Customer Reviews

Treasures From American Film Archives - Encore Edition

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The majority of this deluxe boxed set is devoted to early silent films. I do not consider myself a particular fan of silent films, and yet most of these I found to be wonderful. While the four feature films were fine, I especially enjoyed the shorts, which commonly consider everyday life at the turn of the century. These silents have a spirit of joy and excitement, and a genuine sincerity, that I've never seen in film before. With only a few exceptions, these silents are in an excellent state of preservation, often offering an amazingly clear window on the past. The main exception is an early version of "Snow White," the one that inspired the famous Disney version. All copies were once believed lost; however, a below-average quality but still quite watchable print was found only a few years ago. The musical accompaniment, custom produced for these DVDs, adds immeasurably to the experience. These silents are highly recommended to anyone interested in the history of film or history in general. I am unaware of any other source of silent shorts on DVD, certainly not of this quality or extent.

Besides the silents, the set also offers several other categories of films, including those produced for the government, commercial and promotional films, home movies, and art shorts. These are generally oldish but not antique, none more recent than 1985. The offerings in the last three categories are generally weak. The art shorts, especially, with their emphasis on the abstract and modern, had little appeal for me. Even though many of them are relatively recent, they have been rarely shown, and with good reason. The big surprise is the quality of the government films, especially "The Battle of San Pietro," directed by John Huston, a true work of art, and one of the finest pieces in the set. Even "We Work Again," with its tiresome script intended to convince blacks of the benefits of government assistance during the depression, features beautiful cinematography, unfortunately uncredited, and ends with four minutes from a famous Orson Welle's adaptation of a Shakespeare play, of which no other footage exists.

Each disc is arranged in roughly chronological order, taking viewers on four trips through time, from the 1890's to the modern age. The set includes a 130 page booklet describing each film; these descriptions also appear on the DVDs themselves. The menus on the DVDs are professional, attractive, and easy-to-navigate. The transfers to DVD are excellent, with no digital artifacts that I could see.

This set could easily have been dry and academic. Instead, at its best, it's extremely moving, entertaining, and expressive of the past. The commentary could have condemned the past in light of today's viewpoints and ideologies; instead, with unexpectedly rare exceptions, its fair and informative. This set should have broad appeal for those willing to adjust to the limitations of early film technology. Overall, I cannot recommend this set highly enough.

I had high hopes for this set, and it actually surpassed my expectations. I worked in a film archive for 10 years and have seen a lot of movies, but quite a few of the items in this set were new to me; others were old favorites that have never been widely available before now, like Joseph Cornell's beautiful and goofy Rose Hobart. Sometimes the attempt to represent the enormous range of material preserved in American archives starts to feel a little strained, but the remarkable freshness of so many of these films--especially the more ephemeral shorts--overcomes any sense of historical tokenism. The accompanying book is far superior to the average DVD liner notes, providing scholarly and informative program notes by Scott Simmon along with background information on the preservation of each film & explanations of the musical accompaniment for the silent titles. Overall I found this set not only praiseworthy but highly entertaining--only the "about the archives" essays narrated by Laurence Fishburne are tinged with institutional dullness. Buy the set now--if it goes out of print (and I fear this is just the kind of "specialty" item that won't stay in print very long), you'll regret not owning it.

In my opinion, this is the single greatest group of items ever restored and made available to the American public. For years many companies, such as Kino, Milestone, and Zeitgeist, have been restoring and making some of the greatest features and shorts available to new generations of film viewers. This new collection spans the galaxy, covering all kinds of films which have been impossible to see on video - or in any other way. Hollywood has always been mined for its masterpieces, especially since cable tv exploded. Now, traveling the entire vast country, gems from little known collections such as the Minnesota Historical Society and West Virginia's Archives and History collection will be made available to millions of people who never knew they existed. As a film exhibitor, librarian, restorer, critic, etc. for almost 30 years, I would give this collection SIX STARS as the single greatest gift ever from America's film archives to its citizens.

This original set of films from the American Film Archives is interesting to students of cinema history and history in general, but it is not that entertaining in the ordinary sense. The first set I bought, "More Treasures from the American Film Archives" seemed to do a better job of mixing pure entertainment with films that had a social or historical significance than this one. That set included one or two silent feature films including an early Ernst Lubitsch, a Rin Tin Tin silent, and a very early gangster film, on each DVD along with the short subjects. That being said, this is a unique and interesting set of films that I found very worthwhile. However, if you are uncertain, start with the "More Treasures from the American Film Archives" set first. If you don't like that set I am almost sure you will not like this one. Nobody else bothered to list all of the films on this set and their descriptions, so I do that next:

ACADEMY FILM ARCHIVE, ACADEMY OF MOTION PICTURES ARTS AND SCIENCES:
1. Luis Martinetti, Contortionist (1894, 1 minute), kinetoscope of the Italian acrobat made by the Edison Co.
2. Caicedo, King of the Slack Wire (1894, 1 minute), the first film shot outdoors at the Edison Studios.
3. The Original Movie (1922, 8 minutes), silhouette animation satire on commercial filmmaking, by puppeteer Tony Sarg.
4. League Baseball (1946, 8 minutes), footage featuring Reece "Goose" Tatum, the Indianapolis Clowns, and the Kansas City Monarchs.

ALASKA FILM ARCHIVES, UNIVERSITY OF ALASKA AT FAIRBANKS
5. The Chechahcos (1924, 86 minutes), first feature shot entirely on location in Alaska. This is a melodrama set during the Alaska gold rush with some great scenery included.

ANTHOLOGY FILM ARCHIVES
6. Rose Hobart (1936, 19 minutes), artist Joseph Cornell's celebrated found-footage film that mainly takes footage from Hobart's film "East of Borneo", combines it with some other scenes, and winds up as a surreal short.
7. Composition 1 (Themis) (1940, 4 minutes), Dwinell Grant's stop-motion abstraction.
8. George Dumpson's Place (1965, 8 minutes), Ed Emshwiller's portrait of the scavenger artist and his home.

GEORGE EASTMAN HOUSE
9. The Thieving Hand (1908, 5 minutes), special-effects comedy.
10. The Confederate Ironclad (1912, 16 minutes), Civil War adventure with the heroine saving the day.
11. The Land Beyond the Sunset (1912, 14 minutes), social problem drama about a tattered newspaper boy who yearns for a better life.
12. Snow White (1916, 63 minutes), live-action feature of the Brothers Grimm tale starring Marguerite Clark.
13. The Fall of the House of Usher (1928, 13 minutes), avant-garde landmark created by James Sibley Watson, Jr., and Melville Webber from Poe's short story.

JAPANESE AMERICAN NATIONAL MUSEUM
14. From Japanese American Communities (1927-32, 7 minutes), home movies shot by Rev. Sensho Sasaki in Stockton, California, and Tacoma, Washington.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
15. Demolishing and Building Up Star Theatre (1901, 1 minute), the time-lapse demolition of a New York building, preserved from a paper print.
16. Move On (1903, 1 minute), Lower East Side street scene, preserved from a paper print.
17. Dog Factory (1904, 4 minutes), trick film about fickle pet owners, preserved from a paper print.
18. Princess Nicotine; or, The Smoke Fairy (1909, 5 minutes), special-effects fantasy of a tormented smoker, by the Vitagraph Company.
19. White Fawn's Devotion (1910, 11 minutes), probably directed by James Young Deer and the earliest surviving film by a Native American.

MINNESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIETY
20. Cologne: From the Diary of Ray and Esther (1939, 14 minutes), small town portrait by amateur filmmakers, Dr. and Mrs. Dowidat.

MUSEUM OF MODERN ART
21. Blacksmithing Scene (1893, 1 minute), first U.S. film shown publicly.
22. The Shoe Clerk (1903, 1 minute), comic sketch with celebrated early editing.
23. Interior New York Subway, 14th St. to 42nd St. (1905, 5 minutes), filmed by Biograph's Billy Bitzer shortly after the subway's opening.
24. Hell's Hinges (1916, 64 minutes), William S. Hart Western about a town that earns its own destruction.
25. The Lonedale Operator (1911, 17 minutes), D.W. Griffith's rescue drama, starring Blanche Sweet.
26. Three American Beauties (1906, 1 minute), with rare stencil color.

NATIONAL ARCHIVES AND RECORDS ADMINISTRATION
27. We Work Again (1937, 15 minutes), WPA documentary on African American re-employment, including excerpt from Orson Welles' stage play of "Voodoo Macbeth".
28. The Autobiography of a Jeep (1943, 10 minutes), the story of the soldier's all-purpose vehicle, as told by the jeep itself.
29. Private Snafu: Spies (1943, 4 minutes), wartime cartoon for U.S. servicemen, directed by Chuck Jones and written by Dr. Seuss.
30. The Battle of San Pietro (1945, 33 minutes), celebrated combat documentary directed by John Huston.
31. The Wall (1962, 10 minutes), USIA film on the Berlin Wall made for international audiences.

NATIONAL AIR AND SPACE MUSEUM
32. From The Keystone "Patrician" (1928, 6 minutes), promotional film for new passenger plane.
33. From The Zeppelin Hindenburg (1936, 7 minutes), movies by a vacationing American family made on board 1 year before its destruction.

NATIONAL CENTER FOR JEWISH FILM
34. From Tevye (1939, 17 minutes), American Yiddish-language film, directed by Maurice Schwartz, adapted from Sholem Aleichem's stories.

NATIONAL MUSEUM OF AMERICAN HISTORY
35. From Accuracy First (ca. 1928, 5 minutes), Western Union training film for women telegraph operators.
36. From Groucho Marx's Home Movies (ca. 1933, 2 minutes).

NATIONAL MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY
37. From Beautiful Japan (1918, 15 minutes), early travel-lecture feature by Benjamin Brodky.

NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY
38. From La Valse (1951, 6 minutes), pas de deax from George Balanchine's 1951 ballet, featuring Tanaquil Le Clercq and Nicholas Magallanes and filmed at the Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival.
39. Battery Film (1985, 9 minutes), experimental documentary of Manhattan, by animator Richard Protovin and photographer Franklin Backus.

NORTHEAST HISTORIC FILM
40. From Rural Life in Maine (ca. 1930, 12 minutes), footage filmed by Elizabeth Wright near her farm of Windy Ledge, in southwestern Maine.
41. From Early Amateur Sound Film (1936-37, 4 minutes), scenes of family life captured by sound-film hobbyist Archie Stewart.

PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE
42. Running Around San Francisco for an Education (ca. 1938, 2 minutes), early political ad, shown in San Francisco theaters, that helped win approval of local school bonds.
43. OffOn (1968, 9 minutes), Scott Bartlett's avant-garde film, the first to fully merge film and video.

UCLA FILM AND TELEVISION ARCHIVE
44. Her Crowning Glory (1911, 14 minutes), household comedy, with comic team John Bunny and Flora Finch, about an eight-year old who gets her way.
45. I'm Insured (1916, 3 minutes), cartoon by Harry Palmer.
46. The Toll of the Sea (1922, 54 minutes), Anna May Wong in an early two-strip Technicolor melodrama, written by Frances Marion.
47. The News Parade of 1934 (10 minutes), Hearst Metrotone newsreel summary of the year.
48. From Marian Anderson: The Lincoln Memorial Concert (1939, 8 minutes), excerpt from a concert film, reconstructed from newsreels, outtakes, and radio broadcast materials.

WEST VIRGINIA STATE ARCHIVES
49. From West Virginia, the State Beautiful (1929, 8 minutes), amateur travelogue along Route 60.
50. From One-Room Schoolhouses (ca. 1935, 1 min), amateur footage from rural Barbour County.

Just to correct the misimpression in Christoph Berner's review below: The "Treasures from American Film Archives" DVD set is NOT region encoded. That was just an Amazon error. It can be played in all "regions." (I'm the curator of the set, so pardon the "5 stars," which I'd award to the 18 collaborating archives.)

This is the first review I am writing for amazon because I want to praise a great collection. Yes, there are many "slice-of-life" clips, that once you watch them, you may ask yourself: "Why bother?"
There are many reasons. If you view films as merely an entertaining diversion at best, then this is not the set for you... If you want to see different styles of filmmaking through different periods of history with differing motives, equipment, and budgets, then get ready for a great ride. You are presented with amateurs, professionals, auteurs, and the casual filmmaker, but all of them took their craft seriously enough to warrant being included in this set.
"Rose Hobart" is amazing. "Fall of the House of Usher" is very innovative. "Hell's Hinges" is one of the most straightforward portrayals of redemption I have ever seen with the greatest pre-John Wayne Western actor/director: William S. Hart. "Battle of San Pietro" is an interesting look at John Huston looking at war while making a government film. The Groucho Marx home movie is fun. The films which show life in the early part of the century are priceless.
Laurence Fishburne's commentary on the archive houses is respectful and informative. A fine choice to document the hard work and dedication of these restoration organizations.
A Final Note, There is a film on this collection called "Battery" which is an experimental film melding line animation with photography, and it uses battery park and the world trade center as its backdrop. The music for the film is very compelling, and the shots of an empty battery park with the twin towers appearing obfuscated by trees gave me goosebumps in this post 9/11 world. A very compelling short film...

This collection of 50 preserved films spanning 75 years of film history aptly shows the value of film preservation, and enables fans of film to support preservation by purchasing this collection. There are four classes of film in this box: early commercial films by famous or obscure studios and film makers; amateur films, including sentimental glimpses of a region of the US (rural Minnesota, West Virginia, Maine), news reels or other documentaries, and avant-garde or experimental films. There's something for everyone who likes old movies, but it's only the most committed fanatic of the film medium who will find everything here of equal interest.

The most universally appealing in this box are films with stories that combine the potential to appeal to the modern viewer with a glimpse into the imagination of film pioneers who were defining conventions in technique that are standard today. In this category we include The Lonedale Operator, a Biograph gem from 1911 directed by D.W. Griffith, advanced for its time in editing, story-telling and character development; The Land Beyond the Sunset, an Edison one-reeler from 1912 that shows how far film directors had mastered the ability to squeeze the right amount of story into seven minutes; and Hell's Hinges, an entertaining 1916 Western feature starring W. S Hart in a role that presages the work of Gary Cooper in High Noon and Clint Eastwood in The Unforgiven. There are also historically interesting films like a newsreel "year in review" of 1934 (a tough year!) and a one-reeler called The Confederate Ironclad, which was, we learn. one of many movies made during the 50 year anniversary of the Civil War. Finally, there's The Toll of the Sea an early technicolor vehicle with a very powerful performance by 17 year old Anna May Wong, albeit in a rather crude reworking of the Madame Butterfly story.

Pretty much the remainder of this collection is of historical or cultural interest. There's a version of Snow White from 1916 that was alleged to have inspired Walt Disney as a youth; a remarkable, but short, home movie from 1933 of Groucho Marx and his family at home, a brief excerpt from Marian Anderson's historic 1939 Easter Sunday concert on the mall in DC, an amateur movie of the Negro Baseball League in action, and Joseph Cornell's 1936 surrealistic "re-mixing" of a B jungle movie into a faintly erotic fixation on its female star "Rose Hobart", a movie Salvador Dali allegedly flipped over.

I personally liked volume two of this collection ("More treasures") better than this one -- it focused more on important, forgotten commercial films and less on the amateur or the avant garde. But the highlights of volume one make it, and its companion, treasures to own indeed.

YES! According to their website. Go to:

http://www.filmpreservation.org/dvd/treasures.html

For me, right now this is the holy grail of OOP DVD box-sets. They never turn up used on this site, and the few auctions that go up on Ebay get up to ridiculous amounts of money (last one went for upwards of $200). I hope to God that this is true. I would love it if Amazon could confirm it and post the date on this page. Finally, it's back (and at a lower price, too!) and I for one am very excited. Let's hope that it goes through OK. Every other reviewer has already spoken for the content you get in this priceless set, all I can say is HALLELUJAH...

The features TOLL OF THE SEA with Anna May Wong and Kenneth Harlan and SNOW WHITE starring Marguerite Clark are worth the price of this set alone!! These two classics are worth repeated viewings. This set is loaded with short films from the era notably the avant-garde FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER which looks amazingly like what someone might make take today if they wanted to make an avant-garde silent film. A set you will go back to time and time again, definately a must for anyone with a serious interest in early film.

The "Nation Film Preservation" was founded back in 1997 and consists of 18 film archives from all around the US. This box set of 4 DVDs contains no less than 50 preserved films, most of them silent, but also rare documentaries, like a film about the "Hindenburg" (which let us take a peek into the airship's dining room and the cockpit, and we also learn that the "Hindenburg" needed 59 hrs. for an average flight from Frankfurt to New Jersey !).

There is a lot of of curious stuff like Groucho Marx's Home Movies (!) for example, or a very early version of "Snow White from 1916 complete with green (!!) dwarfes, or an awafully dated William S.Hart western called "Hell's Hinges" (which was co-directed by its star !).

But its not all like that. "Treasures" also contains some utterly important films, like Scott Bartlett's pioneering avantgarde film "OffOn", and a short documentary called "The Wall" (about the building of the Berlin wall), which was never before seen in the US, or Joseph Cornell's wonderful, but also very rarely shown "Rose Hobart" (the great, great grandfather of the video clip !).

This set comes along with a 150 page booklet, in which you can research all the informations you need about the preserved films (you can also switch to the DVD menue for a narrated presentation of each one of the film archives.). It contains also notes about film preservation itself, as well as information about the musical accompaniments. And there we have the only flaw of the entire set: the muscial accompaniments of the silent pictures !
They are consisting only of piano music, which is, by any means, not very varied and at times terribly boring.
But that's just really one little weak spot in an almost perfect and tremendous project.

"Treasures from American Film Archives" is a great collection of forgotten silver and recommended mainly to those who are interested in film history. So appreciate it, buy it and love it !