Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with one of my favorite annual articles: The new announcements from the National Film Registry. Every year they pick feature films, short films, documentary film, important works of filmmaking and forever preserve them… I like to envision a nuclear bunker buried under the Lincoln Memorial with high tech cooling systems keeping these films from deteriorating in a dust free room. Imagine that… shelves upon shelves of film cans, duplicate copies from the original negative of these films, stored away and preserved so they can never be lost, forever a part of the Library of Congress.
This year’s picks are pretty great for cinephiles and fantasy/sci-fi lovers. Here’s a visual rundown of the features included in the 2008 preservation:
By the way, the creepy poster with the monocle guy is the best I could find for Erich Von Stroheim's 1922 film FOOLISH WIVES, about a guy who passes himself off as a Russian Count in order to seduce and rob rich socialites. Just in case you were wondering and couldn't read... what is that? Russian? Czech?
Anyway, it's great to see Claude Rains’ iconic turn in THE INVISIBLE MAN represented. He beats Lon Chaney as THE WOLF MAN is not yet a part of the Registry, however Frankenstein, Bride of Frankenstein, Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein and Dracula have all been included. I guess The Wolf Man and the Creature From The Black Lagoon can cry on each others’ shoulders.
And hooray for Cameron’s original TERMINATOR being included. These lists tend to overlook geek favorites in favor of “more important” films. It’s good to see films like TERMINATOR and THE SEVENTH VOYAGE OF SINBAD on a list that also includes noirs like THE KILLERS and THE ASPHALT JUNGLE and important cinema firsts like HALLELUJAH, which was King Vidor’s MGM musical with the first all black cast.
Also making the cut is a film called DISNEYLAND DREAMS, which is a home movie shot by a Connecticut family who won a contest (sponsored by Scotch Tape) to visit Disneyland in 1956 as well as a four-minute experimental short called FREE RADICALS from 1979 and two-reelers from Buster Keaton (ONE WEEK) and WC Fields (SO’S YOUR OLD MAN).
There are also a few documentaries, including 1910’s WHITE FAWN’S DEVOTION, the first documented film on Native Americans, Sundance Grand Jury Prize winner WATER AND POWER (1989), THE MARCH (documenting the Civil Rights marches of the early ‘60s), Lionel Rogosin’s ON THE BOWERY, NO LIES - a 16 minute black and white student film dealing with recovering from rape and rare color WW2 footage shot by George Stevens between 1943 and 1946.
