ASN Roadshow II (2021)

The second edition of Archival Screening Night Roadshow (2021) made its national television premiere on Turner Classic Movies on December 3, 2021! The theatrical premiere on November 18 played in 28 cinemas around the world and bookings continue.

ASN Roadshow is 20 astonishing short films and videos in 103 minutes! Archival Screening Night has been the centerpiece of every AMIA conference since 1991. What makes ASN Roadshow special is that this members-only event is being made accessible to the public to see the incredible, strange, astonishing, hilarious, and curious treasures from the world’s moving image archives. This cinematic treasure chest features films from the United States, Mexico, Thailand, Hungary, and New Zealand, an appearance by Louis Jordan and the Tympany Five, a dancing Bobcat (it’s not what you expect), Baltimore Breakdancing including the Chocolate Boogie, an Oscar®-winning animator and esteemed film historian now revealed as a comic actor in legendary commercials from the 1960s, Jack Lemon’s first screening appearance as a helpless soldier, and much more! Many of the shorts will be presented by the archivists involved in saving and making accessible these audio-visual gems.

About the Films

Pathe News Invades General Electric Experimental Laboratory (1927)

Institution: Sherman Grinberg Film Library
Original Format: 35mm Cellulose Nitrate

A delightful silent film from 1927 H. C. White holds a baton that’s zapped by a Tesla Coil; he holds up an incandescent bulb that lights up; White and his assistants demonstrate various tricks with the ‘lightning bolts. All of the splices were repaired and then the footage was scanned on a 35mm Lasergraphics Director scanner.

Deyo, aka Gaiety Dance (American Mutoscope Co., 1897)

Institution: NYU Orphan Film Symposium
Original Format: 68mm film (to 68mm paper print roll, scanned by Cineric)

The very early Biograph film is an almost-never-before-seen recording of a woman dancing playfully in ruffled skirts and ballet shoes. Blanche Deyo (age 17) posed for the American Mutoscope Company’s 68mm camera in its New York rooftop studio. She smiles while performing a “gaiety dance,” mixing acrobatics, French cancan, Italian fouettés, and balletic turns en pointe. One of only two 68mm prints in the Library of Congress Paper Print Collection, when preserved in 16mm in 1963 this anomaly was misidentified as a 1907 production due to its copyright deposit date. Seeking employment in Europe, “Little Deyo” sent the “demo” recording to theater managers to view on table-top, flip-card mutoscope machines. Although her name is little known today, her face continues to be widely seen as the unidentified (til now) woman holding a rose in the beautifully colored 1906 Edison film THREE AMERICAN BEAUTIES. In 2019, Cineric scanned two 68mm paper rolls in 8K for LOC Paper Print Collection. (Preserved in 16mm, AMPAS, 1963.)

Impasse (1978)

Institution: Yale Film Study Center
Original Format:  16mm

Inspired by the work of Oskar Fischinger and made with millions of Avery labels, Frank and Caroline Mouris’s Impasse (1978) follows the journey of a tiny red arrow through spirals of white and cascades of color, accompanied by the music of Roland Miles. Preserved at Fotokem from the original A/B rolls (Academy Film Archive) and 16mm magnetic track (Yale Film Study Center), with audio restoration by Audio Mechanics.

Early Mexican TV and Commercials (1956, 1961, 1964)

Institution:  Laboratorio Experimental de Cine, Mexico
Original Format:  16mm

In 2019, Tania Espinal—an archivist and friend of the Laboratorio Experimental de Cine (LEC)—donated to our filmmaking collective a collection of ~500 rolls of 16 mm she rescued from a former distributor of French newsreels in Mexico. Among the collection’s non-newsreel material were 1930s-50s ex-pat home movies, formally-produced TV commercials from the 1960s, and several orphaned strips of kinescope. Dating primarily from 1956 broadcasts of the Mexican version of “This Is Your Life,” the labor material proved extremely rare as station identifications and programming announcements for Mexico’s second oldest television channel, XEW-TV.  Special thanks to the Smithsonian Scan Club.

[Variety Show at Peoria’s Palace Theater – circa 1934]

Institution: Chicago Film Archives
Original Format:  35mm nitrate film with optical sound

Excerpts from a 35mm film documenting a beguiling variety show at Peoria, Illinois’ Palace Theatre in 1934. Performers include tap dancers, singers, contortionists, and a charismatic youngster parodying Mae West. Donated by Charles E. Krosse in 2006, the film has been inspected and rehoused. It was scanned to 4K in 2020.

Once Too Often

Institution:  National Archives and Records Administration
Original Format: 35mm

In this training film made by the U.S. Army, a soldier on leave is careless with his safety and takes unnecessary risks, like swimming a]er eating and smoking in bed. Two heavenly observers decide his fate from above. Features Jack Lemmon in his first starring film role. Clips from a 25-minute film. New polyester duplicate negatives were made in 1999 and are preserved in cold storage at the National Archives and Records Administration.

Wendy Clarke’s Love Tapes (1980)

Institution: Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research
Original Format: Betamax

What does love mean to you? That is the driving question posed by video artist Wendy Clarke’s Love Tapes project. Begun in 1977, anyone could record a Love Tape. A]er watching someone else’s tape, choosing a song and a background, a person sat in a booth by themselves and talked about any aspect of love they wanted to for three minutes. A]er watching the tape, they could decide to either erase it or add it to Wendy’s collection. People of all ages and backgrounds from around the world recorded Love Tapes between 1977 and 1989. This Love Tape was recorded at the World Trade Center in New York City in April or May 1980. These tapes were digitized in 2019 through a grant from the Friends of the UW-Madison Libraries.

In the Life – Marlon Riggs Excerpt (1992)

Original Format:  Betacam
Institution:  UCLA Film & Television Archive/Outfest UCLA Legacy Project

The news and entertainment magazine series In the Life premiered in 1992 on New York public television station WNYC-T and aired nationally on PBS for 20 years as a trailblazer in LGBTQ+ representation and equal rights advocacy. The landmark series reported on milestones in the media, provided a voice to LGBTQ+ artists and activists, and contributed invaluable insight on political and social developments. In this excerpt of an interview taped for the series pilot, noted filmmaker, educator, and activist Marlon Riggs offers a powerful, and sadly, still extremely prescient, take on the state of America and resistance to the fight for equality.  This tape has been digitally preserved.

October 14, 1976

Institution: Film Archive, Thailand (Public Organization)
Original Format:  Super 8mm From Tavisak

The Thai Film Archive sees the importance of home movies and amateur films. One of the important treasures is the Tavisak Viryasiri Collection which includes more than 200 amateur films.  Tavisak Viryasiri loved photography from a very young age and he always made films as a hobby. He worked at the State Audit Office until his mid-40s, before he changed his career to shoot for foreign news agencies such as Reuters, Visnews, Fox, and Metrotone. When he went to shoot, he always had a few cameras with him: a 16 mm camera for the news agency and an 8 mm for his own pleasure. He worked as a cameraman until he was 75 years old. In his collection, there is a film called October 14,1973 where he documented the prequel of history. The students gather at the football field in Thammasat University. Then they marched out to Rachdamnern Boulevard to the Democracy Monument – right before the crackdown by military troops. He edited and narrated the film himself. Before it came to the film archive, this film was rarely shown except to circles of friends who made amateur films. This is a sidebar of history that captures events that were not included in the news. 2K scan.

Baltimore Breakdancing Competition

Institution:  Mid-Atlantic Regional Moving Image Archive (MARMIA)
Original Format: 3/4″ U-Matic

This dance competition is from a 1984 episode of WJZ-TV’s “City Line”, a public affairs television program created by, about, and for Baltimore City’s Black community. This competition is between The Rockets, who showcase their Breakdancing skills, and Chocolate Boogie, who showcase their Popping skills. MARMIA has 11 boxes of the “City Line” series in our WJZ-TV Collection. The bulk of this series are of masters, edited masters, and dubs of the show, ranging in date from approximately 1982- 1989. We are working in partnership with the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture to digitize this entire series, but this tape was recently requested by a user and was digitized in-house.

Bobcat A Go Go (1968)

Institution:  Minnesota Historical Society
Original Format:  35mm

In 1967, Bobcat’s advertising manager Fred Froeschle (pronounced Freshly) and filmmaker Bill Snyder produced a marketing film that combined the company’s equipment and the popularity of go-go dancing. The short film, ‘Bobcat A-Go-Go,’ was used at trade shows and dealer meetings. According to Dale Webb, retired regional sales manager for Bobcat, people would line up at tradeshows and ask to see the film again. This promotional film, made for the Bobcat Company by Flint Communications, demonstrates the versatility of the Bobcat loader. Clearly influenced by the period, the film juxtaposes the dance moves of a scantily-clad go-go dancer with stop-motion footage of a Bobcat loader.

John Canemaker: Commercial Reel

Institution:  Milestone Film & Video
Original Format: 16mm

Oscar-winning animator and NYU professor John Canemaker has led a secret life about to be revealed for the first time in public: as a comedic star of fabulous 1960s commercials including the Armour Hot Dog man! (Yes, nitrate is involved.) Warning: Cigarettes and Coconut Cream Pies may be harmful to your health! Additional note: It’s legendary actor Joel Grey singing the Armour hot dog theme song!  Scanned to 2K and color corrected by Metropolis Post, NYC

Toehold on a Harbour (1965)

Institution: Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga
Original Format:  35mm

In 1965 the National Film Unit (NFU) produced a film to showcase the city’s unique atmosphere and style to domestic and international audiences alike. The film ‘Toehold on a Harbour’ is an entertaining look at life in the 1960s, giving a colourful impression of Wellington city: hills, winding streets, busy people and strong winds.  In 2015, during the 150th anniversary of Wellington as the capital city, ‘Toehold on a Harbour’ was digitally restored through a collaboration between Archives New Zealand, Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision, Park Road Post Production, and the NZ International Film Festival. 35mm interpositive film was digitally scanned at 2K on an Arriscan, then digitally restored, colour graded and output to DCP.

[>>> TV in, TV out <<<] (1975)

Institution:  UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive
Original Format:  1/2″ Open Reel

The groundbreaking San Francisco Bay Area based video collective Top Value Television (TVTV) assembled to document and report on the 1972 Democratic and Republican National Conventions. This group of “braless, blue-jeaned video freaks,” as Newsweek called them, included mediamakers, artists, and activists who would revolutionize. Guided by underground sensibilities and armed with cutting-edge portable video technology, TVTV and a loose global network of “video guerillas” spearheaded community- based news, citizen journalism and democratized media movements that continue to be relevant today.  In the aftermath of Richard Nixon’s resignation, TVTV members Skip Blumberg and Andy Mann were dispatched to the US Capitol to capture the scene. In a lull between interviewing elected officials, Skip and Andy collaborate on an experiment with their Sony Portapaks cameras to dizzying effect. [>>> TV in, TV out <<<] was assembled by BAMPFA archive staff from outtakes shot during the production of Gerald Ford’s America (1975) to simulate a two-channel video presentation. 437 unedited camera-original videotapes from the TVTV collection at BAMPFA were digitized and preserved with funding from National Endowment for the Humanities.

avery r. young (excerpt) (1967)

Institution:  South Side Home Movie Project
Original Format:  8mm

Chicago composer/writer avery r. young performs an ekphrastic original score for home movie footage of Detroit’s historic 1967 riots, featuring scenes of local residents navigating smoke and fire hoses as they go about their daily business (excerpt). 8mm reel from SSHMP’s Sylvester Matthews Collection; filmed in 1967; donated in 2018, preserved and digitized in 2019; scored in 2020.

Incandescent Love (1939)

Institution:  National Film Institute – Film Archive, Hungary
Original Format: 35mm Gasparcolor nitrate print

A charming stop-motion commercial directed by the father of Hungarian animation, Gyula Macskássy, in 1939. The film was printed using the Gasparcolor process, a rare chromolytic procedure.  Original nitrate print scanned on a Scanity in 4K, restored, graded.

 [Untitled] (ca. Summer 1960)

Institution:  Tribesourcing Southwest Film Project
Original Format:  8mm, Kodachrome

A home movie depicting a Diné woman weaving with her children and exterior shots of a family of Monument Valley. What’s interesting about the interior footage is the lighting. Most shots inside a hogan, in tree shade, or inside a chaha’oh (shade house) are often dark and there is a lot of shadowing as the camera tries to focus, but these shots seem to depict a more “modern” home with floorboards and furniture in the background. What sets this film apart from other films in the Tribesourcing collection is this one is shot mostly likely by an amateur home movie maker. We see more interaction between the filmmaker and the films subjects, as shown by the children “goofing” around in the beginning and the family walking around outside the hogan without engaging in any kind of directed cultural activity.  This film was donated to the Tribesourcing Southwest Film Project by Stephen Dexter during a home movie day event in Tucson, Arizona. The filmmaker is unknown.

We Carry On (1943)

Institution: USC Hugh M. Hefner Moving Image Archive
Original Format: 16mm

We Carry On (1943) is a short snipe released by the Henry Street Seblement’s Visiting Nurse Service in New York City. The film was prepared to use for a fundraising drive tied to the organization’s 50th anniversary. This film is one of six nontheatrical films produced with the organization from the 1920- 40s.  This film is part of the larger Visiting Nurse Service of New York media collection. This collection was recovered from a storage facility in upstate New York contracted by the Visiting Nurse Service of New York. The collection was acquired by USC’s Hugh Hefney Archive in 2015. Eighteen short films and commercials, accompanied by research notes, have been digitized and are available to watch via the archive’s website.

Caldonia (1945)

Institution:  Library of Congress
Original Format:  35mm

“Caldonia” (originally titled “Caldonia Boogie”) became one of Louis Jordan and his Tympany Five’s most enduring hits. The song, with its lyrical catchphrase “Caldon-YAH! Caldon-YAH! What makes your big head so hard!?” set America on its ear in 1945. Astor Pictures’ “Caldonia” short film starring Jordan clocks in at under 20 minutes and helped solidify his crossover appeal. In 1946, “Billboard” magazine reported that the film was “one of the few all-negro productions to get bookings in white theaters.” Headlined “Here Comes Mr. Jordan,” an advertisement for the film proclaims Louie to be the “King of the Bobby Sock Brigade” and the “Global Favorite of 11,000,000 GI Joes,” while mentioning the film’s attributes: “Solid with Jive,” “Dancin’-Prancin’ Sepia Beauties” and “4 Big Song Hits.” It opens with Louie and the band performing the song in an upscale living room with a few showgirls, including one named Caldonia (Nicky O’Daniel), perched atop Bill Austin’s piano. Bassist Al Morgan executes the iconic looping bass line. Trumpeter Eddie Roane and Alex “Razz” Mitchell line out the group. As far as plot, a would-be film producer convinces Louis and the band to make films in Harlem rather than their scheduled Hollywood destination, but the lack of resources for the operation is a running joke. Louie in outsized bow tie, top hat and clashing long coat and striped pants became the film’s poster and an enduring image. In July 2008, the “Caldonia” film poster was featured on a United States Postal Service stamp recognizing US black cinema. Scanned to 2K from the Al Detlaf Collection.