The festival begins with the earliest sound film, fifteen seconds of a man playing a violin into a sound-recording horn while two other men dance inside Edison's "Black Maria" studio way back in 1894. The movies that follow are too numerous to completely describe in the space of this review. What follows are just a few of the highlights.
The Wonderful Wizard Of Oz (1910) is the first surviving movie version of L. Frank Baum's fantasy adventure. There are no songs of course, but all the characters are there, and Toto, too!
The Breath Of A Nation (1919), a cartoon parody of Prohibition the year it went into effect that is also one of the first films directed by Gregory La Cava, later to receive Best Director nominations for My Man Godfrey (1936) and Stage Door (1937).
Children Who Labor (1912), an anti-child-labor movie made by the Edison Company that is as shocking and effective now as it was then and remains a powerful model for future political filmmaking.
Early Color Films includes a segment from the first color fictional film shot at Eastman Kodak's plant in 1916. Color photography has become so associated with the 1950's and later that it is somewhat unsettling to see color footage of a woman in a dress from the 1910's and realize it was not worn as a period costume.
The collection ends with a selection of trailers that are all that exist from famous lost films such as the first movie version of The Great Gatsby (1926), Louise Brooks' first film The American Venus (1926) and the Oscar-winning movie The Patriot (1928).
In addition there are two great features, the Rin-Tin-Tin adventure Clash Of The Wolves (1925) and director Ernst Lubitsch's remarkable silent version of Oscar Wilde's play Lady Windermere's Fan (1925) where Wilde's epigrams are replaced with elegant visual touches.
All of the selections come with extensive liner notes and most add commentary tracks as well. Prints are beautifully presented despite the age and deterioration that almost removed these films from our view and all the silents feature new musical scores. From early talkie recordings of George Bernard Shaw and Calvin Coolidge to Gus Visser and his Singing Duck, More Treasures from American Film Archives provides exactly what its title states, treasures that provide entertainment and astonishment. May many more dips through the archives follow this bounty.
For more information about More Treasures from American Film Archives, visit the National Film Preservation Foundation. To order More Treasures from American Film Archives, go to TCM Shopping.
by Brian Cady
