Film Collection
Subject
Subject Source: Local sources
Scope Note: Distinguishes audiovisual material in the Library that are part of the 1987 Cataloged Film Collection created under the direction of Nina Root.
Found in 118 Collections and/or Records:
The $2,000,000 J.P. Morgan gem collection ; Lampreys ; Antarctic animals
Collection
Identifier: Film Collection no. 32
Scope and Contents
SEGMENT 1: The $2,000,000 J. P. Morgan Gem Collection. Brian Mason, AMNH curator of physical geology and mineralogy, describes the museum's collection of gems, which consists of diamonds, rubies, sapphires and emeralds. Mason discusses how these gems were cut and polished, using films produced by DeBeers Consolidated Mines Ltd. and E. J. Mauther. The reasons why the stones are so valuable are also examined. SEGMENT 2: Lampreys. Lampreys and their detrimental effect on the fishing industry in...
Dates:
1953
Admiralty Islands
Collection
Identifier: Film Collection no. 63
Scope and Contents
Margaret Mead, AMNH anthropologist, discusses the sociological, economic, cultural, and political changes that have taken place on Manus in the Admiralty Islands in the twenty-five years between her first and second visits. Photographs and artifacts from the first trip are shown, along with a film taken in 1953 which includes newsreels of American troops landing on the island.
Dates:
1954
Adventure
Collection
Identifier: Film Collection no. 109
Scope and Contents
The topic of discussion for this broadcast is the concept of adventure. After a brief examination of the various meanings of the word, three feature films are shown to illustrate different types of adventure. Robert Cushman Murphy, AMNH ornithologist, joins host Charles Romine to narrate the program. The first film shows carnivorous plants indigenous to bogs and marshes, especially the Venus's fly trap and pitcher plant, devouring insects. This film was made by Dr. Harlow of the New York...
Dates:
1955
Afghanistan archaeology ; Chicken egg embryo
Collection
Identifier: Film Collection no. 34
Scope and Contents
SEGMENT 1: Afghanistan Archaeology. Walter Ashlin Fairservis, archaeologist at the AMNH, discusses archaeological findings in Afghanistan. While on an archaeological tour in Afghanistan, he and his wife, Jan, discovered considerable evidence of ancient civilization in this region. Films of Afghan desert life include a contemporary analysis of harems. Jan Fairservis is seen in the television studio discussing various pieces of a harem costume. SEGMENT 2: Chicken Egg Embryo. In this segment...
Dates:
1953
African safari
Collection
Identifier: Film Collection no. 100
Scope and Contents
Harold E. Anthony, chairman and curator of the museum's Department of Mammals, and Charles Collingwood, narrator, take television viewers on a safari to Africa in this broadcast. Anthony, a noted animal collector, stresses the importance of safari techniques that bring back live animals for scientific study. Dioramas in the Akeley Hall of African Mammals at the museum are presented during the discussion. Several film excerpts are shown, including the lion spearing episode from Simba, King of...
Dates:
1955
African villages and music
Collection
Identifier: Film Collection no. 140
Scope and Contents
This segment, hosted by Charles Collingwood, discusses the use of music in African villages, especially music samples of the Babembe (i.e. Bembe) found in the Middle Congo of French Equatorial Africa (now Congo). Typical Babemic instruments, such as an earth bow, two-man bow, mouth harp, drums, sanza, calabash, ocarina, ngonfi, and nasambi (a lute-like instrument) are shown in films produced by Jurgen Beach of Denmark and Herbert Pepper, chairman of the Musicology Department of the...
Dates:
1956
After hours at the Museum ; Domesticated animals ; Peter Freuchen
Collection
Identifier: Film Collection no. 71
Scope and Contents
SEGMENT 1: After Hours at the Museum. In a CBS film starring actress-artist Tuuklikki, the protagonist is a museum secretary who gets disoriented in the halls of the American Museum of Natural History after the museum closes. She is frightened by the masks and the animals, especially because it is dark. She finally gains her equilibrium and the film concludes with her finding her way out of the building. SEGMENT 2: Domesticated Animals. Peter Putnam, a blind history instructor at Princeton...
Dates:
1954
After hours at the Museum ; Red deer
Collection
Identifier: Film Collection no. 107
Scope and Contents
SEGMENT 1: After Hours at the Museum. The first segment is a previously shown short film entitled After Hours at the Museum. The previous showing was on May 16, 1954. SEGMENT 2: Red Deer. Lee Crandall, curator emeritus for the Department of Birds, New York Zoological Society, is the guest at a remote broadcast from the Bronx Zoo (i.e. New York Zoological Park). The subject of the program is the differences between the lives of red deer in captivity and in the wild. In the protected...
Dates:
1955
Age of dinosaurs
Collection
Identifier: Film Collection no. 141
Scope and Contents
Edwin Harris Colbert, paleontologist at the AMNH, joins narrator Charles Collingwood for this broadcast on the subject of dinosaurs. Dinosaurs that had ruled the world for 150 million years are examined through fossil skeletons and reconstructions of the reptiles from the Triassic and Jurassic periods as seen in the museum's Hall of Early Dinosaurs and Hall of Late Dinosaurs. Animal World, a film produced by Irwin Allen for Warner Brothers and the Mobil Oil Company, shows animated models of...
Dates:
1956
Alexander the Great
Collection
Identifier: Film Collection no. 132
Scope and Contents
The 1956 Hollywood production of Alexander the Great provides the impetus for this broadcast, which compares the historical accuracy of the movie with actual relics from the fourth century B.C., in the collections of the AMNH. Scenes from the movie are shown, in addition to film clips of the crew making costumes, actors being dressed and made up, the sets and the ruins created. Robert Rossen, producer, director and writer of Alexander the Great, joins Walter Ashlin Fairservis, AMNH...
Dates:
1956
American Museum of Natural History
Museum Archives at the Gottesman Research Library
200 Central Park West
New York, NY 10024-5192