Moving Images
Subject
Subject Source: Local sources
Scope Note: To identify items in the Moving Image data set.
Found in 272 Collections and/or Records:
Australian fauna ; How to build an igloo
Collection
Identifier: Film Collection no. 40
Scope and Contents
SEGMENT 1: Australian Fauna. Armand Denis, noted wildlife photographer and filmmaker and leader of the 1952 New Guinea Expedition for the AMNH, and his wife, Michaela, discuss the origins of the Australian continent and the subsequent evolution of wildlife there. Also shown is an Armand Denis RKO film depicting the Australian bush country, with views of wallaroos, wallabies, and some unusual reptiles. SEGMENT 2: How to Build an Igloo. The second segment presents the film How to Build an...
Dates:
1953
Babes in the woods
Collection
Identifier: Film Collection no. 233
Scope and Contents
Filmed during the Pack-Finley Expedition to the Pacific Northwest, 1927. The film opens in William L. and Irene Finleys' camp, with an amusing scene showing chipmunks invading the Finleys' toiletry chest. A series of behavioral experiments with chipmunks follows. The series involves tying nuts to strings in various ways to test whether the chipmunks would be discouraged by the complex task of getting to the nuts. The chipmunks succeed in obtaining the nuts in every attempt. Following the...
Dates:
1927
Baganda music
Collection
Identifier: Film Collection no. 258
Scope and Contents
Filmed during the AMNH Queeny African Expedition, 1950. The music of the Baganda (i.e. Ganda) people is recorded in this film, shot in Uganda by Edgar Monsanto Queeny and sound-man Jack J. Clink. As the Baganda demonstrate a dance, the madinda (a form of the xylophone), the bosoga harp, the sanza (a hand piano), and various types of drums accompany them. Both the music and dance feature complex rhythmic patterns. The narrator discusses the historical importance of the madinda, the favorite...
Dates:
1950
Bali
Collection
Identifier: Film Collection no. 201
Scope and Contents
Filmed during the AMNH Lerner Australia-New Zealand Expedition, 1939. During a sidetrip to Bali, with Michael Lerner and his wife Helen, photographer James Barnes Shackelford made a film of the life and customs of the Balinese. The film opens with maps of Bali and the Lesser Sunda Islands and scenes of the Balinese engaged in everyday activities. Extensive footage is devoted to the growing and cultivation of rice on hillside terraces. The Balinese custom of imprinting ducks on humans is...
Dates:
1939
Bees
Collection
Identifier: Film Collection no. 111
Scope and Contents
Charles Collingwood examines the world of bees in this segment. Along with live bees brought into the studio, Collingwood walks the viewers through a beehive. Two films, one produced in Russia and one produced by Karl von Frisch after 40 years of research on bees, are shown. Frisch (1886-1982), an Austrian, was a leading authority on animal behavior. Bees are seen foraging for food and dancing to identify food locations. The social structure of the hive and the role of the queen bee are...
Dates:
1955
Bees (Russian film)
Collection
Identifier: Film Collection no. 54
Scope and Contents
This program presents a film produced in the Soviet Union as propaganda celebrating the "hive." Host Charles Collingwood first looks at the film without its soundtrack, as a natural history film, and then comments on its use as a propaganda film. Viewed from a historical perspective, the McCarthy era and Cold War mentality of Americans is evident and provides an interesting angle to the subject at hand. Soviet scientists produced a beautifully photographed film on the life of a bee in a...
Dates:
1954
Behavior of bees ; The legend of Colonel P.H. Fawcett
Collection
Identifier: Film Collection no. 29
Scope and Contents
SEGMENT 1: Behavior of Bees. Bees are examined in the first segment of this program. Theodore C. Schneirla, AMNH entomologist, discusses their behavior, including the dances bees perform which give food location information to other members of the hive. Dances of the Bees, by Wilner Film and Slides, is shown. SEGMENT 2: The Legend of Colonel P. H. Fawcett. The mysterious disappearance in 1925 of Colonel P. H. Fawcett is the next topic of discussion. Fawcett was searching for a lost city in...
Dates:
1953
Belgian Congo's Hamba tribe
Collection
Identifier: Film Collection no. 121
Scope and Contents
The noted anthropologist Luc de Heusch recorded various rites of the Hamba tribe of the Belgian Congo (now Zaire) for this program. Celebration of the Hamba, the English title of de Heusch's film, documents the ritual of the "leopardmen," the initiation of young men into the ranks of the warriors, some festivals, and the ceremony of a native divorce. Body painting, dancing, costumes, music, and feasts are depicted in detail. Harry Tschopik, curator of ethnology at the AMNH, was a consultant...
Dates:
1956
Beyond the vale of Kashmir
Collection
Identifier: Film Collection no. 217
Scope and Contents
Filmed during the Morden Expedition to Africa and Asia, 1922-1924. With panoramic vistas of the Himalayas in the background, Beyond the Vale of Kashmir begins as the expedition travels through western Tibet. Cinematographer Herford Tynes Cowling filmed portraits of Tibetan people and their activities such as making flour from grain stalks. The expedition goes to the village of Mulbik, where they visit a colossal sculpture of a four-armed god carved into a mountain wall. At Srinagar, on the...
Dates:
1922-1924
Big cats
Collection
Identifier: Film Collection no. 133
Scope and Contents
Big Cats is the title of this program broadcast live from the Bronx Zoo (i.e. New York Zoological Park). Richard Mandel, the mammal curator at the zoo, is the guest. The program shows viewers how tigers, jaguars and leopards live in captivity. Film footage showing the captures of these big cats augment the discussion. Mountain lions found in the U.S. are seen being captured with the help of dogs. Films provided by the Missouri Conservation Commission and Twentieth Century Fox include an...
Dates:
1956
American Museum of Natural History
Museum Archives at the Gottesman Research Library
200 Central Park West
New York, NY 10024-5192