 40 films on 3 discs.

Treasures from American Film Archives: 50 Preserved Films (2000)

• Number of discs: 4
• Number of Films: 50
• Date range: 1893-1985
• Total Run Time: 642 min (10.7 hrs)
• Narrator: Laurence Fishburne
  Laurence Fishburne
  Laurence John Fishburne III is an American film and stage actor, playwright, director, and producer. He is perhaps best known for his roles as Morpheus in the Matrix science fiction film trilogy, as Cowboy Curtis on the 1980's television show Pee-wee's Playhouse, and as singer-musician Ike Turner...
  
  
• Booklet: 150-page book of program notes

The films:


Disc 1

• Blacksmithing Scene (1893, 1 min.), the first commercially-shown U.S. film
• Hell's Hinges
  Hell's Hinges
  Hell's Hinges is a 1916 American Western silent film starring William S. Hart and Clara Williams. Directed by Charles Swickard, William S. Hart and Clifford Smith, and produced by Thomas H. Ince, the screenplay was written by C. Gardner Sullivan.-Plot:...
  
  (1916, 64 min.), a William S. Hart
  William S. Hart
  William Surrey Hart was an American silent film actor, screenwriter, director and producer. He is remembered for having "imbued all of his characters with honor and integrity."-Biography:...
  
   western
• The Fall of the House of Usher (1928, 13 min.)
• Groucho Marx
  Groucho Marx
  Julius Henry "Groucho" Marx was an American comedian and film star famed as a master of wit. His rapid-fire delivery of innuendo-laden patter earned him many admirers. He made 13 feature films with his siblings the Marx Brothers, of whom he was the third-born...
  
  's home movies (1933, 2 min.)

Disc 2

• D.W. Griffith's The Lonedale Operator
  The Lonedale Operator
  The Lonedale Operator is a 1911 short drama film directed by D. W. Griffith. A print of the film survives in the film archive of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City....
  
  (1911, 17 min.)
• The Toll of the Sea
  The Toll of the Sea
  The Toll of the Sea is an American drama film, directed by Chester M. Franklin, produced by the Technicolor Motion Picture Corporation, released by Metro Pictures, and featuring Anna May Wong in her first leading role....
  
  (1922, 54 min.), an early 2-color Technicolor feature starring Anna May Wong
  Anna May Wong
  Anna May Wong was an American actress, the first Chinese American movie star, and the first Asian American to become an international star...
  
  
• Negro Leagues Baseball (1946, 8 min.)
• John Huston's stunning documentary The Battle of San Pietro
  The Battle of San Pietro
  The Battle of San Pietro is a 1945 documentary film directed by John Huston about the Battle of San Pietro Infine during World War II. It was shot by Jules Buck.Huston and his crew were attached to the US Army’s 143rd regiment of the 36th division...
  
  (1945)

Disc 3

• The Chechahcos
  The Chechahcos
  The Chechahcos is a 1924 silent film about the gold rush days in the Klondike. Chechahco, more commonly spelled cheechako, is a Chinook Jargon word for "newcomer", and the film focuses on a group of would-be prospectors sailing for Alaska....
  
  (1924, ? min,)
• The Zeppelin Hindenburg (1936, 7 min.)
• We Work Again
  We Work Again
  We Work Again is a 1937 ephemeral film produced by the Works Progress Administration to promote its efforts at finding work for African-Americans during the great depression...
  
  (1937, ? min.), documentary; includes 4 minutes of the only film of Orson Welles's legendary 1936 Haiti-set stage production of Macbeth

Disc 4

• Interior New York Subway (circa 1905, ? min.)
• Snow White
  Snow White (1916 film)
  Snow White is a 1916 American silent film made by Famous Players-Lasky Corporation and produced by Adolph Zukor and Daniel Frohman. It was directed by J...
  
  (1916, 63 min.), the earliest film version
• Rose Hobart (1936, 19 min.), found footage; Joseph Cornell
  Joseph Cornell
  Joseph Cornell was an American artist and sculptor, one of the pioneers and most celebrated exponents of assemblage...
  
  's obscure but entrancing surrealist classic
• The Autobiography of a 'Jeep'
  The Autobiography of a 'Jeep'
  The Autobiography of a 'Jeep' was a 1943 propaganda film produced by the United States Office of War Information. As its name might suggest, it is the story of parts of World War II told from the perspective of a Jeep....
  
  (1943, 10 min.)

More Treasures from American Film Archives, 1894-1931 (2004)

• Number of discs: 3
• Number of Films: 50
• Date range: 1894-1931
• Total Run Time: 573 min
• Booklet: 200 page illustrated book with film notes and credits

Four feature films (over an hour in length) are included in this set; also: 46 short advertisements, documentaries, promotional and educational films, and some surprisingly good early experiments with color and sound.

The films:


Disc 1

• The Country Doctor
  The Country Doctor (film)
  The Country Doctor is a 1909 drama film directed by D. W. Griffith. Prints of the film exist in the film archives of the Museum of Modern Art and the Library of Congress.-Cast:* Kate Bruce as Poor Mother...
  
  (1909), a D.W. Griffith short made for Biograph
  Biograph
  Biograph may refer to:* An early form of the cinematograph, made by the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company, a motion picture company founded in 1895 and active until 1928* Biograph , a 1985 box set compiling music by Bob Dylan...
  
  ; a tale of a physician torn between his duty to family and profession
• The Hazards of Helen
  The Hazards of Helen
  The Hazards of Helen is an American adventure film serial of 119 twelve minute episodes released over a span of slightly more than two years by the Kalem Company between November 7, 1914 and February 24, 1917....
  
  , an action-packed episode from a movie serial
• Dickson Experimental Sound Film
  Dickson Experimental Sound Film
  The Dickson Experimental Sound Film is a film made by William Dickson in late 1894 or early 1895. It is the first known film with live-recorded sound and appears to be the first motion picture made for the Kinetophone, the proto-sound-film system developed by Dickson and Thomas Edison...
  
  (ca. 1894’ 15 sec.), two men dancing and a man playing a violin in front of a huge metal cone (the microphone for the wax cylinder the sound was recorded on)
• The Suburbanite (1904), a polite comedy about the exploits of a middle-class family moving to the "burbs" of New Jersey
• The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
  The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1910 film)
  The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is a 1910 silent fantasy film and the earliest surviving film version of L. Frank Baum's 1900 novel, made by the Selig Polyscope Company without Baum's direct input. It was created to fulfill a contractual obligation associated with Baum's personal bankruptcy caused by...
  
  (1910, 13 min.)
• The Invaders
  The Invaders (1912)
  The Invaders is a 1912 American silent film directed by Francis Ford and Thomas H. Ince.- Plot summary :The U.S. Army and the Indians sign a peace treaty. However, a group of surveyors trespass on the Indians' land and violate the treaty. The army refuses to listen to the Indians' complaints, and...
  
  (1912, 41 min.), Sioux and Cheyenne conflicts in Thomas Ince's early western featuring real Lakota Sioux
• Gretchen the Greenhorn (1916, 58 mi.), Dutch migrants who fall victim to a gang of counterfeiters; featuring 18-year-old Dorothy Gish (Lillian's little sister)

Disc 2

• Gus Visser and His Singing Duck (ca. 1925 - 90 sec.) It's another synchronized sound experiment, and remains a hoot.
• The Teddy Bears (1907), an Edison short with impressive puppet animation
• A trio of 12-minute, `Early Color Films', from 1916, 1929 and 1926 that used different experimental color processes. The 1926 entry is The Flute of Krishna, choreographed by Martha Graham.
• Clash of the Wolves
  Clash of the Wolves
  Clash of the Wolves was a 1925 animal movie featuring an early starring role Rin Tin Tin, a German Shepherd who appeared in many movies at the time, the film is distributed by Warner Bros....
  
  (1925, 74 min.), a Rin Tin Tin silent.
• There It Is
  There It Is (film)
  There It Is is a 1928 silent black-and-white comedy short directed by Harold L. Muller and starring Charles R. Bowers. The plot centres around Charley MacNeesha, a Scotland Yard detective who carries a stop motion-animated cockroach assistant called MacGregor in a matchbox...
  
  (1928, 19 min.), animation by the Inkwell Studios; a Charley Bowers absurdist comedy two-reeler; Bowers is a great unknown silent movie comedian, a stop-action animation innovator and a rather surreal moviemaker

Disc 3

• Rip Van Winkle (1896, 4 min.), a series of very short scenes adapted from a popular stage play starring Joseph Jefferson
  Joseph Jefferson
  Joseph Jefferson, commonly known as Joe Jefferson , was an American actor. He was the third actor of this name in a family of actors and managers, and one of the most famous of all American comedians....
  
   (an established stage actor since before the Civil War); produced and shown on mutoscope machines, a flip-card, peep viewer affair that lost out to projector presentation of films.
• Ernst Lubitsch
  Ernst Lubitsch
  Ernst Lubitsch was a German-born film director. His urbane comedies of manners gave him the reputation of being Hollywood's most elegant and sophisticated director; as his prestige grew, his films were promoted as having "the Lubitsch touch."In 1947 he received an Honorary Academy Award for his...
  
  's version of Oscar Wilde
  Oscar Wilde
  Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish writer and poet. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s...
  
  's Lady Windermere's Fan
  Lady Windermere's Fan (1925 film)
  Lady Windermere's Fan is a 1925 American silent film directed by Ernst Lubitsch. It is based on Oscar Wilde's 1893 play Lady Windermere's Fan which was first played in America that year by Julia Arthur as Lady Windermere and Maurice Barrymore as Lord Darlington.- Cast :*Ronald Colman as Lord...
  
  (1925, 89 min.) starring Ronald Colman
• Life of an American Fireman
  Life of an American Fireman
  Life of an American Fireman is a short, silent film Edwin S. Porter made for the Edison Manufacturing Company. It was shot late in 1902 and distributed early in 1903...
  
  (1903- 6 mins), an Edwin S. Porter
  Edwin S. Porter
  Edwin Stanton Porter was an American early film pioneer, most famous as a director with Thomas Edison's company...
  
   short
• Falling Leaves
  Falling Leaves (1912 film)
  Falling Leaves is a 1912 American film by Alice Guy Blaché. The 2004 National Film Preservation Foundation print runs 12 minutes.- Cast :*Mace Greenleaf as Dr. Earl Headley - a Lung Specialist*Blanche Cornwall as Mrs. Griswold Thompson - the Mother...
  
  (1912 - 12 mins)
• Also on each disc is a silent Fleischer brothers animation.

Treasures III: Social Issues in American Film, 1900-1934 (2007)

• Number of discs: 4
• Number of Films: 48
• Date range: 1894-1931
• Total Run Time: 738 min (12.3 hrs)
• Booklet: 200 page illustrated book with film notes and credits

Exposing abuse or lampooning reform, films in the early 20th century put a human face on social problems and connected with audiences in a new way. Topics include: prohibition, abortion, unions, atheism, the vote for women, organized crime, loan sharking, juvenile justice, homelessness, police corruption, immigration -- in their first decades, movies brought an astonishing range of issues to the screen.

The films:

Disc 1 – “The City Reformed”

• The Black Hand (1906, 11 min.), earliest surviving gangster film. Two members of a gang write a threatening letter to a butcher, demanding money, or else they will harm his family and his shop.
• How They Rob Men in Chicago (1900, 25 sec.), an elderly man is robbed in Chicago, but some money is left behind on his unconscious person. A policeman happens by, takes the money, and leaves the victim unattended.
• The Voice of the Violin (1909, 16 min.), a terrorist plot foiled by the power of music.
• The Usurer's Grip (1912, 15 min.), melodrama arguing for consumer credit co-operatives.
• From the Submerged (1912, 11 minutes) - Drama about homelessness and slumming parties.
• Hope: A Red Cross Seal Story (1912, 14 min.), a town mobilizes to fight TB.
• The Cost of Carelessness (1913, 13 min.), traffic safety film for Brooklyn children.
• Lights and Shadows in a City of a Million (1920, 7 min.), a charitable plea for the Detroit community fund.
• Six Million Children are Not in School (1922, 7 min.), newsreel inspired by census data.
• The Soul of Youth (1920, 80 min.), William Desmond Taylor
  William Desmond Taylor
  William Desmond Taylor was an Irish-born American actor, successful film director of silent movies and a popular figure in the growing Hollywood film colony of the 1910s and early 1920s...
  
  's feature about an orphan reclaimed for society through the court of Judge Ben Lindsey.
• A Call for Help from Sing Sing (1934, 3 min.) - Warden Lawes speaks out for wayward teens.

Disc 2 – “New Women”

• Kansas Saloon Smashers (1901, 1 min.), Carrie Nation
  Carrie Nation
  Carrie Amelia Moore Nation was a member of the temperance movement, which opposed alcohol in pre-Prohibition America. She is particularly noteworthy for promoting her viewpoint through vandalism. On many occasions Nation would enter an alcohol-serving establishment and attack the bar with a hatchet...
  
   swings her axe.
• Why Mr. Nation Wants a Divorce (1902, 2 min.), role reversal temperance spoof
• Trial Marriages (1907, 12 minutes), male fantasy inspired by a reformer's proposal. A man tries marriage to several women and finally gives up on matrimony entirely.
• Manhattan Trade School for Girls
  Manhattan Trade School for Girls
  The Manhattan Trade School for Girls was a New York City public high school founded in 1902. At this time it was the only vocational school in the city for female students. It was originally established by philanthropic reformers whose intent was to find a means of providing training for young...
  
  (1911, 16 min.), training impoverished girls for better jobs.
• The Strong Arm Squad of the Future (1912, 1 min.), a suffragette
  Suffragette
  "Suffragette" is a term coined by the Daily Mail newspaper as a derogatory label for members of the late 19th and early 20th century movement for women's suffrage in the United Kingdom, in particular members of the Women's Social and Political Union...
  
   cartoon.
• A Lively Affair (1912, 7 minutes), comedy with women playing poker and child-caring men. The moral is that this is what to expect if women get the vote.
• A Suffragette in Spite of Himself (1912, 8 min.), boys' prank results in an unwitting crusader.
• On To Washington (1913, 80 sec.), news coverage of the historic suffragette march.
• The Hazards of Helen
  The Hazards of Helen
  The Hazards of Helen is an American adventure film serial of 119 twelve minute episodes released over a span of slightly more than two years by the Kalem Company between November 7, 1914 and February 24, 1917....
  
  , Episode 13 (1915, 13 min.), Helen thwarts some robbers and overcomes workplace problems.
• Where Are My Children?
  Where Are My Children?
  Where Are My Children? is a 1916 film in which a district attorney, while prosecuting a doctor for illegal abortions, finds out that society people, including his wife, used the doctor's services. It stars Tyrone Power, Sr., Juan de la Cruz, Helen Riaume, William Haben and C...
  
  (1916, 65 min.), Lois Weber
  Lois Weber
  Lois Weber was an American silent film actress, screenwriter, producer, and director, who is considered "the most important female director the American film industry has known", and "one of the most important and important and prolific film directors in the era of silent films". Film historian...
  
  's film against abortion brings in the issue of birth control as well, which is a bit confusing to modern audiences; Tyrone Power
  Tyrone Power
  Tyrone Edmund Power, Jr. , usually credited as Tyrone Power and known sometimes as Ty Power, was an American film and stage actor who appeared in dozens of films from the 1930s to the 1950s, often in swashbuckler roles or romantic leads such as in The Mark of Zorro, Blood and Sand, The Black Swan,...
  
  's father stars in this one.
• The Courage of the Commonplace (1913, 13 min.), a young farm woman dreams of a better life.
• Poor Mrs Jones! (1926, 45 min.), why women should stay on the farm; a woman works endless hard hours on the farm and believes her sister who lives in the city has a much a better life, until she visits her for a week and realizes that the grass is not always greener on the other side.
• Offers Herself as a Bride (1931, 2 min.), a woman comes up with a way to survive the depression.

Disc 3 – “Toil and Tyranny”

• Uncle Sam and the Bolshevik (1919, 40 sec.), anti-union cartoon from Ford Motor Company
  Ford Motor Company
  Ford Motor Company is an American multinational automaker based in Dearborn, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit. The automaker was founded by Henry Ford and incorporated on June 16, 1903. In addition to the Ford and Lincoln brands, Ford also owns a small stake in Mazda in Japan and Aston Martin in the UK...
  
  
• The Crime of Carelessness (1912, 14 min.), business version of the Triangle Factory fire
• Who Pays, Episode 12 (1915, 35 min.), lumberyard strike brings deadly consequences
• Labor's Reward (1925, 13 min.), surviving reel showing the American Federation of Labor
  American Federation of Labor
  The American Federation of Labor was one of the first federations of labor unions in the United States. It was founded in 1886 by an alliance of craft unions disaffected from the Knights of Labor, a national labor association. Samuel Gompers was elected president of the Federation at its...
  
  's argument for buying union.
• Listen to Some Words of Wisdom (1930, 2 min.), why personal thrift feeds the Great Depression
  Great Depression
  The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
  
  
• The Godless Girl
  The Godless Girl
  The Godless Girl is a drama film directed by Cecil B. DeMille, shown for years as his last completely silent film.-Production background:...
  
  (1928, 128 min.), Cecil B. DeMille
  Cecil B. DeMille
  Cecil Blount DeMille was an American film director and Academy Award-winning film producer in both silent and sound films. He was renowned for the flamboyance and showmanship of his movies...
  
  's sensational film about girls' reformatories and his last silent picture.

Disc 4 – “Americans in the Making”

• Emigrants Landing on Ellis Island
  Alfred C. Abadie
  Alfred Camille Abadie was an American photographer and pioneer filmmaker who worked for Thomas Edison, specializing in actuality films, a predecessor to the standard form of documentary.- Biography :...
  
  (1903, 2 min.), actual footage of the event
• An American in the Making (1913, 15 min.), U.S. Steel
  U.S. Steel
  The United States Steel Corporation , more commonly known as U.S. Steel, is an integrated steel producer with major production operations in the United States, Canada, and Central Europe. The company is the world's tenth largest steel producer ranked by sales...
  
   film promoting immigration and industrial safety
• Ramona
  Ramona (1910 film)
  Ramona is a 1910 short drama film directed by D. W. Griffith based on Helen Hunt Jackson's 1884 novel Ramona. A copy of the print survives in the Library of Congress film archive.-Cast:* Mary Pickford - Ramona* Henry B. Walthall - Alessandro...
  
  (1910, 16 min.), Helen Hunt Jackson
  Helen Hunt Jackson
  Helen Maria Hunt Jackson, born Helen Fiske , was a United States writer who became an activist on behalf of improved treatment of Native Americans by the U.S. government. She detailed the adverse effects of government actions in her history A Century of Dishonor...
  
  's classic about racial conflict in California as told by D.W. Griffith; stars Mary Pickford
  Mary Pickford
  Mary Pickford was a Canadian-born motion picture actress, co-founder of the film studio United Artists and one of the original 36 founders of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences...
  
  
• Redskin
  Redskin (film)
  Redskin is a feature film with a synchronized score and sound effects, filmed partially in Technicolor. Color film was used for the scenes taking place on the Indians' land, while black and white was used only in the scenes set in the white man's world. Roughly two-thirds of the film is in...
  
  (1929, 82 min.), racial tolerance epic shot in two-strip Technicolor
  Technicolor
  Technicolor is a color motion picture process invented in 1916 and improved over several decades.It was the second major process, after Britain's Kinemacolor, and the most widely used color process in Hollywood from 1922 to 1952...
  
  . Richard Dix
  Richard Dix
  Richard Dix was an American motion picture actor who achieved popularity in both silent and sound film. His standard on-screen image was that of the rugged and stalwart hero.-Early life:...
  
   plays Wing Foot, son of a Navajo
  Navajo
  Navajo or Navaho may refer to:* Navajo people* Navajo Nation, the governmental entity of the Navajo people* Navajo language, spoken by the Navajo people-Places in the United States:* Navajo, San Diego, California* Navajo, New Mexico...
  
   chief who suffers heartache and prejudice before the film's happy ending with Wing Foot bringing peace between the Navajo and Pueblo
  Pueblo
  Pueblo is a term used to describe modern communities of Native Americans in the Southwestern United States of America. The first Spanish explorers of the Southwest used this term to describe the communities housed in apartment-like structures built of stone, adobe mud, and other local material...
  
   peoples; about half the film features two-tone color using red and green filters; a technique already used in the 1910s but not often employed due to the extra work and expense. In "Redskin" colour is used only for the scenes showing the Navajo and Pueblo Indian people and their land.
• United Snakes of America (1917, 80 sec.), World War I
  World War I
  World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
  
   cartoon assails home front dissenters
• Uncle Sam donates for Liberty Loans (1919, 75 sec.), very odd patriotic cartoon.
• 100% American (1918, 14 min.), Mary Pickford
  Mary Pickford
  Mary Pickford was a Canadian-born motion picture actress, co-founder of the film studio United Artists and one of the original 36 founders of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences...
  
   buys war bonds and supports the troops.
• Bud's Recruit
  Bud's Recruit
  Bud's Recruit is a 1918 short comedy film directed by King Vidor. A print survives at the UCLA Film and Television Archive.-Cast:* Wallace Brennan - Bud Gilbert* Robert Gordon - Reggie Gilbert* Ruth Hampton - Edith* Mildred Davis - Edith's sister...
  
  (1918, 26 min.), brothers serve their country in King Vidor
  King Vidor
  King Wallis Vidor was an American film director, film producer, and screenwriter whose career spanned nearly seven decades...
  
  's earliest surviving film
• The Reawakening (1919, 10 min.), documentary about helping disabled veterans build new lives after the war
• Eight Prohibition Newsreels (1922-23, 13 min.), footage on raids along with various opinions about the effectiveness of Prohibition
  Prohibition
  Prohibition of alcohol, often referred to simply as prohibition, is the practice of prohibiting the manufacture, transportation, import, export, sale, and consumption of alcohol and alcoholic beverages. The term can also apply to the periods in the histories of the countries during which the...
  
  

Treasures IV: American Avant-Garde Film, 1947-1986 (2008)

• Number of discs: 2
• Number of Films: 26
• Date range: 1894-1931
• Total Run Time: 312 min (5.2 hrs)
• Booklet: 70-page book of program notes; forward by Martin Scorsese
  Martin Scorsese
  Martin Charles Scorsese is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, actor, and film historian. In 1990 he founded The Film Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to film preservation, and in 2007 he founded the World Cinema Foundation...
  
  

Independent cinema from Bruce Baillie

Bruce Baillie

Bruce Baillie is an American experimental filmmaker and founding member of Canyon Cinema in San Francisco...

 to Andy Warhol

Andy Warhol

Andrew Warhola , known as Andy Warhol, was an American painter, printmaker, and filmmaker who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art...

, artists who worked outside the mainstream and redefined American film are collected in this set. An array of films never before released on VHS or DVD with styles ranging from animation to documentary are showcased in this collection of classics and rediscoveries, selected from five of the nation's foremost avant-garde film archives.

The films:

Disc 1

• Film No. 3: Interwoven (1947-49, 3 min.) - Harry Smith
  Harry Everett Smith
  Harry Everett Smith was an American archivist, ethnomusicologist, student of anthropology, record collector, experimental filmmaker, artist, bohemian and mystic...
  
  
• Notes on the Circus (1966, 12 min.) - Jonas Mekas
  Jonas Mekas
  Jonas Mekas is a Lithuanian-born American filmmaker, writer, and curator who has often been called "the godfather of American avant-garde cinema." His work has been exhibited in museums and festivals across Europe and America.-Biography:...
  
  
• Here I Am (1962, 10 min.) - Bruce Baillie
  Bruce Baillie
  Bruce Baillie is an American experimental filmmaker and founding member of Canyon Cinema in San Francisco...
  
  
• Fake Fruit Factory (1986, 22 min.) - Chick Strand
  Chick Strand
  Chick Strand was an experimental filmmaker, "a pioneer in blending avant-garde techniques with documentary".-Life:...
  
  
• Odds & Ends
  Odds & Ends
  Odds & Ends is a collection of unfinished tracks and demo recordings by British pop singer, Dido. The collection was put together by her management team, Nettwerk, and released promotionally in late 1995, in order to gain interest from record companies so that Dido could be signed to a major record...
  
  (1959, 4 min.) - Jane Conger Belson Shimane
• Eyewash
  Eyewash
  Eyewash is a fluid, commonly saline, used in the aid of rinsing of the eye. Eyewash may also describe the apparatus used to physically wash the eyes in the case that they may be contaminated by foreign materials or substances....
  
  (1959, 3 min.0 - Robert Breer
  Robert Breer
  Robert Carlton Breer was an experimental filmmaker, painter, and sculptor."A founding member of the American avant-garde," Breer was most well known for his films, which combine abstract and representational painting, hand-drawn rotoscoping, original 16mm and 8mm film footage, photographs, and...
  
  
• Peyote Queen (1965, 9 min.) - Storm de Hirsch
  Storm de Hirsch
  Storm de Hirsch was a very important player in the New York Avant-Garde film scene of the 1960s, though her biography and work are generally left out of the history.- Biography :...
  
  
• 7362 (1967, 10 min.) - Pat O'Neill
• Aleph (1956-66(?), 8 min.) - Wallace Berman
  Wallace Berman
  Wallace Berman was an American visual and assemblage artist. He has been called the "father" of assemblage art and a "crucial figure in the history of postwar California art".-Personal life and education:...
  
  
• Note to Patti (1969, 7 min.) - Saul Levine
• By Night with Torch and Spear (1940s?, 8 min) - Joseph Cornell
  Joseph Cornell
  Joseph Cornell was an American artist and sculptor, one of the pioneers and most celebrated exponents of assemblage...
  
  
• The Riddle of Lumen (1972, 13 in.) - Stan Brakhage
  Stan Brakhage
  James Stanley Brakhage , better known as Stan Brakhage, was an American non-narrative filmmaker who is considered to be one of the most important figures in 20th century experimental film....
  
  
• The End (1953, 34 min) - Christopher Maclaine

Disc 2

• Bridges-Go-Round (1958, 4 min.) - Shirley Clarke
  Shirley Clarke
  Shirley Clarke was an American independent filmmaker.-Early life:Born Shirley Brimberg in New York City, Shirley Clarke was the daughter of a Polish-immigrant father who made his fortune in manufacturing. Her mother was the daughter of a multimillionaire Jewish manufacturer and inventor. Her...
  
  
• Go! Go! Go! (1962-64, 11 min.) - Marie Menken
  Marie Menken
  Marie Menkevicius was an American experimental filmmaker and socialite.-Early life:The daughter of Catholic-Lithuanian immigrants, she grew up in Brooklyn.-Personal life:...
  
  
• Little Stabs at Happiness (1959-63, 15 min.) - Ken Jacobs
  Ken Jacobs
  Ken Jacobs is an American experimental filmmaker. He is the director of Tom, Tom, The Piper's Son , which was admitted to the National Film Registry in 2007, and Star Spangled to Death , a nearly seven hour film consisting largely of found footage.He coined the term paracinema in the early 1970s,...
  
  
• Chumlum (1964, 23 min) - Ron Rice
  Ron Rice
  For the American football player see Ron Rice Ron Rice was an American experimental filmmaker, whose freeform style influenced experimental filmmakers in New York and California during the early 1960s.-The Flower Thief:Rice twice collaborated with future Warhol star Taylor Mead, including Rice's...
  
  
• Mario Banana (No. 1) (1964, 4 min.) - Andy Warhol
  Andy Warhol
  Andrew Warhola , known as Andy Warhol, was an American painter, printmaker, and filmmaker who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art...
  
  
• I, an Actress (1977, 9 min.) - George Kuchar
  George Kuchar
  George Kuchar was an American underground film director, known for his "low-fi" aesthetic.-Early life and career:...
  
  
• The Off-Handed Jape... and How to Pull It Off (1967, 8 min) - Robert Nelson
  Robert Nelson (filmmaker)
  -Selected filmography:*Special Warning *Limitations *Hamlet Act *Deep Westurn *Bleu Shut *War is Hell *The Awful Backlash *Grateful Dead *The Great Blondino *Hot Leatherette...
  
  , William T. Wiley
  William T. Wiley
  William T. Wiley is a contemporary American artist. His practice spans a broad range of media including drawing, painting, sculpture, film, performance, and pinball. At least some of Wiley's work has been referred to as Funk art....
  
  
• New Improved Institutional Quality (1976, 10 min.) - Owen Land
• Hamfat Asar (1965, 13 min.) - Lawrence Jordan
• Necrology (1969-70, 11 min) - Standish Lawder
• Fog Line (1970, 11 min.) - Larry Gottheim
• (nostalgia) (1971, 36 min.) - Hollis Frampton
  Hollis Frampton
  Hollis Frampton was an American avant-garde filmmaker, photographer, writer/theoretician, and pioneer of digital art.-Early years:Frampton was born March 11, 1936 in Wooster, Ohio...
  
  
• Bad Burns (1982, 6 min) - Paul Sharits
  Paul Sharits
  Paul Jeffrey Sharits Paul Sharits was a visual artist, best known for his work in "experimental" or avant-garde filmmaking, particularly what became known as the Structural film movement, along with artists such as Tony Conrad, Hollis Frampton, and Michael Snow.His film work primarily focused on...
  
  

Treasures 5: The West, 1898-1938 (2011)

• Number of discs: 3
• Number of Films: 40
• Date range: 1894-1931
• Total Run Time: 596 min (9.9 hrs)
• Booklet: 132-page book

A set celebrating the dynamic, gender-bending, ethnically diverse West that flourished in early motion pictures, but has never before been seen on video. both narrative and nonfiction films. travelogues from 10 western states Kodachrome home movies; newsreels about Native Americans; and documentaries and industrial films about such Western subjects as cattle ranch-ing

The films:

Disc 1

• The Tourists (1912, 6 min.), Mabel Normand
  Mabel Normand
  Mabel Normand was an American silent film comedienne and actress. She was a popular star of Mack Sennett's Keystone Studios and is noted as one of the film industry's first female screenwriters, producers and directors...
  
   runs amuck in Albuquerque’s Indian market.
• The Sergeant (1910, 16 min.), first surviving narrative shot in Yosemite.
• Salomy Jane
  Salomy Jane (1914 film)
  Salomy Jane is a Western feature film based on Bret Harte's 1898 novella of the same name. The film is the only known surviving complete work of Beatriz Michelena and the California Motion Picture Corporation.-Plot:...
  
  (1914, 87 min.), Gold Rush
  Gold rush
  A gold rush is a period of feverish migration of workers to an area that has had a dramatic discovery of gold. Major gold rushes took place in the 19th century in Australia, Brazil, Canada, South Africa, and the United States, while smaller gold rushes took place elsewhere.In the 19th and early...
  
   tale with America's first Latina
  Latina
  Latina is the feminine form of the term Latino.Latina may also refer to:*Province of Latina, a province in Latium , Italy**Latina, Lazio, the capital of the province of Latina**Latina Nuclear Power Plant*Latina , a district of Madrid...
  
   movie star Beatriz Michelena
  Beatriz Michelena
  Beatriz Michelena was an American actress during the silent film era, known at the time for her operatic soprano voice and appearances in musical theatre. She was one of the few Latina stars visible on the silver screen in the United States in the 1910s...
  
  .
• Sunshine Gatherers (1921, 10 min.), canning California
  California
  California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
  
   Del Monte brand canned fruits, in Prizmacolor.
• Deschutes Driftwood (1916, 10 min.), riding the rails along the Deschutes and Columbia River
  Columbia River
  The Columbia River is the largest river in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. The river rises in the Rocky Mountains of British Columbia, Canada, flows northwest and then south into the U.S. state of Washington, then turns west to form most of the border between Washington and the state...
  
  s.
• “Promised Land” Barred to “Hoboes” (1936, 2 min.)
• Last of the Line (1914, 26 min.), Thomas Ince
  Thomas H. Ince
  Thomas Harper Ince was an American silent film actor, director, screenwriter and producer of more than 100 films and pioneering studio mogul. Known as the "Father of the Western", he invented many mechanisms of professional movie production, introducing early Hollywood to the "assembly line"...
  
  's cross-cultural tragedy, with Sessue Hayakawa
  Sessue Hayakawa
  was a Japanese and American Issei actor who starred in American, Japanese, French, German, and British films. Hayakawa was the first and one of the few Asian actors to find stardom in the United States as well as Europe. Between the mid-1910s and the late 1920s, he was as well known as actors...
  
  .
• The Indian-detour (1924, 16 min.), in the Southwest on a Fred Harvey Company
  Fred Harvey Company
  The origin of the Fred Harvey Company can be traced to the 1875 opening of two railroad eating houses located at Wallace, Kansas and Hugo, Colorado on the Kansas Pacific Railway. These cafés were opened by Fred Harvey, then a freight agent for the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad...
  
   motor tour.
• Native American in Newsreels (1921–1938, 5 min.), Indians Invade Nation’s Capitol and 4 other stories.
• We Can Take It (1935, 21 min.), Civilian Conservation Corps
  Civilian Conservation Corps
  The Civilian Conservation Corps was a public work relief program that operated from 1933 to 1942 in the United States for unemployed, unmarried men from relief families, ages 18–25. A part of the New Deal of President Franklin D...
  
   at work.

Disc 2

• Over Silent Paths (1910, 16 min.), daughter avenges her father’s murder.
• Life on the Circle Ranch in California (1912, 12 min.), cattle ranching in Santa Monica
  Santa Mônica
  Santa Mônica is a town and municipality in the state of Paraná in the Southern Region of Brazil.-References:...
  
  .
• Broncho Billy and the Schoolmistress (1912, 14 min.), America’s first cowboy star courts a pistol-packing schoolmarm.
• How the Cowboy Makes His Lariat (1917, 3 min.), Pedro Leon
  Pedro León
  Pedro León Sánchez Gil , known as León, is a Spanish footballer who plays for Getafe CF on loan from Real Madrid, as a right winger.-Murcia:...
  
   demonstrates the vaquero
  Vaquero
  The vaquero is a horse-mounted livestock herder of a tradition that originated on the Iberian peninsula. Today the vaquero is still a part of the doma vaquera, the Spanish tradition of working riding...
  
  ’s art.
• Mexican Filibusters (1911, 16 min.), intrepid woman does her bit for the Mexican Revolution
  Mexican Revolution
  The Mexican Revolution was a major armed struggle that started in 1910, with an uprising led by Francisco I. Madero against longtime autocrat Porfirio Díaz. The Revolution was characterized by several socialist, liberal, anarchist, populist, and agrarianist movements. Over time the Revolution...
  
  .
• The Better Man (1912, 12 min.), Mexican bandit proves his worth.
• Ammunition Smuggling on the Mexican Border (1914, 41 min.), Texas sheriff reenacts kidnapping by revolutionists.
• Lake Tahoe, Land of the Sky (1916, 6 min.), travelogue celebrating the new auto road.
• Mantrap (1926, 71 min.), wilderness comedy with Clara Bow
  Clara Bow
  Clara Gordon Bow was an American actress who rose to stardom in the silent film era of the 1920s. It was her appearance as a spunky shopgirl in the film It that brought her global fame and the nickname "The It Girl." Bow came to personify the roaring twenties and is described as its leading sex...
  
   and a woman-hating attorney; a Minneapolis manicurist who goes out West with one man and becomes involved with another; Victor Fleming
  Victor Fleming
  Victor Lonzo Fleming was an American film director, cinematographer, and producer. His most popular films were The Wizard of Oz , and Gone with the Wind , for which he won an Academy Award for Best Director.-Life and career:Fleming was born in La Canada, California, the son of Elizabeth Evaleen ...
  
  
• From The Golden West (1938, 8 min.), oil well
  Oil well
  An oil well is a general term for any boring through the earth's surface that is designed to find and acquire petroleum oil hydrocarbons. Usually some natural gas is produced along with the oil. A well that is designed to produce mainly or only gas may be termed a gas well.-History:The earliest...
  
  s, drive-in
  Drive-in
  A drive-in is a facility such as a bank, restaurant, or movie theater where one can literally drive in with an automobile for service. It is usually distinguished from a drive-through. At a drive-in restaurant, for example, customers park their vehicles and are usually served by staff who walk out...
  
  s, and more in Kodachrome
  Kodachrome
  Kodachrome is the trademarked brand name of a type of color reversal film that was manufactured by Eastman Kodak from 1935 to 2009.-Background:...
  
   home movie
  Home movie
  Home movie may mean:*Home movies, referring to private or amateur motion picture photographic products shot and printed in any video or film format....
  
  s.

Disc 3

• Lady of the Dug-Out (1918, 64 min.), Al Jennings
  Al Jennings
  Alphonso J. "Al" Jennings was an attorney in the western USA who at one time robbed trains. He later became a silent film star and made many appearances in films as an actor and technical advisor.-Biography:...
  
   plays himself as a bank robber with a heart of gold; W.S. Van Dyke
• From Passing of the Oklahoma Outlaw (1915, 13 min.), Bill Tilghman
  Bill Tilghman
  William Matthew "Bill" Tilghman was a lawman in the American Old West.-Early life :Bill Tilghman was born in Fort Dodge, Iowa, on July 4, 1854. He became a buffalo hunter at age 15 and claimed he killed over 1000 bison over his five years of activity...
  
   reenacts his capture of the Wild Bunch
  Wild Bunch
  The Wild Bunch, also known as the Doolin–Dalton Gang or the Oklahombres, was a gang of outlaws based in the Indian Territory that terrorized Kansas, Missouri, Arkansas, and Oklahoma Territory during the 1890s—robbing banks and stores, holding up trains, and killing lawmen. They were...
  
  .
• The Girl Ranchers (1913, 14 min.), comedy in which sisters inherit the Rough Neck Ranch.
• Legal Advice
  Legal advice
  In the common law, legal advice is the giving of a formal opinion regarding the substance or procedure of the law by an officer of the court , ordinarily in exchange for financial or other tangible compensation...
  
  (1916, 13 min.), Tom Mix
  Tom Mix
  Thomas Edwin "Tom" Mix was an American film actor and the star of many early Western movies. He made a reported 336 films between 1910 and 1935, all but nine of which were silent features...
  
   falls for a lady attorney.
• Womanhandled
  Womanhandled
  Womanhandled is a 1925 silent film comedy, produced by Famous Players-Lasky and distributed through Paramount Pictures. It is based on a short story by Arthur Stringer and stars Richard Dix and Esther Ralston.-Cast:*Richard Dix - Bill Dana...
  
  (1925, 55 min.), sparkling Gregory La Cava
  Gregory La Cava
  Gregory La Cava was an American film director best known for his films of the 1930s, including My Man Godfrey and Stage Door....
  
   in which a modern ranch poses as the Old West to fool New Yorkers.
• Beauty Spots in America: Castle Hot Springs, Arizona (1916, 6 min.), spa
  Spa
  The term spa is associated with water treatment which is also known as balneotherapy. Spa towns or spa resorts typically offer various health treatments. The belief in the curative powers of mineral waters goes back to prehistoric times. Such practices have been popular worldwide, but are...
  
   for the rich and famous.
• Romance of Water (1931, 10 min.), how L.A. got its water.
• A New Miracle in the Desert (1935, 1 min.), bringing Colorado River
  Colorado River
  The Colorado River , is a river in the Southwestern United States and northwestern Mexico, approximately long, draining a part of the arid regions on the western slope of the Rocky Mountains. The watershed of the Colorado River covers in parts of seven U.S. states and two Mexican states...
  
   water to California.
• The West in Promotional Travelogues (1898–1920, 22 min.), tours in 7 states, including Seeing Yosemite with David A. Curry.

Awards for the Treasures series DVDs

• National Society of Film Critics' Film Heritage Award
• VSDA's Best in Show Non-Theatrical Award

Film archives utilized in the series

• Academy Film Archive
  Academy Film Archive
  The Academy Film Archive is part of the Academy Foundation, established in 1944 with the purpose of organizing and overseeing the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ educational and cultural activities, including the preservation of motion picture history...
  
   of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
  Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
  The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is a professional honorary organization dedicated to the advancement of the arts and sciences of motion pictures...
  
  
• George Eastman House
  George Eastman House
  The George Eastman House is the world's oldest museum dedicated to photography and one of the world's oldest film archives, opened to the public in 1949 in Rochester, New York, USA. World-renowned for its photograph and motion picture archives, the museum is also a leader in film preservation and...
  
  
• Library of Congress
  Library of Congress
  The Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and...
  
  
• Museum of Modern Art
  Museum of Modern Art
  The Museum of Modern Art is an art museum in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, on 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It has been important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the world...
  
  
• National Archives
• UCLA Film & Television Archive
• New Zealand Film Archive
  New Zealand Film Archive
  The New Zealand Film Archive is a charitable trust dedicated to the collection, preservation and viewing of mainly New Zealand films and videos made between 1895 to the present day.- Background :...
  
  

External links

• DVDs & Boks at NFPF