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Some of the movies available recently were: Straw Dogs, Sacco and Vanzetti, Carnal Knowledge, Mv Darling Clementine. The Quiet Man, San Francisco, Key Largo, One Eyed Jacks, Angels With Dirty Faces, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, I am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang, Marjoe, Black Fury, Boys in the Band, Cotton Comes to Harlem, Confessions of a Nazi Spy. Busby Berkeley musicals. Also utilized were a number of documentary-type movies, many from the History of the Motion Picture Series: Film Firsts, Clown Princes. Story of Serials, plus Good-bye Billy, Will Rogers, The Legend of Valentino, Evolution of the Motion Picture, The Movies Learn to Talk, and The City. In addition, the University's Instructional Communication Center has in their library, The Great Train Robbery, Intolerance, Chaplin shorts, The Gold Rush, Hunchback ofNotre Dame, as well as several pertinent video-tapes (Hollywood, You Must Remember This [1940'sl and Hollywood, Those Were the Days [Benny Rubin interview]). A number of records were also useful in understanding motion pictures. The following have been employed: Play Me a Movie (silent movie music), voice tracks of such "stars" as Garbo, W. C. Fields, Laurel and Hardy, The Marx Brothers, and the movie "monsters" (i.e., Karloff, Lugosi), and the music of Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy, Shirley Temple, Disney characters, Marilyn Monroe, and Dick Powell. Lastly, records dealing in a general way with Hollywood can be not only entertaining but instructive, i.e., Stars of the Silver Screen, 1929-30, Golden Moments from the Silver Screen, Golden Age of Comedy, and Those Wonderful Guys (and Girls) of Stage, Screen, and Radio. There are two written assignments. The first is an analysis of at least five movies seen during the semester. The movies can be related to a particular theme. Selected topics submitted in the past include: "Rebel Hero Movies ofthe 1950's," "The Family Genre in Films," "Comedy FILM AND HISTORY NEWS ORGANIZATION OF AMERICAN HISTORIANS CONVENTION The annual meeting of the O.A.H. was held in Boston in April. The program included two sessions on film. The first was a showcase for the presentation ofa new senes of films on the American Revolution from the National Geographic Society entitled "Decade ofDecision." The films and the study guides prepared to accompany them were discussed by Anthony Penna, one ofthe historical consultants for the project, and Mathias von Brauchitsch, the filmmaker (both ofCarnegie-Mellon Univ.). It was explained that the films were intended to each present a human dilemma in the context of the Revolutionary experience. Two films that were shown, Not Worth a Continental and A Song of Molasses, concerned the dilemmas of a corporal faced with seizing the provisions and the cow of a widow and her three children in order to feed the starving troops at Valley Forge, and a ship captain who must decide whether to pay the molasses duty and thereby stay out of trouble with the authorities or to risk having his ship and 38 cargo confiscated-eventually he hides the cargo and scuttles the ship. The bulk of the papers and the later discussion concerned the problem ofproducing such historic dramatizations while remaining true to the historic documentation. In order to make the personal dilemmas come alive, something which all agreed was done very well, a healthy degree of dramatic license was necessary. With careful attention to historic detail, the filmmakers have created situations, which very easily might have happened in the 1 770's (note: the Song of Molasses incident is more fully documented than some others). There were several criticisms of this approach, a few questions on historical specifics, and some concern that the films might be used without the study guides which encourage critical analysis, but most of the audience agreed that if used as intended the films could be very effective in helping students to relate to the American Revolution on a personal level. The senes will be reviewed in Film & History. The second session was a lunch-time seminar entitled "The Film as Social Criticism," and featured Thomas Cripps ( Morgan State College), Russell Merritt (Univ. of Wis., Madison), Stuart Samuels (Univ. of Pa.) and Richard Pells (Univ. ofTexas, Austin...

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