GHOST TOWN: THE STORY OF FORT LEE (Huff & Borgatta, US 1935)
Presented by Theodore Huff & Mark A. Borgatta.
16 mm, 446 ft /18 fps/ 17 min, George Eastman House.
Silent. English intertitles.
Grand piano: Donald Sosin.
Viewed at Cinema Ruffo, Sacile, Le Giornate del Cinema Muto (GCM): Fort Lee, 15 Oct 2004
Richard Koszarski (GCM): "Born in Englewood, New Jersey, in 1905, Theodore Huff grew up watching the making of movies in neighboring Fort Lee and become one of the first generation of American film historians. He dabbled in independent filmmaking as early as 1929 and was later involved (in one way or another) with the film programs of the Museum of Modern Art, the National Archives, and the Library of Congress. This was Huff’s only documentary, and was apparently influenced by a series of articles in the Bergen Record (reprinted in Fort Lee: The Film Town). Not content with glorifying a bygone age, Ghost Town reflects the social concerns of Huff’s previous film, Mr. Motorboat’s Last Stand: A Comedy of the Depression (1933). Huff seems to understand the rapid collapse of Fort Lee’s industrial base, where “brief prosperity” has been supplanted by “ruin and desolation”, as a metaphor for the larger national condition." – Richard Koszarski (GCM)
AA: Theodore Huff's Charles Chaplin (1951) was one of the first film books I read: it was published even in Finnish in 1959 with a postscript by Jörn Donner on Limelight and A King in New York. It was very moving to see this documentary by a nestor of American film historians, on a subject that is personal to him. Actual duration of the screening: 13 min.
Presented by Theodore Huff & Mark A. Borgatta.
16 mm, 446 ft /18 fps/ 17 min, George Eastman House.
Silent. English intertitles.
Grand piano: Donald Sosin.
Viewed at Cinema Ruffo, Sacile, Le Giornate del Cinema Muto (GCM): Fort Lee, 15 Oct 2004
Richard Koszarski (GCM): "Born in Englewood, New Jersey, in 1905, Theodore Huff grew up watching the making of movies in neighboring Fort Lee and become one of the first generation of American film historians. He dabbled in independent filmmaking as early as 1929 and was later involved (in one way or another) with the film programs of the Museum of Modern Art, the National Archives, and the Library of Congress. This was Huff’s only documentary, and was apparently influenced by a series of articles in the Bergen Record (reprinted in Fort Lee: The Film Town). Not content with glorifying a bygone age, Ghost Town reflects the social concerns of Huff’s previous film, Mr. Motorboat’s Last Stand: A Comedy of the Depression (1933). Huff seems to understand the rapid collapse of Fort Lee’s industrial base, where “brief prosperity” has been supplanted by “ruin and desolation”, as a metaphor for the larger national condition." – Richard Koszarski (GCM)
AA: Theodore Huff's Charles Chaplin (1951) was one of the first film books I read: it was published even in Finnish in 1959 with a postscript by Jörn Donner on Limelight and A King in New York. It was very moving to see this documentary by a nestor of American film historians, on a subject that is personal to him. Actual duration of the screening: 13 min.
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