Letters

Louisiana Story (1948) and Hearts and Minds (1974). Special credit for the success of the Filmathon belongs to its Director, Harris Elder, but planning and leadership of the American Studies workshop was the special contribution of Peter C. Rollins. His efforts to bring together people whose individual talents could add most to the group and his organization and stimulation of workshop discussions were critical elements in creating a valuable experience for all concerned. It will be to the great good fortune of the entire scholarly community in Cinema and American Studies if similar workshop experiences can grow out of this very productive example of what careful planning and limited financial resources can accomplish. Jay Boyer, Arizona State University Dear Editors: Two notes which might interest the readers of Film & History are: J_. Those who use The Plow That Broke the Plains and The River know that the prints available for purchase or rent are cheap but of terrible quality. I have found the score virtually unintelligible to the average student who assumes, incorrectly, that the film was a cheapo production and that even in 1936-37 neither film was worth a damn from a technical point of view. A brilliant recent recording of the soundtrack from both films can help alleviate the problem. Angel S-37300 has Neville Marriner and the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra playing Virgil Thomson's arrangements of the scores from both films. The sound is excel lent^ though of course, these are not literally a reading of either soundtrack—just ,the music. I am convinced that I can teach students to pay attention to the musical part of these films by asking them to first watch the film and then play excerpts from this recording and ask about what visual images appear to accompany the particular musical themes. It is arguable that Virgil Thomson is the most significant American composer to have worked in films to date which only increases my appreciation of this fine new recording. II. Until recently I never imagined that I would find myself looking more and more like a dyed-in-the-wool film buff. But by purchasing old movie posters, 11x14 sets, one sheets, and stills, I feel that I am at last coming out of the closet. The Movie Poster Service, P.O. Box 517, Canton, Oklahoma 73724, is a source for such material at extremely low 43 prices. They have no catalog but if you send a list of titles they will send you what they have and a price list which is most reasonable: For films after 1941 a. One Sheet is $4, a set of eight 11x14 cards is $10, a press kit is $1, and stills are $1.25 each. Prices for pre-1941 films are roughly 50 percent higher. David H. Culbert National Humanities Institute Dear Editors: I would like to share a few observations with the readers of Film & History. As little as ten to fifteen years ago, film researchers, students and scholars could safely write on the cinema either from firsthand research, reminiscences of film directors and personalities or applying popular (though not always proven) historical-sociological concepts to the world of film, its history and its resulting impact on the viewing public. The demand for the disciplined, historical approach was not particularly required at that point, nor did anyone really care that much, save a few visionary film historians. However, with the recent explosion of writing and analyses on film, the chronicling of the cinema has become not only an artistic exercise in criticism and aesthetics but an historical one as well, exemplified by Garth Jowett's Film: The Democratic Art and Robert Sklar's Movie-Made America. The time has come, accordingly, for historians (who have rapidly responded to the influence of film on both history and history's perception by the public at large) to lend their careful training and techniques to disciplined research on this aspect of contemporary life. Gone are the days when the "reminiscence" volume served as the definitive history or analysis either of a particular film or an era, simply because thatwasall that wasavailable. A number of archives have become acutely conscious of the need...